>> Hi, I'm Lewis Howes, New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur, and welcome to "The School of Greatness," where we interview the most influential minds and leaders in the world to inspire you to live your best life today.

In this episode, we sit down with Mel Robbins.

She's a motivational speaker and best-selling author who is regarded as one of the most respected experts on creating change and finding motivation in your life.

And today, she focuses on creating change in your relationships by reflecting on her 25-year marriage, the common mistakes that couples make in their relationships, the role that intimacy plays in relationships, how to better handle uncomfortable emotions, and how to navigate the different seasons everyone goes through in relationships.

I'm so glad you're here today, So let's dive in and let the class begin.

♪ ♪ What are three things that you would tell, you know, the Mel of 26 years ago before getting married to set yourself up?

If you could say three things that you wish you could've done -- not wish you'd have done differently, but if you could just coach yourself then... >> Mm.

>> ...and say, "You know what?

There's going to be amazing times, there's going to be challenges, but if you could work on these three things now..." >> Wow.

>> Knowing that there's going to be challenges and there's no perfect marriage or relationship... >> Oh, God, no, yes.

>> ...but what would be the three things to create more harmony moving forward?

>> Number one, if you can afford it... >> Yeah.

>> [ Laughs ] >> What, therapy?

>> ...get into therapy now as a couple.

And I'll come back to that, because the secret to a happy relationship is you being happy >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...and the person that you're with being a happy person.

That's, like -- like, somebody once said to me, "You want to know the secret to a happy marriage, Mel?"

I said, "What is it?"

He said, "Marry somebody who's happy."

>> So true.

Otherwise, you're always trying to coach someone to become happy.

>> Correct.

And so I feel like therapy's incredible because a lot of successful relationships -- and I would put Chris and I in this category.

A lot of successful relationships that go the distance, go the distance because you're good at the logistics.

You're good at the doing.

And if you are together for a long time, what's going to happen is you're going to go through multiple chapters together, and you're going to go through all different phases of growth together.

And if you have pets or you have children or you have a lot of family around, you're also going to have other individuals that are part of your relationship.

And if you go the distance, there's a lot going on, especially when you add kids, especially when you add pets, especially when you add two different careers, right, or your own personal growth.

And so Chris and I are extraordinary at, like, launching a business, building or renovating a house, like, figuring out the school calendar and when people and the logistics and getting the dog to the vet and making sure that this happens and all of that stuff that is an essential part of being together, the doing of life.

But what happens over time is that you find yourself sequestered from one another, emotionally, and -- >> Mm-hmm.

>> Kind of just going through the motions of life.

>> Yeah, and I wouldn't even call it roommates.

I think it's something deeper.

I think, in the beginning of your relationship, there's this, like, tunnel of intimacy where you're sharing everything and -- and, literally, like, going to the grocery store together is the hottest date on the planet, right?

>> Right, right.

>> 'Cause the energy, the vitality, the electricity, all that stuff is flying.

And then there's this next phase where getting to know somebody emotionally is intoxicating.

"What are they thinking, and what's their background, and what are all the things they're not talking about?"

and kind of getting in that level.

But then you start building a life and doing life and you no longer hit the pause button to truly find out, "What is this person thinking about?

What have they not said?"

That is what therapy has provided for Chris and I.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> The second thing was the happiness, working on your own happiness, because if you're not a happy person, the easiest person to attack is your intimate partner.

>> It's the person you "love the most."

>> Correct.

Like, think about when you're a kid.

You have to, like, look good for your friends.

You have to, like, stick it out at that job that you had as a teenager that you couldn't stand.

But when you come home, you snap at your mom, you might be rude to your dad, you ignore your brothers and sisters, you let it all hang out with them.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And we do that with our intimate partners.

One of the things that I also got wrong is, I didn't remind myself enough what a kind and caring person Chris is.

>> Mm.

>> I am guilty of also, like, attacking Chris when I've been really unhappy.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And, you know, we'll unpack a lot of this stuff 'cause, you know, Chris and I have been in, like, intense therapy for the last -- intense meaning it's been intensely awesome... >> Yeah.

>> ...but it's profound how much my coping mechanism with stress was the exact opposite of Chris'.

So when I feel stressed out or anxious, Lewis, I go into hyperdrive.

I like, go, go, go, go, go because I feel safer when I'm busy, okay?

My husband goes into the corner and thinks.

And so what happened over time for us is, the more I became successful, the more I did, the more I was solving problems and taking care of this and 15 steps ahead, the more it reinforced to Chris, "Well, she doesn't need me, and what -- if I were to make the dinner reservation, she's going to just probably have made a different one anyway."

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And, meanwhile, I'm over here in my emotional corner, going, "Why is nobody planning a birthday party for me?

Why am I the one that's always, like, doing everything?

When is somebody else going to come?"

And Chris is over here going, "I'm not needed."

And so we are now in this marriage where, if you don't do the deeper work, those patterns that make you miserable become even more solidified, and you become emotionally distant.

>> Why is it so hard for so many people to love and accept themselves?

>> Because when you were a child, love was transactional.

You were taught that, "If you're doing what I want, I love you."

>> Mm-hmm.

>> We all do it.

I did it to my kids, too.

You know, I didn't mean to.

You're like, we -- all parent -- we try to parent through connection, but we tend to correct our kids a lot.

And so you learn that as -- that if I'm not doing what you want me to do, then you don't like me right now, you don't love me.

And we learn that if we are getting into the right school or we're getting good grades or our team is doing well in sports or we are interested in medicine because Dad's interested in medicine that that's how you earn love.

>> You don't know what they're perceiving and how they take your conversation and what you said, what you didn't say.

>> Yep, yep, yep.

And they are learning by observing and absorbing, and so that means that there are going to be moments where they deeply need a hug and they need a quieter tone of voice, and you've just slammed your laptop shut and you've just yelled out something because of somebody being, like, a jerk to you at work, and your kid was standing behind you and needed something.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And so I think that that's why we don't actually know how to love ourselves.

And the other reason why is kind of biologically speaking, from zero to 18, you're not in charge.

>> Right, your body, the hormones -- >> Your freaking survival, dude, is based on your parents.

If you want to eat, if you want to -- like, you are hardwired to bond with them.

And so we are trained as kids, for better or for worse, that love is conditional, that if we please other people, we get more of it, if we perform and make other people happy, we get more of it.

And so we don't learn that it's unconditional, and we don't learn -- because that's not how people act.

>> How can someone start to learn how to love themselves if they never "felt like" they got it from their parents the way they needed it?

How can they learn when they've always been on high alert, stressed, anxious, separate from the love they've always wanted?

>> You have two nervous systems, sympathetic and parasympathetic.

I think about it like the wiring in your wall.

So Lewis has these lightbulbs behind us, right?

What's fueling that?

Electricity?

There's wiring in there.

If we were to flip the switch off, the wiring would still be there.

What's happening when you feel stressed out or you have unresolved trauma or you've just lived through a pandemic and you have not turned the light off, is that the light's on.

What we need to do as a society is find the switch and flip it off.

And so the way you do that is going into your body.

There's a bazillion different things that you can do.

You can do cold exposure, you can meditate, you can do breathing exercises, you can start doing the high five in the mirror as part of your morning routine.

You can give your heart a high five where you just place your hands right here in the center of your body and you tone what's called the vagus nerve, and the vagus nerve is the on/off switch.

>> Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

>> And so when you Google "vagus nerve" and do those exercises as part of your day-to-day life -- going outside for a walk for 10 minutes is another way to, like, literally get back into your body and to find the switch and turn the light off.

Because you've got to understand that when the lights are on, the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, you're stressed out.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> When the light is off, you've now accessed peace, you're in the moment, you don't feel that stressed out.

So body, body, body, body, body.

That's number one.

Number two, even if it was never modeled for you, you know what you want.

So get out a piece of paper and make a list of all the things that you wish somebody who loved you would do.

You know the difference between happy people and people who aren't happy?

>> Tell me.

>> Happy people tend to spend more time doing things that make them happy.

>> Right.

Activities that they enjoy.

>> Yeah.

And we so underestimate the little things you can do.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> 'Cause just a small uptick in your mood actually makes you feel a little better.

For me, if I'm having a bad day, I do one of two things.

I either buy myself flowers, and I'm not talking, like, a $100 arrangement.

I go to Trader Joe's.

>> 15, 20 bucks, yeah.

>> $2 for 10 daffodils.

I love Trader Joe's, right?

Flowers make me smile.

And then I have a bud vase right by the kitchen sink.

And I always put one of the flowers right there because it makes me happy.

I don't know why, but it just does.

For just a minute, I see something beautiful, and it always makes me feel slightly better.

And if you can feel slightly better today, you can feel slightly better tomorrow.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And these things start to build.

And over time, that little uptick starts to become a new default.

And so I think the same is true with love.

Love is a verb.

It's an action.

So what are the actions that you believe a loving person would take if somebody really loved you and it wasn't modeled for you?

And so when you start to make that list, there's your map.

Pick one thing a day.

I make my bed every morning, as an act of love.

I don't lay in bed and think about my problems, as an act of love.

I always have an amazing cup of coffee, as an act of love.

And, you know, oddly enough, if I'm up first, I make coffee for the person I love, Chris, and Chris does the same for me.

And so just because it wasn't modeled doesn't mean you can't create a map for yourself.

And so think about it.

What would you want somebody to do?

And then look around, and who seems to have that in their life and what are the behaviors that you're seeing?

>> Yeah.

>> And then the million-dollar thing you got to do -- do not wait to feel like doing it.

You have to take that action first because the action is what proves that you love yourself.

>> Mm.

>> What I have learned in the past two years that has been profound for me to be whole and to be able to truly stand in full power, right?

And what has been profound in my marriage is that, at the heart of all mental-health issues, for me, at the heart of all your interpersonal issues with anybody else is your own inability... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...to handle uncomfortable feelings.

>> That's it.

>> That's it.

And I have the just disgusting and awful toxic behavior of expelling my uncomfortable emotions at people... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...and my inability to tolerate stress or disappointment or frustration or expectations not being met or hurt feelings that creates this sort of disruption in my body and all of this stuff, it -- over the years, like, I would expel it at people, and I didn't know any better 'cause I didn't understand that healing actually doesn't start up here.

It actually starts in your body and your ability to not only tolerate emotions, but to regulate the way that you feel.

The thing that has changed everything for me, Lewis, is truly realizing that, you know, I -- the second I started to dig out all the uncomfortable feelings and I learned how to sit with it... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...I learned how to give myself the assurance and the love that maybe I didn't get as a kid, that I didn't experience in other relationships, that I wasn't experiencing in that moment.

Learning how to do that for myself, learning how to regulate my nervous system, how to tolerate the awful stuff that happens to all of us in life, that has been the biggest game changer in my relationship 'cause I don't get angry at Chris.

>> Do you think love alone is enough to keep a relationship or a marriage going?

>> Love alone is enough, yes, if you operate as if love is a verb.

So love is not a feeling, it's an action.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And it needs to be demonstrated, it needs to be communicated, and it's more than your felt experience.

What's interesting is I think you don't know what it feels like to be loved in the way that you need to be loved until it happens.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> There's a huge mismatch that happens for all of us, and I think a lot of us experience that mismatch with parents.

Your parents may be amazing people, but there's just this disconnect because maybe your dad loves football, but you like theater or your mom loves classical music, but you like alt rock and you feel like -- you know, or maybe your parents are sort of not that loving, not that, like, affectionate, not that complimentary.

They're more of a kind of tough-love generation.

And so, as a kid, you feel this mismatch, right, where you don't feel safe, you don't feel like you're getting the emotional support that you need.

There's this sense of being separate and this sense of yearning for attention and, like, the kind of emotional language and support that you need, but you're not getting it.

And that's certainly the case if you've had a childhood where a parent was absent or abandoned you or there's abuse or mental illness or there's chaos or whatever.

That is definitely a mismatch.

But in most cases there's a mismatch, period, and so you could have a parent that loves you with everything that they have, but they only have this cup worth of love to give, and you need the size of this table.

That's a mismatch.

>> Right.

>> That's a mismatch.

You might be somebody who needed your parents to praise you, and they weren't that type of person.

That's a mismatch.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And so that creates this experience of separation, it also creates this deep longing to be seen, and so you start chasing love and you start chasing people, right?

>> Yes.

>> And so I feel that a lot of us, because of our experience as a kid of not actually getting a complete secure, fully seen fully -- 'cause who on Earth could do that?

There are moments, dude, I'm a complete mismatch for my three kids.

>> Mm.

>> Complete mismatch.

>> 'Cause they need love in different ways.

>> Of course.

At different times.

>> Yes.

>> And so, in all of our love relationships, so many of us stay in relationships that are complete mismatches, and I think most relationships are... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...unless you're willing to do the deeper work.

>> Why do you think people stay in relationships that are not a good match?

>> Because it feels familiar.

Two reasons.

You're either subconsciously repeating a pattern from childhood.

This is my personal theory.

You're drawn most toward the parent that -- whose attention and affection you were chasing and approval you were chasing.

And so I think a lot of -- 'cause a lot of people are like, "Why would you stay in an abusive relationship?"

Well, because your first experience of love had abuse in it.

>> Right.

>> And so all the chemicals and neurons and I'm sure there's science around this, it just is a match for what you experienced.

It's sort of like -- >> What you're familiar with.

>> Yeah, why do you speak English, Lewis?

>> That's what I learned growing up.

>> Correct.

>> Yeah.

>> Same thing.

Same thing.

>> It's easy.

>> Yeah.

>> It's comfortable.

>> Well, not only that, your brain recognizes it, so your brain -- like, your body, the sensation of whatever love is supposed to be, is a match from experiences in childhood.

>> Yes.

>> And so the thing that I'm really trying to figure out in this next chapter of our marriage, 'cause I feel like, in many ways, we are in the beginning of a second marriage because we have done so much work on ourselves, and our kids are now grown-up and there's this opportunity, after 28 years, to really look at each other with fresh eyes, right?

>> That's beautiful.

>> It's so beautiful.

>> It's huge.

>> And so I -- instead of -- there's two things that I want to share that have really helped me.

One is, instead of focusing on the things that I don't like about Chris, right, and there are plenty of things he does not like about me that if he could wave a magic wand... >> [ Chuckles ] Sure.

>> ..."I would change this about my wife, Mel."

One of the things that I've done is to say, "Well, what is -- like, describe two moments where you just felt that, like, "Oh, my God.

This is my person."

And so there are two moments -- and this is a great exercise to do.

Like, just think, "What are those two moments that really encapsulate, like, just that flood of peace and love and safety and connection?"

And one of them for me with Chris is this.

We had just met, and we were meeting to go out to dinner after work in New York City.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And I was standing in front of that Flatiron Building on, you know, 23rd.

>> I love it.

>> And I looked up Fifth Ave. and I could see Chris coming and he was wearing a suit and he had a messenger bag slung over his shoulders, he had Ray-Bans on, and he was Rollerblading and weaving in and out of traffic 'cause he grew up as a ski racer, and he's, like, a big adventurer.

And he had this huge smile on his face, and it was like strength at play, right?

That was what I felt.

And then the second thing that came to mind is that, when we first got together, we almost -- like, a couple months after knowing each other, we went out to Utah, and there was a freak snowstorm that night.

And so, literally, it started snowing as we're cooking dinner, like, in June, dude.

>> [ Chuckles ] >> And so I'm thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?"

>> Mm-hmm.

>> So I go back to the tent and I'm rummaging around for a sweatshirt of some kind, and I notice my sleeping bag is warm.

And I flip the bag open, and Chris has filled up one of those Nalgene bottles with hot water he had boiled on a campfire and stuck it in there like a Hot Pocket.

>> That's pretty nice.

>> Right?

>> Very thoughtful.

>> Yes.

So I developed an "avatar" for the behavior in Chris that I love.

I call it my trip leader because when we're out hiking, when we're on an adventure, Chris is in charge, he is strength at play, he is a caretaker, he's 55 steps ahead of me.

I'm the yard sale in the back.

Like, that is when he shines.

And so it has been super helpful for me to remind myself that he's a trip leader because it makes me take a step back... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...and it allows him to take a step forward into his power.

So that's one thing that I've been working on.

And the second thing that I'm working on is, we've talked about the sort of mismatch and the mismatch being that you might speak different love languages, you might have different values or different lifestyles.

>> Extrovert, introvert, yeah.

>> Extrovert, introvert, all that kind of stuff.

If you are going to work to close that gap somehow without changing one another, realize that your marriage doesn't have to be everything, and it shouldn't be.

And so, for a while, I started to get nervous because Chris is very introverted.

I mean, we live in southern Vermont on the side of a mountain now.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And I started to realize, "I'm actually sad here all the time."

Like, a part of me needs the spaciousness, but I have to be around people.

>> Me, too.

>> I have to have the buzz.

>> I need to be able to walk somewhere, yeah, and grab coffee and see people, yeah.

>> Yes, I need to go do something.

Not every day.

And so I started to realize, "Well, wait a minute.

I don't have to turn Chris into, like, the party guy.

I can have my friends be that.

I can have work be that."

Like, I can fill that in different areas instead of being frustrated that this one person isn't filling everything.

And so really recognizing, I think, what somebody's capacity is, allowing them to step forward in certain roles, but allowing them to be themselves and step back in others and not punishing them for it... >> 100%.

>> ...that is something that I've been -- Chris is better at it than I am.

Like, he's way more forgiving, he's way kinder, he's more patient... >> Sure.

>> ...and it's just incredible.

And so, you know, the thing is, is that the wrong relationship magnifies your insecurity and your emotional dysregulation and the right relationship, with a lot of work, helps you heal.

>> That's beautiful.

Mel, appreciate you.

>> I love you.

>> I love you, too.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable.

Make sure to stay tuned for more from "The School of Greatness" coming soon on public television.

Again, I'm Lewis Howes, and if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

If you'd like to continue on the journey of greatness with me, please check out my website.

lewishowes.com, where you'll find over 1,000 episodes of "The School of Greatness" show as well as tools and resources to support you in living your best life.

>> The online course "Find Your Greatness" is available for $19.

Drawn from the lessons Lewis House shares in "The School of Greatness," this interactive course will guide you through a step-by-step process to discover your strengths, connect to your passion and purpose, and help create your own blueprint for greatness.

To order, go to lewishowes.com/tv.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪