Unlock the POWER to Overcome Stress | Mel Robbins’ Life-Changing Advice

It was the people with the tightest social connections that had the ability to weather the storms that life throw at us.

And it seems so cold and calculated and callous, but I totally get it.

Every time your awareness goes into the future or into the past in an uncontrolled way, bring it back to the present again.

Rise and shine, it's Enspresso time! What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. I believe in you, and this channel is designed to be a part of your daily success routine. So let's start your day off right together. Together, grab your coffee, and sip on today's message: see your friends more. Over to you, Mel Robbins. Also, if you want to know what Mel Robbins and other successful entrepreneurs have to say about building unstoppable confidence, check out my 254 Confidence Series, where every day for the next 254 days, I will send you a morning video for free to help you build your confidence. The link to join is in the description below.

Everybody's problem comes down to one pattern you're repeating that you can't see. When you set goals, when you have an intention on something that you want to change about your life, your brain helps you. And if you're somebody that's watching this and you have no clue what you want, I'm gonna say that's total bullshit. It turns out that one of the best stress relievers on the planet is something that most of us don't ever do, and that is seek out time with friends when we feel totally stressed out. When you're doing twice as much work as you normally do, or you're feeling twice as much stress as you normally feel, studies at Harvard show that what you need is you need to see your friends twice as much. Now, Shawn Achor is a really famous researcher and best-selling author at Harvard, and he studied this phenomenon. He looked at at people that were stressed at schools and in call centers and in the military and in banks and in almost every single industry, what he discovered is that the most successful people, the people that were the best at selling, the people that were the most resilient, the people that had the best ability to deal with stress when times got tough were the ones that saw their friends the most. It was the people with the tightest social connections that had the ability to weather the storms that life throw at us. I want you to write down 3 people, 3 people that when you hang out with them, you feel energized, that when you have plans with them, you're excited about seeing them. When this video ends, reach out to them. That's right, pick up the phone, send them a text. I want you to invite them to do something. Go out to lunch, go for a walk in the woods, get a cup of coffee, go out to dinner. Even if you're not stressed out, I guarantee you at least one of the 3 people that you're gonna reach out to needs you.

So this approach does not work for me. It does not work for me. I have very few friends and I have a very low need to be around people and to have friends. I have a very low need for friendship. And I used to think that I was a really weird duck, and I know I am a weird duck. I used to think I was the only one. I thought that, you know, am I the only one? Am I that crazy? And then we made a video on Shah Rukh Khan, who's the king of Bollywood, and he said something that really struck me that not many people picked up on in his top 10 video that we made, but it really hit me hard. Where he said that he connects with people through the work. So he's this famous actor and he's off doing all these acting movies and when he's on set and when he's working with his cast and his cohorts, he's their friends and he loves them and he's engaged with them and he wants them to win and he deeply, deeply, deeply cares about them. But once the video is done, once they're finished shooting, he doesn't want to hang out with them. They invite him to his parties, their parties and events and activities, like he doesn't want anything to do with it. He's like, I love you. I love you, but I don't want to hang out with you anymore. And it seems so cold and calculated and callous, but I totally get it. He connects with people through the work. I connect with people through the work. That's how I get my connection. I think everybody needs connection, but I get it through the work. I don't like hanging out with people. I don't want to call 3 people and ask how they're doing. I hate that stuff. I want to help. Like, I want every moment we spend to be meaningful and impactful and important, and I end up having super deep connections with, with people. Look at the people that I met on this tour, the things that they've told me they haven't told some people, they haven't told anybody in their life except me. And so it forms this massive trust, a massive connection, and that's amazing. But I don't want to be their friend, and I don't want to hang out. I don't want to go skiing together. I don't want to go watch the Super Bowl or anything else. I connect with people through the work. And so you might be the weird crazy duck like me. I'm just giving an alternate perspective. I think what Mel is saying is mostly right. I think that's actually for most people that's the way to do it. I think of Nina, absolutely. But for me, that does not work. That causes me more stress. The idea of having to call 3 friends and organize a time to meet with them is causing me more stress. When I get stressed out, here's the things that come to mind. So an alternative solution if you're a weird duck like me. One, if you're stressed out in the macro, like if you're stressed out coming home every day, super stressed out, you need to fix your life. Like there's something wrong in your life that A talk with friends may help get rid of the headache a little bit, like it's a little bit of an aspirin, but it doesn't solve the problem. Go solve the problem. Like, go figure out what is causing this massive stress and find a way to fix it. And then two, if it's something that is just in the moment, it's not some major thing, but you're stressed out because your website went down or a customer's upset or something that you have to deal with in the moment, then solve it. Like, I need to solve it. If I'm stressed out and Nina sees that I'm stressed out because I'm trying to fix a problem, I don't want to talk to her about it. I don't want to talk to anybody about it. I want to go and fix the problem. And once I fix the problem, the stress is gone. And just talking about the problem and how much it's impacting me serves me zero. It just gets me more frustrated because I want to go off and solve the problem. And so I'm a weird duck. Maybe you're a weird duck too. I just want to give an alternate perspective, and I'd love to know from you. So I've got a special bonus clip that I'm going to play that I think you're going to really enjoy, but Question of the day for you: Do you want to hang out more with your friends? Do you need that more in your life? And what action are you going to take? Otherwise, are you like me, a weird duck, and you don't have a high need for friends? And if so, then how do you deal with stress? I'd love to hear from you. Let me know in the comments below.

When I was growing up, I had met my guru when I was about 21, and I was going to join his monastic order, which was in Hawaii. I was at that time living in Western Australia and studying in university, and I remember in my last year of engineering I was feeling extremely stressed. I had a thesis which I'd been working on for a year and a half that I needed to complete. In the next month I had about 7 or 8 examinations that I had to pass in order to graduate as an engineer. I was the president of the youth group of our temple over there, the local temple over there, and we were organizing a lot of different different events, and I was also dancing as part of a dance company that I was involved in, and they were also putting up a big show, so we were rehearsing almost every night. And I remember emailing my guru saying, Gurudev, I'm really stressed. I have all these things going on, and I'm stressed. He emailed me back, and I don't remember the exact words that he used, but he emailed me back and said, The reason you're stressed is because you don't keep your awareness on one thing at a time. And I'll be absolutely honest with you, ever since that day I've never felt stressed anymore. And I know it's a very bold proclamation to make, but it's true. Because I clearly understood what he said to me at that point. Whenever I was dancing, I was thinking about my thesis. And when I was working on my thesis, I was thinking about the exams I had to do. And when I was working on my exams, When I was studying for my exams, I was thinking about the youth group. And wherever I was, I was thinking about something else. Anxiety comes because we allow awareness to drift away from the present moment and go into the future or into the past in an uncontrolled way. So the past and the future are not bad things as long as we indulge in them or we enter them with the aim to learn from them. But we don't— we just allow awareness to travel into the past, into the future all the time. It creates anxiety. And we do that because we're afraid. Anxiety comes out of a sense of fear where we allow awareness to go into the future. We create a situation that hasn't happened. We bring it back into the present and start living it as if it has already happened. You keep repeating the process over and over and over again. You build anxiety. I'm gonna get sick. I'm gonna get sick. You think in the future, what if I get sick? Then what happens? Oh my god, I'm gonna get sick. And then you bring back to present and you start living that. 5 minutes later, you let your awareness go into the future and you think to yourself, I'm not gonna get better, I'm gonna get sick. And then you bring awareness back into the present again and you start worrying about it. You keep repeating this process over and over again. And you build anxiety. So the way to overcome stress and anxiety is to really control where your awareness goes. Every time your awareness goes into the future or into the past in an uncontrolled way, bring it back to the present again and just do this exercise. Be mindful of this throughout the entire day. Don't let your awareness go into the past or into the future in an uncontrolled way.

And if you want more Mel Robbins, check out the How to Make 2019 Your Best Year Ever video we did with her. The link is right there next to me. I think you'll enjoy it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

I believe that passion is another word for energy. That's it.