Mel Robbins and Prince Harry: Spot the Spin

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's live chat. This week's topic: Spot the Spin. One of my favorites. Really, it's it's the whole it's the whole ball game right here. This is everything that I'm about. And if you're a member of our community, the vault. You already know that. That's our job here. We're not here to take down. We're here to break down, to break down the stories that we see, to break down the moves that we see. This week, instead of just breaking down one story, I thought we would do a bevy of them that came up. I have opinions about self-help gurus. I have very strong opinions about them, as a matter of fact. And when I saw this, I honestly have to do a pause with myself as someone who is a New England-based content creator of a certain age. Like, why do I have visceral feelings about Mel Robbins? Do I really have to ask myself, like, like, what is it, Molly? Is it, is it jealousy because you've been watching this woman forever? Is it that you feel like you're not measuring up to something? Like, what is it? But I, I, I know what it is. Now, Chris saying here, Molly, why don't you just let them? I don't have a beef so much with Mel Robbins, and I wanna get into the spin, but it's, it's that she represents a pack of self-help people who made a lot of money, a lot of money at a time when it was easy to make money. 12, 13, 14, 15 years ago, 2016, 10 years ago, the algorithm favored content creators who were into online marketing. You look at Tony Robbins. If, if Tony Robbins packages that he sold, like how to sell a course, if those worked, we would have a million Tony Robbins, but we don't. We still only have one Tony Robbins, but he made other people who, you know, looked up to him. And really it's this kind of group of people. So she represents a group of people who are part of that boom. If you will. Mel Robbins is not a self-help person. Mel Robbins is a marketer. That's what she is. And that's what she's great at, marketing. But I think what bothers me is that, is, is how much money she's making as a, as a guru, as a self-help expert. So just keep watching. We talk about it. So let's go into Mel Robbins first because we have this spin. I'm going to read, I'm going to go into the People magazine article. Jumping off with Carla's comment here. The rebranded MLM Blueprints. Oh, you caught my breath there for a moment, Carla, because that's it. As I said earlier, it's like, what is it when I— why do I get a visceral reaction? And that's what it is. Mel Robbins is positioning herself as your best friend. I'm getting ahead of myself. People Magazine is the ultimate spin outlet. That's— that is what it exists. It is press release. And publicists. That's, that's People magazine. This Mel Robbins article is publicity. Mel Robbins built a self-help empire after facing debt and depression. Quote, I'm proud of the person I've become. The bestselling Let Them Theory author and Golden Globe-nominated podcaster opens up to People about her journey to stardom in this week's cover story. So even the COVID right now, if you look at the framing there, I, I, let's just look at it from a straight PR point of view. This is not a knock by any means. The photographs are beautiful. They're absolutely beautiful. Mel looks great in these photographs. She does because she's not wearing the traditional black. It's one thing too, when you, when you adopt glasses and you adopt the one glasses. Now I'm saying this as someone who wears readers. I, I know the feeling because whenever I'm looking at a chat, I have to wear my readers. Unless I get surgery and I don't want to do that. She always has to go with the chunky black specs, no matter when she wants to soften it up. But I could have predicted too, if you were to ask me, okay, she's not going to wear her black in this, in the photo shoot, what is she going to wear? I would have 100% predicted. Is, I hope this isn't a slur. Is Angie in the group a Canadian tuxedo? That's probably a negative thing, isn't it? But we say it positively in this house. Because we wear denim on denim. So we, we say it with happiness. And since we, since we're so close to Canada as well, I could have predicted this outfit. It looks good though. Standing with the colors, fall in Vermont and Southern Vermont. The cozy sweater, the cozy sweater, cozy sweater. We're sitting down and we're friends. There is spin here because Mel Robbins, for as formidable now as she is, And as wealthy as she is, she has her podcast, she has a Let Them Theory book. She does need to spin. Mark my words, she needs to spin. Mel Robbins slaps a strip of blue painter's tape emblazoned with M-E-L in Sharpie onto her shirt as she breezes into the kitchen of her Vermont home on a brisk October morning. The New York Times bestselling self-help author and Golden Globe Nominated podcast host greets the People crew by earnestly shaking hands and dismissing the idea that she doesn't need a name tag. Sure I do, she says. I'm part of the team. Down to earth despite her skyrocketing stardom, Robbins, 58, doesn't take one single moment of the big life she's built for granted. Before she published the record-breaking, breaking book, The Let Them Theory in 2024 and found success as the host of the wildly popular Mel Robbins podcast. Robbins was $800,000 in debt while on the brink of divorce and drinking too much. Quote, I wake up every day and I'm profoundly grateful for making a decision to change myself for the better because that's what started it all, she tells People in this week's cover story. One decision changes your life. Quote, I'm proud of the person I've become, end quote. Quote, when she puts on the homemade name tag And People Magazine says, you don't need to do it. She says, quote, sure I do. I'm part of the team, end quote. The writer at People Magazine wrote, quote, down to earth despite her skyrocketing stardom. And quote from Mel, I wake up every day and I'm profoundly grateful for making a decision to change myself for the better because that's what started it all, end quote. Quote, Mel Robbins, quote, everybody will tell you I'm the exact same person that I was when I was in my 20s. 30s and 40s. I've just dealt with my stuff, end quote. Mel Robbins, quote, I kind of feel like that friend of yours that pulled herself together, that figured it out. She was kind of screwed up in her 20s and 30s, and she was not nice to her husband in her 40s. She really was irresponsible with money and changed jobs a bazillion times, but by God, she figured it out, end quote. I will add one more quote from the vault. this morning. That's our members-only chat, which I love to go into. We have full-on snark there. I'm just gonna admit it. People are free to share. I share off the record. Everyone shares off the record, and we love each other's snark. I pulled this from the vault this morning. Quote, I will never understand how people fall for her BS. She gets my hackles up just looking at her, end quote. The spin, the spin, the spin. First of all, why is Mel— why does Mel Robbins need to spin? She does. She She does. And what is the spin? And the spin is another way of saying, it's framing. Okay. And you've heard me talk about this before about moves. And moves are a strategic communication choice. But spin, it's like a move can be neutral, it can be positive, negative, but a move is strategic. But spin, that's a negative in my book. Spin is don't pay attention to what I'm doing, but I'm just going to tell you. That's why spin is quotes. That's why it's the written word. Typically it's quotes. All right. So ultimately it's not just about deconstructing celebrities, or as Carla's saying, the MLM blueprint. Yes. Marketers, people just making money under the guise of being self-help, even though they have no credentials. whatsoever to do that other than being marketers. There's spin here. There's spin. All right. So let's jump in now. So Mel Robbins, what is, what is the spin and why is she spinning? So let's look at some of the, uh, some of the words that we have here. This is one subject that gets me on my high horse. The rage gives me an unreal— okay, Carla, I am, I, I'm so with you as you can tell. I like, I'm getting heightened here, right? They're all in the same MLM blueprint, books, merch, live shows, podcasts, drinks, plans, blah, blah, blah. Multiple revenue streams built off of unqualified. Yes. That's why people call them grifters. That's why there is an undercurrent. It's not just Mel Robbins. It's a lot of these self-help people. Like, even if you get into like the, the medical space, the male medical space too, like those have been some of the bigger names out there. And whenever people in the public cry grift, you're going to hear them say, oh, it's just the haters. It's the haters. But people don't like being taken advantage of. That's what it comes down to. That's just a softer way of saying it. They don't like being taken advantage of. And that's, that's what, that's what this is. It's being taken advantage of. So 2 reasons. Let's talk about why she needs to frame. One, it's that grift piece. It is an undercurrent for Mel Robbins. It's an undercurrent, kind of like an undertow. It's never above the fold. You're not going to see it in a, in a People piece, puff piece. You are not going to see it in any profile about a Mel Robbins. You're just not. Now, you may see it in other profiles of big content creators. They like to kind of bring in the negative, kind of, they'll address the grift. I've seen that. I've seen that in my work. So it's interesting which, which media outlets call out the grift and which don't. I noticed with Mel Robbins, no one calls off the grift on her. Nobody does. Nobody does because they perceive her to have a lot of power because of her SiriusXM deal and because of the book and selling out shows. It's not gonna, it can't last. And it's not against Mel Robbins. It's like, I am in public sentiment day in and day out. And when I see an undertow like this, It's maybe not a full rip current, but it's an undertow. It doesn't last. We're entering the era of reasonable people. That's why I think it's, it's not going to last. So part of the framing here is because she was also accused of ripping off the Let Them theory from the author, from the author, it's this woman who wrote a post called Let Them. And you will see Cassie Phillips pop up online and just go check her out. She wrote the poem. Mel Robbins, one time in an Instagram post, mentioned seeing that, but then reframed it. And all of a sudden it became an anecdote about how her son, Oakley, was going to the prom, and Mel was— Mel, the mom, was upset because they wanted to go to get tacos and all these other things. And then her daughter said, Mom, just let them. That's an undercurrent. It's not going away. So Mel always needs to frame herself not as an expert. So that's what you're going to start noticing now more with Mel Robbins, because she cannot— she cannot stay at this level of these shows and books. She can't. There's no way. There's no— I believe in this culture. And I believe in intelligent people. Actually, when they need help, they go to people who can actually provide it to them. Okay? On the point, no media calling her out. I was most surprised that Kara Swisher hasn't called her out and that the bizarre episode on Pivot. Oh, Amanda! No, Amanda! That that was the most painful podcast I have listened to of late. I'm just Mel Robbins. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. That Pivot podcast, Amanda, is. The other reason why she needs to frame things, because the Pivot interview, and if you want to find it, it's with, it was just Kara Swisher because Scott Galloway was away. Kara Swisher interviewed Mel Robbins. All Mel Robbins did is talk about how horrible AI is, how horrible it is, how they can take her books. The irony, the irony of Mel Robbins ranting about AI swiping her IP. Oh, oh, but then all of a sudden Microsoft comes along, dangle, dangle, dangle, dangle, dangle, and all of a sudden Mel Robbins is very pro-AI. Okay, here's the spin. Here is the spin, everyone. Mel Robbins right now is trying to be— this is a word I'm going to rip from the Rachel Hollis days when she had Toiletgate and she was canceled. She's trying to be relatable. Okay. Mel Robbins wants to be relatable because relatability becomes a reason to trust. As simple as that. If, if she relates to you, then you'll trust her. She's not going to grift you. No, no, no. Because Mel Robbins is just like you, except she has $800,000. She was $800,000 in debt and now she's worth millions and she looks great in her Southern Vermont house. But relatability. And also, she's coming down to everyone's level. She's just like you. First, the name tag. An unusual detail, but People magazine had to put that in there. And she did the same thing, like Mel Robbins has kind of a Jennifer Hudson, when the guest comes in and they danced on the thing. I don't know who ripped from whom. I'm gonna assume that Jennifer Hudson came up with it first. But Mel's team, they all clap when people come on because they're all one. And they're all in together. Mel Robbins wearing a painter's tape with their name on it in her own home is, is all sorts of ridiculous. That is framing at its height. Damn, I missed an opportunity. I should have showed up with my name right here. She's just saying, look at me, we're just down to earth. Now here's the other thing that she's trying to do. She said the headline, I'm proud of the person I've become. She's become someone that she's proud of. But then a few lines later, Mel says, quote, I am the exact same person. Which one is it, Mel? The become is the transformation. Relatability sells the transformation. She's doing 2 things at once. Because people like you can figure this out and see it, That's why she rubs on people. That's why the hackles come out, because you can feel it. Even if you don't pull out that quote, that's my job to pull out BS quotes like that and to highlight the contradiction. But you may not be able to spot it, but you feel it. I guarantee you, you feel it. So, and she also says before, you know, that she screwed up. I was not nice to her husband. I had a bazillion jobs. Yeah. You know what the bazillion jobs were? She was hustling to try and make it. She was selling anything she could. To see what could click. The Vault Note is one of my favorites. The book about the high five, wrote an entire book about high fiving yourself in the mirror every morning. Greg will always get me to laugh in the morning if he says, if I go, oh, I'm tired. And he goes, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, time to change your life. Get out of $800,000 debt. Just go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So anyway, if you think Mel Robbins is trying to spin with you, that your job is to be like her, to be relatable like her, because then you too can look like that in Southern Vermont in your home with your dogs, which these photos are amazing. I mean, come on. The photos are amazing, but you can do that too, because she's being relatable, but you're not going to be able to do that because you guys did not become online marketers in 2016 when it was a whole lot easier to do it. And you all don't have your affiliates and all those other things. So you can't, so I'm sorry, wah wah, you're not going to be able to be like Mel Robbins. All right. All right. So she may be a completely sincere person. And I do think she has, there's a lot of truth when she speaks. Like you'll, you'll hear it in there. Like I'm sure she wakes up every morning and goes, not every morning, but she probably just thinks, holy shit, how did I do this? I'm not doubting that for a moment. How we can translate this into real world is for the love, don't get self-help from a book called The Let Them Theory. Because really, if we were to distill this. That's, that's the work. Just let everyone walk all over you. Hmm. I'm a crisis manager who says, if you let people do that, you will create a crisis. I promise you. But think about this in your life in terms of when someone tells you, oh, I was exactly where you are. Think about the people who you follow online who wanna sell you things. I was just like you, but then I did X. While they're trying to be relatable to you, that's a sale, folks. You're being sold. It's a transaction. So spot the transaction. Okay. It doesn't prove that anything is going to work. And all of these online marketing experts with all their money, uh, that they're showing you now, how much money they have, you guys paid for that. You guys paid for, if you bought the Let Them Theory and the High Five Habit and the whatever. nonsense book. Oh, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 book. You bought that Southern Vermont home. So if you like it, congratulations, you bought it. All right. So you're going to notice, I think, Mel being this more relatable person where she can, because also with the protein drinks too, people are calling her like, now you're, now you're protein. So I think that's why we're starting to see that. Okay. The next one I want to highlight is this one, and this was going to actually be the highlight. Of, of our, of our chat this week. How many of you are following Meghan and Harry in the UK? Late last week, I was on a trip. Greg and I were in Downeast Maine. It was so beautiful. People Magazine didn't follow us. We were looking, you know, it was very, very Mel Robbins-esque on our walk. Boy, was I being pushed Harry and Meghan. Wow. I was being pushed hard on Harry and Meghan. So we have Prince Harry, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. And back in the UK last week, they had their walkabout in Nottingham. Nottingham. And if you saw the video, they came out of the car, you heard the, the cheers, and then they, and then they walked, they walked the shorter walk and then went into their appearance. It was interesting because it was very, very royal, but you could see, at least what I noticed, there was 2 sides of the, of the algorithm here, of the framing. The royalists, you know, people who were just hounding them saying, you're no longer relevant, it's over. Highlighting, like so many posts I saw highlighting how few people were there. And then the framing of how successful and how popular Meghan and Harry are. All the shots from that day were close. So the background was faded out and you could see people there. It was kind of that blur, but you never saw how many people. You only saw the closeup. So that was, that was the narrative that I was following late last week. And I read, I read a lot because I thought, wow, we're going to get some serious spin in the next few days. And here we are at the beginning of the week. So the timing was perfect. Also, what happened right before the, the Nottingham walkabout is that Harry was In a— I still have mastermind in my brain. I have to let it go. Masterclass about grief. So he was supposedly, we don't know, but reports state that he was paid $100,000 to participate in this masterclass along with a professional, a credentialed doctor, to talk about grief and how to manage grief. Honestly, if you were in the camp where you felt that Harry and Meghan were the grift couple, And they're always struggling and, and will get money for anything. I, I could see it. I, I could 100% see it. But I could also see too where this makes sense for Harry, who's a non-working royal right now, wanting to talk about grief. There are 2 places where Harry and Meghan can reside from a brand point of view that makes sense. Many in the vault, we've talked about this a lot. Harry in mental health and grief makes sense. Anything he does around that fits. You know, you're in that sweet spot and the sweet spot could be, even if it's from a branding point of view, or you tell your kids, your 4 kids, you know, when you encourage them what to do for a living, it's when desire meets natural talent or meets natural experience, meets natural energy. And you find that spot, it makes sense. And that bleeds out into the sentiment, into the world. So, and it just works. That's why people just work. So when Harry talks about grief, we all can go back to him walking behind his mother's coffin through the streets. We can go back there. Many I could see say he used that masterclass off the back and off the memory of his mother, so it feels grifty. But if Harry stays in that space, it's okay. Like Meghan's sweet spot, like I've always said this, it should be fashion. It should be what she's really naturally good at. She's gorgeous and she dresses really, really well, but for whatever reason, she's trying to make other things work. So Prince Harry this week. Now let's get to this week. There was a GQ October 20th interview. I also will show you real quick here the People magazine article because naturally our headline here. So let me read the headline. I'm going to read People magazine first, and then I'm going to tell you what he also said in GQ. So Prince Harry says he wants to, quote, work out family rift. The most important thing is to reconcile, quote. For me, there's enough drama in the world and enough drama in people's lives than to continue with issues with the family, the Duke of Sussex said in a new interview. Prince Harry was asked about his relationship— relationships with Prince William and King Charles. It was filmed in late September during Harry's visit to New York City. During the chat, Barron brought up Harry's complicated relationship with his father and brother, asking, quote, is that something that you can grieve? Quote, yes, of course, Prince Harry answered, adding that family rifts are, quote, massively relatable issue for so many people. Note the wording, everyone. Quote, that continues to come up with me the whole time by people that I speak to. So I know how relatable it is. That's probably why there's so much fascination. And then people maybe look at us and go, how are you going to work it out? And then maybe how I see you're going to work it out, maybe that will help me work my stuff out. And some people don't want it to work out. I want it to work out. A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex clarified his comment about some people not wanting things to work out. Quote, was absolutely not intended as a swipe. At his brother or any other member of the family, the comment was made in a general context and was not directed at his family in any way. And then Prince Harry added during the interview, reiterating that he wants things to work out. Quote: With everything else that's going on in the world, the most important thing is to reconcile. That's the key point. When they launch, if you remember when they left in 2020, and oh, and if you watch that Netflix again, all the timing, you almost want to tell them. Go back. Something bad is coming. Made the wrong move. Everything was about branding. Do you remember their, their Sussex website? Oh, here is the spin. So the receipt here. So really this came from a GQ interview, but also with People magazine. Quote, while some people don't wanna work it out, I want to work it out. And the most important thing is to reconcile. I share what Carla said here in the chat. This was a bad rollout. Harry and Meghan have not had consistent support when it comes to their public relations. It has been erratic, and we cannot blame the team. I think if we were to believe some of the headlines here, some of the, some of the buzz around it, not necessarily easy to work with them. There could be some challenges there. They have not been able to nail the comps, and this was a messy rollout. When you are a prince, when you're Prince Harry and you have to clarify, you have to go back And clarify, oh, that's bad. That is bad PR. So that's why he said the most important thing is to reconcile. The spin is we want back in. That's the spin. It is. The other piece where I, I just said some of the words, relatable. Prince Harry is just like you and me. It's just like you and me. You sitting in your house in southern Vermont with your dogs and you sitting in the Cotswolds. They're just like us. They're just, they're just like us. Relatable. He's saying family rifts are a massively relatable issue for so many people. Yeah, it is. Family rifts are incredibly relatable, but most people, unless we've missed it, haven't written books about their family and put their families on full blast. Nola's point. Yes, toxic families are relatable. There is no doubt about that. But Harry and Meghan and Spare and the Netflix special, they went all in on they, on those 2 not being the problem in the family. Now, many of the things that they talked about could have absolutely been true. And I always, I always leave the opening for that of things that you have to deal with. You can imagine growing up in a royal family, challenging also for Meghan, racial issues that she had to deal with. Believe it 100%, especially revisiting it recently and watching it. She did, like straight out of Compton headlines absolutely happened. I mean, it did that. That was a headline Megan absolutely dealt with. But I think they believed a little bit more that those two would work, that people would love them more than they than they than they do. I think they thought by sitting down with Oprah and doing that interview that that it would work out for them. But just because you do an interview with Oprah doesn't mean it's going to work because after all, Oprah. Her books now, she's selling other people's expertise. She's coming out with a menopause book, I believe. She's not an expert at menopause other than going through it, but she's going to tap on borrowed authority on it. And I think Meghan and Harry wanted to borrow authority there and it just, it didn't work with them. So what does I— so I'm going to ask you guys, what does I want it to work out tell you about his position? And, and also adding quotes, some people don't make you think about everyone else. Like he's talking about trolls. He's talking about— You know, other people that they're dealing with. And, you know, is there a hope there? I mean, do you think the family will bring him in the fold? Will this work? Because this is spin. It is 100% spin. Harry is putting the repair out there. That's, that's the spin. Everything I think they are doing right now is to get back in the fold. Everything that we see is about getting back into the fold. And He wants there to be peace there. But the question is, will it happen? I don't know. I don't know. And on that note, I want to thank you all for joining me today for this edition of Spot the Spin. I think we need to come back and do this again. And we will. And in the chat, in the vault, as Carla mentioned, we have the vault. That's our, our member chat that we have there. It's open to members every day. People are dropping in their crazy stories. And, and giving comments on them. I will admit I'm a little more unfiltered in the vault. I'm a little more off the record there, and you will hear my opinions strongly as they come out. I want to let you know, for members as well, on October 29th at 10:00 AM Eastern time, it is our October Field Guide training. We talk about spin and news and current events and public sentiment. And all the stories that are trending online. But I do want to serve an audience of fellow communicators out there, fellow strategists, you know, people who do, who work in the PR space or in the comm space, really, who I can help because I need that part of the content to get out there. Even though everything we talk about from a trending story or above-the-fold point of view is pulled straight from the work. I mean, they're really all, they can all be applicable. To your work. But these are very specific. So it is for a very specific group. In January launches the professional tier. Right now, everyone in my paid group is getting the professional tier. So if you are in the membership right now, you're already getting access to the guides and you will for the end of the year. We'll have our monthly trainings. These trainings are very hyper-specific. Last week it was for healthcare content creators who are getting all this grief online and they're getting all like, how do you deal with it when people come after you or your colleagues come after you? I give you a field guide for that. So not only do you get the video, you actually get the guide. You get the words, you get what you need to say. This week's is going to be what to do when your boss is crazy. What to do when you work in comms and you have to work for an organization where you have to put out this kind of spin. This could be for someone working for the administration right now or any Republican campaign, it seems like. But what to do, I'm saying a little more anecdotally when your boss is crazy, but really what to do when your boss creates the crisis. I'm going to give you the live feed on that and then you will get the guide as well that you can use. And then the November training will be for school boards. Very specific. Very, very specific. All the field guides will stay up. You only need to join it once come January. Then you'll have access to all the guides and our monthly trainings. All right, everyone. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I love this community. I love the vault. I love sharing with you and I love your responses as well. It's not just me. It is all of us. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me this week. On the breakdown, we'll see you next week. Bye for now.