full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mel Robbins: How to stop screwing yourself over


Unscramble the Blue Letters


bgiger welcome! Hello, San Francisco! TEDx – oh my God, blinding light! Hi, everybody! How are you? (Audience cheering) Fine?! Oh my gosh! Okay, so... My name is Mel rbbions, and for the last seventeen years, I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want. Within reason! My husband's here. So, I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in, if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any manes necessary. For the last three years – I host a stincdeayd radio show. Five days a week, I go live in forty cities and I talk to men and wemon across America who feel stuck. Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lvies right now? That is a hundred mliioln people! That's insane! And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing, which is also insane, it's clelad "In-laws". I move in with families across America – (Laughter) You guessed it! – who are at war with their in-laws. We move them into the same house, I verbally assassinate everybody, we open up Pandora's box, and I get people to stop arguing about the donuts and who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner, and talk about the real stuff. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I'm here for you. I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than eighteen minutes about how to get what you want. So I want you to take a msoicnellid right now and think about what you want. You! And I want you to be selfish. Screw Simon and the "We" thing. This is about me, right now! (Laughter) (Applause) Sorry, smoin. What do you want? And here's the deal. I don't want it to sound good to other people. Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill. Losing your manboobs, so you can hook up with somebody, now that's miitaoovtn. (lgtehaur) So, I want to know: What do you want? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income? Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to find love? What is it? Get it, right here. You know what it is, don't analyze it to death, just pick something. That's part of the problem. You won't pick. So, we're going to be talking about how you get what you want. And frankly, getting what you want is simple. But notice I didn't say it was easy. It's very spimle. In fact, if you think about it, we live in the most amazing moment in time. So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be, you want to use hhaltey eating to cure your deibteas, you want to figure out how to take care of the eledrs and start a new hospice center, you want to move to afcria and build a school... geuss what? You can walk into a book store – right now! – and buy at least ten books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it. You could ggoloe it. And you could probably find at least, I don't know - a tunhoasd blogs dinuneotcmg the step, by step, by step transformation that somebody else is already doing. You can find anybody online and cyber-stalk them! (Laughter) You can just walk in their footsteps – just use the science of drafting. Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody is already doing it! So why don't you have what you want, when you have all the information that you need, you have the contacts that you need, there are probably free tolos olinne that allow you to start a bieussns, or join a group, or do whatever the heck you want!? It all comes down to one word: F*©#. Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about? The f-bomb. It's everywhere! You hear it all the time! I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word. I mean, you don't sunod smart when you say it. And it's really not expressing how you really feel. It's sort of a cheap shot to take. And of course you know I'm talking about the word "fine". "How you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine." Oh, really? You are? Dragging around those extra ftory pounds, you're fine? Feeling like roaotmmes with your spouse, and you're fine? You haven't had sex in four months, you're fine? Really?! I don't think so! But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine: It's actually genius. Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it. But when you think about this word "fine", it just makes me so arngy. Here we are at a conference about being alive and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as "fine"?! What a fsmliy and febele word! If you're crappy, say you're crappy! If you're amazing say you're amazing! Tell the truth! And this not only goes for the social construct: "Oh, I don't want to burden you with the fact that I hate my life", or: "Hey, I'm amazing! But that would make you feel terrible." The bigger issue – The bigger isuse with "fine" is that you say it to yourself. That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it. That's why you're not pushing yourself. It's the areas in your life where you've given up. Where you've said, "Oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change, so I just can't have that conversation." "I'm fine. We've got to wait until the kids gduarate, before we get divorced, so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms." "I'm fine. I lost my job, I can barely pay my bllis, but whatever – It's hard to get a job." One of the reasons why this word also just anynos me so much is, scsinitets have cctallaeud – Oh yeah, I'm coming down! (Laughter) Scientists have calculated the odds of you being born. That's right. They've crunched the nmeurbs. I see you up there. They've crunched the numbers on you – Yeah, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this. They've crunched the numbers on you being born. And they took into account all of the wars, and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs, and everything else. And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you, yeah, right here, put your cpmtuoer away, stand up for me, Doug! (Laughter) So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody – the odds of Doug being born at the moment in time he was born, to the parents you were born to, with the DNA structure that you have, one in four hundred trillion! Isn't that amazing? Doug: I'm so lucky! Mel: Yes! You're not fine, you're fantastic! You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. (Applause) Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage. Because all of you – we're all in this caoregty. One in four hundred trillion. All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel, and what do you do with them? Nothing! (Grunts) Hopefully I won't moon you. (Laughter) You didn't pay for that. (Laughter) And I want you to just think for a minute, because we all have – I love to use the analogy "the inner snzooe button" – you have these amazing ideas that bubble up. You've been watching people all day and I guarantee you, like ping pong balls – bam-bam-bam and everytime you have an idea, what do you do? – Hit the snooze! What's the first decision you made this morning? I bet it was to go back to bed. "Yeah, first decision today, I'm one in four hundred trillion, I'm going to go back to seelp." And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It's cosy, it's warm! If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you, or in my case, I've got my husband and my two kids and possibly the dog. And the reason why I'm bringing up this first desiicon that you made today, and the inner snooze alarm, is because in any area of your life that you want to change, any – there's one fact that you need to know. This one: You are never going to feel like it. Ever. No one's coming, motivation isn't happening, you're never going to feel like it. Scientists call it aatviction energy. That's what they call the force reqeurid to get you to change from what you're doing on autopilot to do something new. So try this test tomorrow. You think you're so fancy, I know, you're attending TED. (Laughter) Try this. Tomorrow morning, set your arlam for thirty minutes earlier. And then when it goes off, take those steehs, throw them off, and stand up and strat your day. No snooze, no delay, no, "I'll just wait here for five seconds because Mel's not standing here" – Do it. And the rsaeon why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face with the physical, and I mean pihcaysl force that's required to change your behavior. Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet? Of course not! You think they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas instead of a croissant? I don't think so! The activation egnrey required to get your ass away from your computer and out the fnort door, to go on the walk, you said that you were going to go on, is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of a warm bed and into a cold room. What's interesting about being an adult is that when you become etegeihn, nobody tlles you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself. And by "parent yourself", I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, so you can be everything that you're supposed to be. And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you're never going to! My son never feels like getting off his DS. That's my job! Get off the damn DS! Kendall, clean up the Barbies! If you're going to have a nude party in my bathroom, at least clean it up! (Laughter) God, chew with your mouth closed! We're not a barn, for crying out loud! Alright, dinner is coming, get out of the ptanry. As parents, and you were a kid, your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing. Because you won't. Ever. Not now, not then, not ever! And even when you get good at something, you'll figure out something else you don't want to do. And then you'll plateau out, get breod, "I hate this job. Blah blah boring." But will you look for a new one? No! You'll just bitch about that one. It's very, very simple to get what you want. But it's not easy. You have to force yourself. And I mean force. And the reason why I use the word "force" – when Roz was up here and talking about the emotion tirackng, and she had the picture of two sides of the brain – I look at the brain the exact same way. Only I describe one side of your brain as autopilot and the other side as emergency brake. That's the only two speeds you get: autopilot, emergency brake. And guess which one your brain likes better: auipolott. You've had the eencpixree where you've driven to work and you get there and you're like, "Oh my God, I don't remember ever driving here." (Laughter) You weren't drunk! That was your brain on autopilot. It was functioning just at this level. And the problem with your mind is that aytmine you do anything that's different from your normal routine, guess what your brain does — emergency brake! And it has that reaction for everything. Everything! You walk into the kicehtn and see everybody's left their bsaerkfat dishes for you. And you think for the hddnreuth time, "I'm going to kill them. In fact I'm gonna leave it here and I'm going to make them do it." But that's not your normal routine, is it? So your mind goes: emergency brake! And you go right into autopilot. "I'll just load it, and be pissed, and then not have sex. That's what I'm going to do." (Laughter) (apslupae) So, when I say "force", anything that's a beark from your routine is going to require force. And if you think about your life, it's kind of funny because we are kids and then we become adtlus, and we spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of sbalte routine, and then we grow bored of it! You wake up at the same time every day, you have largely the same breakfast, you dvrie to work the same way, show up at work, look busy, avoid mainkg calls, update Facebook, you attend a meeting and doodle the whole time, go back and update Facebook, make plans for the enneivg, you look busy some more, then drive home the same way, you eat lraelgy the same dinner or a variety of it, you watch the same kind of media, and then you go to bed, and do the same thing all over again! No wonder you're bored out of your mind! It's the rtionue that's klnliig you. I have this theory about why people get stuck in life. So, most of you've probably taken your baisc pycsh 101 class, and you've bumped into Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs"? Well, your body is kdnia cool. Because you have these basic needs. And your body is wierd to send you signals. If you need food, what do you feel? If you need water, what do you feel? If you need sex, what do you feel? (Laughter) Thank you. I think when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it's a sniagl. And it's not a signal that your life is beorkn. It's a signal that one of your most basic needs are not being met. Your need for exploration. Everything about your life, about your body, grows! Your cells regenerate, your hair, your nails, everything grows for your entire life. And your soul needs exploration and growth. And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. finrcog yourself to get outside, out of your head. Thank you. If you're in your head, you're behind enemy lines. That is not God talking, okay? It's not! In fact, if I put a speekar on it and we broadcast what you say to yourself, we would iniituzsotltinae you. (Laughter) You would not hang out with ppeloe that talk to you the way you talk to yourself. So get out of your head! Your feelings! Your fineegls are screwing you! I don't care how you feel! I care about what you want! And if you listen to how you feel, when it comes to what you want – you will not get it. Because you will never feel like it. And you need to get outside your comfort zone. It's not about taking rksis, it's about getting outside your comfort zone. Those first three seconds when you push yourself out of bed, they blow. But once you're up, it's great. Those first three seconds when you're sitting here in a stadium like this and somebody says, "Get up and come dance," and you think, "Oh, I should do that," and then you're like, "Uhmm." That experience that you had when you had the impulse to do it and then you didn't do the activation energy required to force yourself, your ecmgenrey brake got pulled – "I'm sitting right here. I'm not going up with those crazy people, I don't like to dance..." What henepapd for me is I came up, and I bumped into Rachel, and then we started tkilnag, and next thing you know, she's tweeting. And we're friends. And – boom! Get outside. That's where the mgiac is. That's where the one in four hundred trillion exists. So everything I do – oh, OK, this is the last part. Sorry. So one more thing that you can use, I call it the five-second-rule. Your mind can pocerss a facial expression in 33 milliseconds. It can move pretty damn qiuck. The other thing that it does very quickly is if you have one of those little impulses that are pulnlig you, if you don't marry it with an action within five seconds, you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Kill it! If you have the impulse to get up and come dcnae while the band is pnlyaig, if you don't stand up in five seconds, you're going to pull the emergency brkae. If you have an impulse about, you were inspired by somebody's speech toady, and you don't do something within five seconds – wtrie a note, send yourself a text – anything physical to marry it with the idea, you will pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Your problem isn't iedas. Your porlebm is you don't act on them. You kill them. It's not my fulat. It's not anybody's fault. You're doing it to yourself. Stop it! I'm counting on you. One in four hundred trillion. You got stuff to do! And it's not going to happen in your head. So I want you to ptraccie this today. When we go off to ptary, thank God it's cinmog soon, because I think we all could use a cocktail, I want you to practice the five-second-rule. You see somebody and you think you have an iusplme, they look interesting? Walk over there! You were inspired by somebody and you have a request? Make it! That's why you're here! erexpenmit with it, and I think you'll be skheocd about what happens. And one more thing, I want you to know that everything that I do, whether it's the radio show, or the television show, or the book that I wrote, or the column, it's for you. And if there is anything that I can do, if I can do anything to make you do the things you don't want to do, so you can have what you want, I will do it. But you need to walk over, you need to open your mouth, and you need to make the reeusqt. You got it? Good. Go do it. (Applause) Thank you! Thank you, yes! Stand up! You have the impulse, stand up! Thank you!

Open Cloze


______ welcome! Hello, San Francisco! TEDx – oh my God, blinding light! Hi, everybody! How are you? (Audience cheering) Fine?! Oh my gosh! Okay, so... My name is Mel _______, and for the last seventeen years, I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want. Within reason! My husband's here. So, I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in, if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any _____ necessary. For the last three years – I host a __________ radio show. Five days a week, I go live in forty cities and I talk to men and _____ across America who feel stuck. Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their _____ right now? That is a hundred _______ people! That's insane! And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing, which is also insane, it's ______ "In-laws". I move in with families across America – (Laughter) You guessed it! – who are at war with their in-laws. We move them into the same house, I verbally assassinate everybody, we open up Pandora's box, and I get people to stop arguing about the donuts and who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner, and talk about the real stuff. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I'm here for you. I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than eighteen minutes about how to get what you want. So I want you to take a ___________ right now and think about what you want. You! And I want you to be selfish. Screw Simon and the "We" thing. This is about me, right now! (Laughter) (Applause) Sorry, _____. What do you want? And here's the deal. I don't want it to sound good to other people. Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill. Losing your manboobs, so you can hook up with somebody, now that's __________. (________) So, I want to know: What do you want? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income? Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to find love? What is it? Get it, right here. You know what it is, don't analyze it to death, just pick something. That's part of the problem. You won't pick. So, we're going to be talking about how you get what you want. And frankly, getting what you want is simple. But notice I didn't say it was easy. It's very ______. In fact, if you think about it, we live in the most amazing moment in time. So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be, you want to use _______ eating to cure your ________, you want to figure out how to take care of the ______ and start a new hospice center, you want to move to ______ and build a school... _____ what? You can walk into a book store – right now! – and buy at least ten books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it. You could ______ it. And you could probably find at least, I don't know - a ________ blogs ___________ the step, by step, by step transformation that somebody else is already doing. You can find anybody online and cyber-stalk them! (Laughter) You can just walk in their footsteps – just use the science of drafting. Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody is already doing it! So why don't you have what you want, when you have all the information that you need, you have the contacts that you need, there are probably free _____ ______ that allow you to start a ________, or join a group, or do whatever the heck you want!? It all comes down to one word: F*©#. Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about? The f-bomb. It's everywhere! You hear it all the time! I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word. I mean, you don't _____ smart when you say it. And it's really not expressing how you really feel. It's sort of a cheap shot to take. And of course you know I'm talking about the word "fine". "How you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine." Oh, really? You are? Dragging around those extra _____ pounds, you're fine? Feeling like _________ with your spouse, and you're fine? You haven't had sex in four months, you're fine? Really?! I don't think so! But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine: It's actually genius. Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it. But when you think about this word "fine", it just makes me so _____. Here we are at a conference about being alive and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as "fine"?! What a ______ and ______ word! If you're crappy, say you're crappy! If you're amazing say you're amazing! Tell the truth! And this not only goes for the social construct: "Oh, I don't want to burden you with the fact that I hate my life", or: "Hey, I'm amazing! But that would make you feel terrible." The bigger issue – The bigger _____ with "fine" is that you say it to yourself. That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it. That's why you're not pushing yourself. It's the areas in your life where you've given up. Where you've said, "Oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change, so I just can't have that conversation." "I'm fine. We've got to wait until the kids ________, before we get divorced, so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms." "I'm fine. I lost my job, I can barely pay my _____, but whatever – It's hard to get a job." One of the reasons why this word also just ______ me so much is, __________ have __________ – Oh yeah, I'm coming down! (Laughter) Scientists have calculated the odds of you being born. That's right. They've crunched the _______. I see you up there. They've crunched the numbers on you – Yeah, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this. They've crunched the numbers on you being born. And they took into account all of the wars, and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs, and everything else. And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you, yeah, right here, put your ________ away, stand up for me, Doug! (Laughter) So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody – the odds of Doug being born at the moment in time he was born, to the parents you were born to, with the DNA structure that you have, one in four hundred trillion! Isn't that amazing? Doug: I'm so lucky! Mel: Yes! You're not fine, you're fantastic! You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. (Applause) Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage. Because all of you – we're all in this ________. One in four hundred trillion. All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel, and what do you do with them? Nothing! (Grunts) Hopefully I won't moon you. (Laughter) You didn't pay for that. (Laughter) And I want you to just think for a minute, because we all have – I love to use the analogy "the inner ______ button" – you have these amazing ideas that bubble up. You've been watching people all day and I guarantee you, like ping pong balls – bam-bam-bam and everytime you have an idea, what do you do? – Hit the snooze! What's the first decision you made this morning? I bet it was to go back to bed. "Yeah, first decision today, I'm one in four hundred trillion, I'm going to go back to _____." And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It's cosy, it's warm! If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you, or in my case, I've got my husband and my two kids and possibly the dog. And the reason why I'm bringing up this first ________ that you made today, and the inner snooze alarm, is because in any area of your life that you want to change, any – there's one fact that you need to know. This one: You are never going to feel like it. Ever. No one's coming, motivation isn't happening, you're never going to feel like it. Scientists call it __________ energy. That's what they call the force ________ to get you to change from what you're doing on autopilot to do something new. So try this test tomorrow. You think you're so fancy, I know, you're attending TED. (Laughter) Try this. Tomorrow morning, set your _____ for thirty minutes earlier. And then when it goes off, take those ______, throw them off, and stand up and _____ your day. No snooze, no delay, no, "I'll just wait here for five seconds because Mel's not standing here" – Do it. And the ______ why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face with the physical, and I mean ________ force that's required to change your behavior. Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet? Of course not! You think they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas instead of a croissant? I don't think so! The activation ______ required to get your ass away from your computer and out the _____ door, to go on the walk, you said that you were going to go on, is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of a warm bed and into a cold room. What's interesting about being an adult is that when you become ________, nobody _____ you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself. And by "parent yourself", I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, so you can be everything that you're supposed to be. And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you're never going to! My son never feels like getting off his DS. That's my job! Get off the damn DS! Kendall, clean up the Barbies! If you're going to have a nude party in my bathroom, at least clean it up! (Laughter) God, chew with your mouth closed! We're not a barn, for crying out loud! Alright, dinner is coming, get out of the ______. As parents, and you were a kid, your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing. Because you won't. Ever. Not now, not then, not ever! And even when you get good at something, you'll figure out something else you don't want to do. And then you'll plateau out, get _____, "I hate this job. Blah blah boring." But will you look for a new one? No! You'll just bitch about that one. It's very, very simple to get what you want. But it's not easy. You have to force yourself. And I mean force. And the reason why I use the word "force" – when Roz was up here and talking about the emotion ________, and she had the picture of two sides of the brain – I look at the brain the exact same way. Only I describe one side of your brain as autopilot and the other side as emergency brake. That's the only two speeds you get: autopilot, emergency brake. And guess which one your brain likes better: _________. You've had the __________ where you've driven to work and you get there and you're like, "Oh my God, I don't remember ever driving here." (Laughter) You weren't drunk! That was your brain on autopilot. It was functioning just at this level. And the problem with your mind is that _______ you do anything that's different from your normal routine, guess what your brain does — emergency brake! And it has that reaction for everything. Everything! You walk into the _______ and see everybody's left their _________ dishes for you. And you think for the _________ time, "I'm going to kill them. In fact I'm gonna leave it here and I'm going to make them do it." But that's not your normal routine, is it? So your mind goes: emergency brake! And you go right into autopilot. "I'll just load it, and be pissed, and then not have sex. That's what I'm going to do." (Laughter) (________) So, when I say "force", anything that's a _____ from your routine is going to require force. And if you think about your life, it's kind of funny because we are kids and then we become ______, and we spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of ______ routine, and then we grow bored of it! You wake up at the same time every day, you have largely the same breakfast, you _____ to work the same way, show up at work, look busy, avoid ______ calls, update Facebook, you attend a meeting and doodle the whole time, go back and update Facebook, make plans for the _______, you look busy some more, then drive home the same way, you eat _______ the same dinner or a variety of it, you watch the same kind of media, and then you go to bed, and do the same thing all over again! No wonder you're bored out of your mind! It's the _______ that's _______ you. I have this theory about why people get stuck in life. So, most of you've probably taken your _____ _____ 101 class, and you've bumped into Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs"? Well, your body is _____ cool. Because you have these basic needs. And your body is _____ to send you signals. If you need food, what do you feel? If you need water, what do you feel? If you need sex, what do you feel? (Laughter) Thank you. I think when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it's a ______. And it's not a signal that your life is ______. It's a signal that one of your most basic needs are not being met. Your need for exploration. Everything about your life, about your body, grows! Your cells regenerate, your hair, your nails, everything grows for your entire life. And your soul needs exploration and growth. And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. _______ yourself to get outside, out of your head. Thank you. If you're in your head, you're behind enemy lines. That is not God talking, okay? It's not! In fact, if I put a _______ on it and we broadcast what you say to yourself, we would ________________ you. (Laughter) You would not hang out with ______ that talk to you the way you talk to yourself. So get out of your head! Your feelings! Your ________ are screwing you! I don't care how you feel! I care about what you want! And if you listen to how you feel, when it comes to what you want – you will not get it. Because you will never feel like it. And you need to get outside your comfort zone. It's not about taking _____, it's about getting outside your comfort zone. Those first three seconds when you push yourself out of bed, they blow. But once you're up, it's great. Those first three seconds when you're sitting here in a stadium like this and somebody says, "Get up and come dance," and you think, "Oh, I should do that," and then you're like, "Uhmm." That experience that you had when you had the impulse to do it and then you didn't do the activation energy required to force yourself, your _________ brake got pulled – "I'm sitting right here. I'm not going up with those crazy people, I don't like to dance..." What ________ for me is I came up, and I bumped into Rachel, and then we started _______, and next thing you know, she's tweeting. And we're friends. And – boom! Get outside. That's where the _____ is. That's where the one in four hundred trillion exists. So everything I do – oh, OK, this is the last part. Sorry. So one more thing that you can use, I call it the five-second-rule. Your mind can _______ a facial expression in 33 milliseconds. It can move pretty damn _____. The other thing that it does very quickly is if you have one of those little impulses that are _______ you, if you don't marry it with an action within five seconds, you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Kill it! If you have the impulse to get up and come _____ while the band is _______, if you don't stand up in five seconds, you're going to pull the emergency _____. If you have an impulse about, you were inspired by somebody's speech _____, and you don't do something within five seconds – _____ a note, send yourself a text – anything physical to marry it with the idea, you will pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Your problem isn't _____. Your _______ is you don't act on them. You kill them. It's not my _____. It's not anybody's fault. You're doing it to yourself. Stop it! I'm counting on you. One in four hundred trillion. You got stuff to do! And it's not going to happen in your head. So I want you to ________ this today. When we go off to _____, thank God it's ______ soon, because I think we all could use a cocktail, I want you to practice the five-second-rule. You see somebody and you think you have an _______, they look interesting? Walk over there! You were inspired by somebody and you have a request? Make it! That's why you're here! __________ with it, and I think you'll be _______ about what happens. And one more thing, I want you to know that everything that I do, whether it's the radio show, or the television show, or the book that I wrote, or the column, it's for you. And if there is anything that I can do, if I can do anything to make you do the things you don't want to do, so you can have what you want, I will do it. But you need to walk over, you need to open your mouth, and you need to make the _______. You got it? Good. Go do it. (Applause) Thank you! Thank you, yes! Stand up! You have the impulse, stand up! Thank you!

Solution


  1. shocked
  2. sheets
  3. evening
  4. tells
  5. front
  6. women
  7. healthy
  8. wired
  9. institutionalize
  10. diabetes
  11. alarm
  12. killing
  13. tools
  14. dance
  15. talking
  16. issue
  17. snooze
  18. today
  19. documenting
  20. elders
  21. tracking
  22. robbins
  23. emergency
  24. pulling
  25. flimsy
  26. africa
  27. breakfast
  28. routine
  29. feelings
  30. experience
  31. making
  32. million
  33. bigger
  34. practice
  35. sleep
  36. forty
  37. online
  38. reason
  39. basic
  40. magic
  41. happened
  42. break
  43. stable
  44. kinda
  45. sound
  46. decision
  47. fault
  48. hundredth
  49. forcing
  50. broken
  51. google
  52. people
  53. bored
  54. pantry
  55. largely
  56. numbers
  57. drive
  58. motivation
  59. physical
  60. feeble
  61. autopilot
  62. adults
  63. called
  64. party
  65. write
  66. graduate
  67. activation
  68. energy
  69. quick
  70. calculated
  71. experiment
  72. start
  73. computer
  74. annoys
  75. category
  76. kitchen
  77. request
  78. business
  79. psych
  80. simon
  81. applause
  82. roommates
  83. thousand
  84. risks
  85. process
  86. syndicated
  87. millisecond
  88. problem
  89. speaker
  90. lives
  91. eighteen
  92. playing
  93. impulse
  94. scientists
  95. ideas
  96. brake
  97. angry
  98. coming
  99. simple
  100. required
  101. bills
  102. laughter
  103. means
  104. guess
  105. signal
  106. anytime

Original Text


Bigger welcome! Hello, San Francisco! TEDx – oh my God, blinding light! Hi, everybody! How are you? (Audience cheering) Fine?! Oh my gosh! Okay, so... My name is Mel Robbins, and for the last seventeen years, I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want. Within reason! My husband's here. So, I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in, if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any means necessary. For the last three years – I host a syndicated radio show. Five days a week, I go live in forty cities and I talk to men and women across America who feel stuck. Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lives right now? That is a hundred million people! That's insane! And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing, which is also insane, it's called "In-laws". I move in with families across America – (Laughter) You guessed it! – who are at war with their in-laws. We move them into the same house, I verbally assassinate everybody, we open up Pandora's box, and I get people to stop arguing about the donuts and who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner, and talk about the real stuff. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I'm here for you. I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than eighteen minutes about how to get what you want. So I want you to take a millisecond right now and think about what you want. You! And I want you to be selfish. Screw Simon and the "We" thing. This is about me, right now! (Laughter) (Applause) Sorry, Simon. What do you want? And here's the deal. I don't want it to sound good to other people. Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill. Losing your manboobs, so you can hook up with somebody, now that's motivation. (Laughter) So, I want to know: What do you want? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income? Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to find love? What is it? Get it, right here. You know what it is, don't analyze it to death, just pick something. That's part of the problem. You won't pick. So, we're going to be talking about how you get what you want. And frankly, getting what you want is simple. But notice I didn't say it was easy. It's very simple. In fact, if you think about it, we live in the most amazing moment in time. So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be, you want to use healthy eating to cure your diabetes, you want to figure out how to take care of the elders and start a new hospice center, you want to move to Africa and build a school... Guess what? You can walk into a book store – right now! – and buy at least ten books written by credentialed experts on how the hell you do it. You could Google it. And you could probably find at least, I don't know - a thousand blogs documenting the step, by step, by step transformation that somebody else is already doing. You can find anybody online and cyber-stalk them! (Laughter) You can just walk in their footsteps – just use the science of drafting. Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody is already doing it! So why don't you have what you want, when you have all the information that you need, you have the contacts that you need, there are probably free tools online that allow you to start a business, or join a group, or do whatever the heck you want!? It all comes down to one word: F*©#. Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about? The f-bomb. It's everywhere! You hear it all the time! I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word. I mean, you don't sound smart when you say it. And it's really not expressing how you really feel. It's sort of a cheap shot to take. And of course you know I'm talking about the word "fine". "How you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine." Oh, really? You are? Dragging around those extra forty pounds, you're fine? Feeling like roommates with your spouse, and you're fine? You haven't had sex in four months, you're fine? Really?! I don't think so! But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine: It's actually genius. Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it. But when you think about this word "fine", it just makes me so angry. Here we are at a conference about being alive and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as "fine"?! What a flimsy and feeble word! If you're crappy, say you're crappy! If you're amazing say you're amazing! Tell the truth! And this not only goes for the social construct: "Oh, I don't want to burden you with the fact that I hate my life", or: "Hey, I'm amazing! But that would make you feel terrible." The bigger issue – The bigger issue with "fine" is that you say it to yourself. That thing that you want, I guarantee you, you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it. That's why you're not pushing yourself. It's the areas in your life where you've given up. Where you've said, "Oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change, so I just can't have that conversation." "I'm fine. We've got to wait until the kids graduate, before we get divorced, so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms." "I'm fine. I lost my job, I can barely pay my bills, but whatever – It's hard to get a job." One of the reasons why this word also just annoys me so much is, scientists have calculated – Oh yeah, I'm coming down! (Laughter) Scientists have calculated the odds of you being born. That's right. They've crunched the numbers. I see you up there. They've crunched the numbers on you – Yeah, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this. They've crunched the numbers on you being born. And they took into account all of the wars, and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs, and everything else. And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you, yeah, right here, put your computer away, stand up for me, Doug! (Laughter) So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody – the odds of Doug being born at the moment in time he was born, to the parents you were born to, with the DNA structure that you have, one in four hundred trillion! Isn't that amazing? Doug: I'm so lucky! Mel: Yes! You're not fine, you're fantastic! You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. (Applause) Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage. Because all of you – we're all in this category. One in four hundred trillion. All day long you have ideas that could change your life, that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel, and what do you do with them? Nothing! (Grunts) Hopefully I won't moon you. (Laughter) You didn't pay for that. (Laughter) And I want you to just think for a minute, because we all have – I love to use the analogy "the inner snooze button" – you have these amazing ideas that bubble up. You've been watching people all day and I guarantee you, like ping pong balls – bam-bam-bam and everytime you have an idea, what do you do? – Hit the snooze! What's the first decision you made this morning? I bet it was to go back to bed. "Yeah, first decision today, I'm one in four hundred trillion, I'm going to go back to sleep." And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It's cosy, it's warm! If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you, or in my case, I've got my husband and my two kids and possibly the dog. And the reason why I'm bringing up this first decision that you made today, and the inner snooze alarm, is because in any area of your life that you want to change, any – there's one fact that you need to know. This one: You are never going to feel like it. Ever. No one's coming, motivation isn't happening, you're never going to feel like it. Scientists call it activation energy. That's what they call the force required to get you to change from what you're doing on autopilot to do something new. So try this test tomorrow. You think you're so fancy, I know, you're attending TED. (Laughter) Try this. Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for thirty minutes earlier. And then when it goes off, take those sheets, throw them off, and stand up and start your day. No snooze, no delay, no, "I'll just wait here for five seconds because Mel's not standing here" – Do it. And the reason why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face with the physical, and I mean physical force that's required to change your behavior. Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight ever feels like going on a diet? Of course not! You think they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas instead of a croissant? I don't think so! The activation energy required to get your ass away from your computer and out the front door, to go on the walk, you said that you were going to go on, is the exact same amount of force that it takes you to push yourself out of a warm bed and into a cold room. What's interesting about being an adult is that when you become eighteen, nobody tells you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself. And by "parent yourself", I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do, so you can be everything that you're supposed to be. And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it. And you're never going to! My son never feels like getting off his DS. That's my job! Get off the damn DS! Kendall, clean up the Barbies! If you're going to have a nude party in my bathroom, at least clean it up! (Laughter) God, chew with your mouth closed! We're not a barn, for crying out loud! Alright, dinner is coming, get out of the pantry. As parents, and you were a kid, your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing. Because you won't. Ever. Not now, not then, not ever! And even when you get good at something, you'll figure out something else you don't want to do. And then you'll plateau out, get bored, "I hate this job. Blah blah boring." But will you look for a new one? No! You'll just bitch about that one. It's very, very simple to get what you want. But it's not easy. You have to force yourself. And I mean force. And the reason why I use the word "force" – when Roz was up here and talking about the emotion tracking, and she had the picture of two sides of the brain – I look at the brain the exact same way. Only I describe one side of your brain as autopilot and the other side as emergency brake. That's the only two speeds you get: autopilot, emergency brake. And guess which one your brain likes better: autopilot. You've had the experience where you've driven to work and you get there and you're like, "Oh my God, I don't remember ever driving here." (Laughter) You weren't drunk! That was your brain on autopilot. It was functioning just at this level. And the problem with your mind is that anytime you do anything that's different from your normal routine, guess what your brain does — emergency brake! And it has that reaction for everything. Everything! You walk into the kitchen and see everybody's left their breakfast dishes for you. And you think for the hundredth time, "I'm going to kill them. In fact I'm gonna leave it here and I'm going to make them do it." But that's not your normal routine, is it? So your mind goes: emergency brake! And you go right into autopilot. "I'll just load it, and be pissed, and then not have sex. That's what I'm going to do." (Laughter) (Applause) So, when I say "force", anything that's a break from your routine is going to require force. And if you think about your life, it's kind of funny because we are kids and then we become adults, and we spend so much time trying to push our life into some sort of stable routine, and then we grow bored of it! You wake up at the same time every day, you have largely the same breakfast, you drive to work the same way, show up at work, look busy, avoid making calls, update Facebook, you attend a meeting and doodle the whole time, go back and update Facebook, make plans for the evening, you look busy some more, then drive home the same way, you eat largely the same dinner or a variety of it, you watch the same kind of media, and then you go to bed, and do the same thing all over again! No wonder you're bored out of your mind! It's the routine that's killing you. I have this theory about why people get stuck in life. So, most of you've probably taken your Basic Psych 101 class, and you've bumped into Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs"? Well, your body is kinda cool. Because you have these basic needs. And your body is wired to send you signals. If you need food, what do you feel? If you need water, what do you feel? If you need sex, what do you feel? (Laughter) Thank you. I think when you feel stuck or dissatisfied in your life, it's a signal. And it's not a signal that your life is broken. It's a signal that one of your most basic needs are not being met. Your need for exploration. Everything about your life, about your body, grows! Your cells regenerate, your hair, your nails, everything grows for your entire life. And your soul needs exploration and growth. And the only way you'll get it is by forcing yourself to be uncomfortable. Forcing yourself to get outside, out of your head. Thank you. If you're in your head, you're behind enemy lines. That is not God talking, okay? It's not! In fact, if I put a speaker on it and we broadcast what you say to yourself, we would institutionalize you. (Laughter) You would not hang out with people that talk to you the way you talk to yourself. So get out of your head! Your feelings! Your feelings are screwing you! I don't care how you feel! I care about what you want! And if you listen to how you feel, when it comes to what you want – you will not get it. Because you will never feel like it. And you need to get outside your comfort zone. It's not about taking risks, it's about getting outside your comfort zone. Those first three seconds when you push yourself out of bed, they blow. But once you're up, it's great. Those first three seconds when you're sitting here in a stadium like this and somebody says, "Get up and come dance," and you think, "Oh, I should do that," and then you're like, "Uhmm." That experience that you had when you had the impulse to do it and then you didn't do the activation energy required to force yourself, your emergency brake got pulled – "I'm sitting right here. I'm not going up with those crazy people, I don't like to dance..." What happened for me is I came up, and I bumped into Rachel, and then we started talking, and next thing you know, she's tweeting. And we're friends. And – boom! Get outside. That's where the magic is. That's where the one in four hundred trillion exists. So everything I do – oh, OK, this is the last part. Sorry. So one more thing that you can use, I call it the five-second-rule. Your mind can process a facial expression in 33 milliseconds. It can move pretty damn quick. The other thing that it does very quickly is if you have one of those little impulses that are pulling you, if you don't marry it with an action within five seconds, you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Kill it! If you have the impulse to get up and come dance while the band is playing, if you don't stand up in five seconds, you're going to pull the emergency brake. If you have an impulse about, you were inspired by somebody's speech today, and you don't do something within five seconds – write a note, send yourself a text – anything physical to marry it with the idea, you will pull the emergency brake and kill the idea. Your problem isn't ideas. Your problem is you don't act on them. You kill them. It's not my fault. It's not anybody's fault. You're doing it to yourself. Stop it! I'm counting on you. One in four hundred trillion. You got stuff to do! And it's not going to happen in your head. So I want you to practice this today. When we go off to party, thank God it's coming soon, because I think we all could use a cocktail, I want you to practice the five-second-rule. You see somebody and you think you have an impulse, they look interesting? Walk over there! You were inspired by somebody and you have a request? Make it! That's why you're here! Experiment with it, and I think you'll be shocked about what happens. And one more thing, I want you to know that everything that I do, whether it's the radio show, or the television show, or the book that I wrote, or the column, it's for you. And if there is anything that I can do, if I can do anything to make you do the things you don't want to do, so you can have what you want, I will do it. But you need to walk over, you need to open your mouth, and you need to make the request. You got it? Good. Go do it. (Applause) Thank you! Thank you, yes! Stand up! You have the impulse, stand up! Thank you!

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
emergency brake 6
activation energy 3
feel stuck 2
bigger issue 2
energy required 2
comfort zone 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
activation energy required 2


Important Words


  1. abraham
  2. account
  3. act
  4. action
  5. activation
  6. adult
  7. adults
  8. africa
  9. alarm
  10. alive
  11. alright
  12. amazing
  13. america
  14. americans
  15. amount
  16. analogy
  17. analyze
  18. angry
  19. annoys
  20. anytime
  21. appeal
  22. applause
  23. area
  24. areas
  25. arguing
  26. ass
  27. assassinate
  28. attend
  29. attending
  30. audience
  31. autopilot
  32. avoid
  33. balls
  34. band
  35. barely
  36. barn
  37. basic
  38. bathroom
  39. bed
  40. bedroom
  41. bedrooms
  42. behavior
  43. bet
  44. bigger
  45. bills
  46. bitch
  47. blah
  48. blinding
  49. blogs
  50. blow
  51. boardroom
  52. body
  53. boiled
  54. book
  55. books
  56. bored
  57. boring
  58. born
  59. box
  60. brain
  61. brake
  62. break
  63. breakfast
  64. bringing
  65. broadcast
  66. broken
  67. bubble
  68. build
  69. bumped
  70. burden
  71. business
  72. busy
  73. buy
  74. calculated
  75. call
  76. called
  77. calls
  78. care
  79. case
  80. category
  81. cells
  82. center
  83. change
  84. cheap
  85. cheering
  86. chew
  87. chicken
  88. christine
  89. cities
  90. class
  91. clean
  92. cocktail
  93. cold
  94. column
  95. comfort
  96. coming
  97. computer
  98. conference
  99. contacts
  100. conversation
  101. convinced
  102. cool
  103. cosy
  104. counting
  105. courtroom
  106. crap
  107. crappy
  108. crazy
  109. credentialed
  110. croissant
  111. crunched
  112. crying
  113. cure
  114. damn
  115. dance
  116. day
  117. days
  118. deal
  119. death
  120. decision
  121. delay
  122. describe
  123. diabetes
  124. diet
  125. dinner
  126. dinosaurs
  127. disasters
  128. dishes
  129. dissatisfied
  130. divorced
  131. dna
  132. documenting
  133. dog
  134. donuts
  135. doodle
  136. door
  137. doug
  138. drafting
  139. dragging
  140. drive
  141. driven
  142. driving
  143. ds
  144. earlier
  145. easy
  146. eat
  147. eating
  148. eighteen
  149. elders
  150. emergency
  151. emotion
  152. enemy
  153. energy
  154. entire
  155. evening
  156. everytime
  157. exact
  158. exists
  159. experience
  160. experiment
  161. experts
  162. exploration
  163. expressing
  164. expression
  165. extra
  166. face
  167. facebook
  168. facial
  169. fact
  170. families
  171. fancy
  172. fault
  173. feeble
  174. feel
  175. feeling
  176. feelings
  177. feels
  178. figure
  179. find
  180. fine
  181. flimsy
  182. follow
  183. food
  184. footsteps
  185. force
  186. forcing
  187. forty
  188. frankly
  189. free
  190. friends
  191. front
  192. functioning
  193. funny
  194. genius
  195. god
  196. gonna
  197. good
  198. google
  199. graduate
  200. great
  201. group
  202. grow
  203. grows
  204. growth
  205. grunts
  206. guarantee
  207. guess
  208. guessed
  209. guys
  210. hair
  211. hang
  212. happen
  213. happened
  214. happening
  215. hard
  216. hate
  217. head
  218. healthy
  219. hear
  220. heck
  221. hell
  222. hit
  223. home
  224. honestly
  225. hook
  226. hospice
  227. host
  228. hosting
  229. house
  230. hundredth
  231. husband
  232. idea
  233. ideas
  234. impulse
  235. impulses
  236. income
  237. information
  238. insane
  239. inspired
  240. institutionalize
  241. interesting
  242. issue
  243. job
  244. join
  245. kendall
  246. kid
  247. kids
  248. kill
  249. killing
  250. kind
  251. kinda
  252. kitchen
  253. largely
  254. laughter
  255. leave
  256. left
  257. level
  258. life
  259. likes
  260. lines
  261. listen
  262. live
  263. lives
  264. living
  265. load
  266. long
  267. lose
  268. losing
  269. lost
  270. love
  271. lucky
  272. magic
  273. making
  274. manboobs
  275. marry
  276. means
  277. media
  278. meeting
  279. mel
  280. men
  281. met
  282. million
  283. millisecond
  284. milliseconds
  285. mind
  286. minute
  287. minutes
  288. moment
  289. months
  290. moon
  291. morning
  292. motivation
  293. mouth
  294. move
  295. nails
  296. natural
  297. nonprofit
  298. normal
  299. note
  300. notice
  301. nude
  302. numbers
  303. odds
  304. online
  305. open
  306. pantry
  307. parent
  308. parents
  309. part
  310. party
  311. pay
  312. peas
  313. people
  314. physical
  315. pick
  316. picture
  317. ping
  318. pissed
  319. plans
  320. plateau
  321. playing
  322. pong
  323. possibly
  324. pounds
  325. practice
  326. pretty
  327. problem
  328. process
  329. psych
  330. pull
  331. pulled
  332. pulling
  333. push
  334. pushing
  335. put
  336. quick
  337. quickly
  338. rachel
  339. radio
  340. reaction
  341. real
  342. realize
  343. reason
  344. reasons
  345. regenerate
  346. remember
  347. request
  348. require
  349. required
  350. risks
  351. robbins
  352. room
  353. roommates
  354. routine
  355. roz
  356. san
  357. school
  358. science
  359. scientists
  360. screw
  361. screwing
  362. seconds
  363. selfish
  364. send
  365. separate
  366. set
  367. seventeen
  368. sex
  369. sheets
  370. shocked
  371. shot
  372. show
  373. shut
  374. side
  375. sides
  376. signal
  377. signals
  378. simon
  379. simple
  380. sit
  381. sitting
  382. sleep
  383. smart
  384. snooze
  385. social
  386. son
  387. sort
  388. soul
  389. sound
  390. speaker
  391. speech
  392. speeds
  393. spend
  394. spouse
  395. stable
  396. stadium
  397. stage
  398. stand
  399. standing
  400. start
  401. started
  402. step
  403. stop
  404. store
  405. structure
  406. stuck
  407. stuff
  408. supposed
  409. syndicated
  410. takes
  411. talk
  412. talking
  413. ted
  414. tedx
  415. television
  416. tells
  417. ten
  418. terrible
  419. test
  420. text
  421. thanksgiving
  422. theory
  423. thousand
  424. throw
  425. time
  426. today
  427. tomorrow
  428. tools
  429. torture
  430. tracking
  431. transformation
  432. treadmill
  433. trillion
  434. triple
  435. turn
  436. tweeting
  437. uncomfortable
  438. understand
  439. update
  440. variety
  441. verbally
  442. wait
  443. waiting
  444. wake
  445. walk
  446. war
  447. warm
  448. wars
  449. watch
  450. watching
  451. water
  452. week
  453. weight
  454. wired
  455. women
  456. word
  457. work
  458. world
  459. write
  460. written
  461. wrote
  462. yeah
  463. years
  464. zone