Thank you for having me. And you, I think of probably anybody on the planet will get what I'm about to say in your bones, because you understand the profound impact that the five second rule is a starting ritual has has had on millions of people's lives, helping them move from thinking to doing and even sitting here, Jim, with you, which it's just an honor being such a fan of your work to to be here with you, even sitting here knowing. the impact that the five-second rule has had on millions of people's lives.
I'm going to tell you something. What's that? The high-five habit is an even bigger deal with more profound change. And I can't wait to unpack it, but I'll tell you personally, I use the five-second rule to turn my life around, to go from being bankrupt to being extraordinarily successful, to changing every habit I have.
improving my marriage, it got me into action. But I'll tell you what it never did. It never silenced the critic in my head that I lived with.
It never ended the relentless beat down that I was giving myself. And it never broke the habit that I had of constantly hating myself or focusing on the things that weren't working instead of celebrating myself. and focusing on the things that were.
And the high five habit cuts right down through all that noise and reconnects you with the you that's in there, with the confidence that is your birthright. And the way that it literally reprograms your mind is breathtaking. Well, you know, we talk a lot about morning routines and this was the... the easiest thing to add to my running routine that's given me so much in return and not just in terms of in a short period of time you know in terms of the ripple of it but even just immediately you know just celebrating myself in the bathroom mirror and what we could we could talk about how that works i'm also by the way pulling back a big fan of just counting down from five you know what getting myself out of bed or getting myself to put on my running shoes And so I could see the difference in how they complement each other so well.
And so maybe we could walk our listeners through this. And I would highly recommend everyone. I mean, our audience loves to read to make sure you get your copy also as well. Well, so it's very simple.
And since I know that your listeners want to get right into the science and right into what to do, I'm not even going to tell you the story because I did not set out to create this. I created the high five habit. on a morning that everybody can relate to.
A morning where life felt overwhelming, a morning where I felt defeated, a morning where I felt sort of stuck and dreading the day. And I was standing there brushing my teeth, Jim, and I catch my reflection in the mirror. And I think, oh, you look like hell. And then all of a sudden I started to criticize the way that I looked, like the dark circles under my eyes, the, the.
bags under my like kind of chin and neck and one boobs hanging lower than the other. And then once your thoughts go negative, they kind of take you down. So now I'm thinking about my day ahead and I'm beating myself up. Why'd I get up so late?
And I've only got eight minutes to the first Zoom call and the dog hasn't even been walked. And you just said something interesting. It's an easy thing.
The high five habit is an easy thing to add to the morning routine. We all talk a lot about morning routines. It wasn't until I discovered this.
that I realized there was a piece to my morning routine I was not even aware of, a habit that I needed to break, Jim, a habit that gratitude and exercise and all this stuff was not actually erasing, a habit of standing before the bathroom mirror and either ignoring the human being you see in the mirror or criticizing them. That is how we start our day. 91% of women don't like how they look.
50% of us can't even look in the mirror. I know it's true for men too. We stand in judgment.
And so what happened for me this morning, here's the high five habit. It is profoundly simple. It's going to change your life the second you're done brushing your teeth.
And I want you to do it right after you brush your teeth, because I want you to stack this habit with something you're already doing. Cause you know, cause you listen to this podcast that it's the fastest way to learn a new behavior. Let's get the gunk out of your teeth so you don't spread dragon breath on everybody. Now let's get the gunk out of your head so you're not spreading negativity throughout your day.
As you stand in front of the mirror. I want you to leverage a little piece of research from Harvard. New research shows that if you take less than a minute and you intentionally think about the day ahead and how you're going to show up as a leader, it changes your productivity, your focus, how you show up and your ability to impact people. Let's throw that out the window in terms of being a leader and let's look in the mirror and let's use that for ourselves to improve our own lives.
I want you to take a second and I want you to realize there's actually two people in the bathroom every morning, Jim. There's you and there's a human being in the mirror that's been waiting for you to wake up and realize they need you. They're trying hard. They've got a good heart.
They need your support and your encouragement. They need you to see them. They need you to love them. That is literally what I'm talking about.
When I talk about the high five habit that you wake up and recognize there is a person you go through life with that stares you back in the mirror every morning and your habit right now is to tear them down or ignore them. And I want you to set an intention and I want you to look at them in the morning. And this is going to feel weird because you're going to realize I've never actually asked myself this question.
And here's the question. What is that person in the mirror? What is she or he or they?
they need from me today? We think about it for work, for our families, for everybody else. You've never stopped and asked yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror, how do I need to show up for that person today? Then as you've got that intention, despite the fact that it feels weird, despite the fact that you're going to resist this, we can talk about why you're going to feel most likely resistance. I then want you to raise your hand and I want you to high five the reflection.
And what's amazing about this new habit, Jim, is your brain and your nervous system are already designed to do the work for you. Because also, I mean, you think about how we high five other people, you know, throughout the day and to celebrate them, to encourage them. But we're not always doing that.
I mean, it's interesting because no amount of love is enough to fill the yearning that our soul requires from ourselves, right? You know, when do we work daily on being in love with that person in the mirror who has been through so much, but is still standing? Yeah, and think about some of the habits that we know based on research, change your life, meditation.
Meditation is profoundly important. the benefits you talk about all the time. Meditation develops self-awareness.
It also helps you learn how to be non-reactive to your thoughts, but it doesn't change your default thoughts. Gratitude, also hugely important, tremendous benefit. Yes, you should have a gratitude practice.
However, almost all of us, when we practice gratitude, we think about things outside of ourself that we're grateful for. And so the high five habit. is about bringing the power back in-house. It's about giving you a science-backed tool that will teach you through a simple action how to support, how to love, how to encourage, how to celebrate yourself every single day.
And let me explain the science because this is where things get crazy. The reason why this works is because of the programming that's already in your brain. So you have a lifetime of giving and receiving high fives.
In fact, Jim, when somebody high fives you or you high five somebody else, what is the gesture alone of a high five? Tell somebody else that they are extraordinary. They are amazing. Congratulations.
You know, you're you're you're winning, you know? Exactly. Exactly. You don't ever high five somebody and say, I hate you.
You always high five and you're like, I love you. We got this. No problem.
You're, you know, go get them. You're going to win. Even if somebody just blew it, you high five them and it's like, shake it off. Come on. I still believe in you.
Let's go. And so all of that programming is right here in the interior of your brain. It's in your basal ganglia.
It is in your subconscious. It is sitting there and it is married to the action of high fiving. So what happens is when you stand there, you set this intention, you're with yourself, you see yourself, you feel the resistance, you ignore the resistance, you go to high-five yourself, your brain's like, oh, I know what this gesture means.
it activates the subconscious programming. It silences the critic and the beat down. You can't think anything but positive thoughts.
It's impossible neurologically because of the programming already in your brain. And then over time, if you do this, give me just five days, you do this five days in a row, fight through the weirdness because it's new and the resistance because you have the opposite habit. You judge yourself, you reject yourself.
When you high five yourself, it silences that. It activates the programming that's already in your brain and it starts to marry it with your own reflection. And that's not all. I talked to our buddy, Dr. Amen the other day. He went bananas when he heard about this.
He's like, Mel, holy cow. Do you realize you also get a boost in your mood because when you high five other people, you get a dopamine drip. So you get a dopamine drip when you do this to yourself.
He also said, you know how when you come into the bathroom and you're kind of dragging in the energy and- when you high five yourself, whether it's because you laugh or because you just kind of feel good, you get this little like pep in your steps. So you start your day feeling slightly more energized. I'm like, yeah, Dr. Amen, tell me about that. He said, well, that's your nervous system.
Your nervous system is encoded with celebratory energy. When you cross the finish line, you raise your hands. When your favorite team scores, you raise your hands. When you say hello to somebody, you raise your hands. When you hug somebody, you raise your hands.
When you high five, you raise your hands. Your nervous system remembers it. That's where the energy comes from. The coolest thing about the high five habit, Jim, is the programming is already in you because you've been doing this your whole life for everybody else. Yeah, and we are hardwired for this.
Hardwired. In fact, when you were born, DNA in your DNA was celebration and joy. Little kids, when you see them in front of a mirror, they don't step back and go, my thighs are fat. man, I'm a loser.
They don't do that. They spin, they high five the mirror, they kiss the mirror, they love themselves. This is your birthright.
It was your life experience that taught you to judge and reject yourself. And I'm here to tell you this simple habit of standing before the mirror and raising your hand and high fiving yourself like you so willingly do for everybody else. You don't have to say a thing. You can. have resistance.
You can feel that it's weird. You can literally reject it in your mind as you start to do it. And you will, you will experience massive transformation as you complete the gesture because your mind is wired for this. You know, my husband, Jim, a lot of people know the story because it was his restaurant business failing that rocket us into this personal crisis.
And that's when I invented the five second rule. Well, his best friend and he worked at that restaurant business for seven years. And at the end of the seven years, they sold it for a song to a new investor.
And our best friend, his business partner was able to shrug and go, okay, well, that's entrepreneurship. I'm very proud of what we did. I'm proud of how hard we worked. And, you know, did we return the profit we wanted?
No, but I'm still proud of myself. My husband couldn't do that. My husband said I failed.
Do you know, for seven years, he has looked in the mirror every morning, Jim, like so many of us do, and dragged his past in there and said, because this thing in my past, I am a failure. I am unworthy. I am unlovable.
When I first started this high five thing in April of 2020 to pick myself up after getting fired from my dream job as a talk show host and. in the throes of the pandemic and my kids in crisis and the world in crisis and just feeling overwhelmed. Chris couldn't do it.
And the reason why I couldn't do it is the reason why everybody's resistant to doing it. It's because he was dragging all of that judgment and everything from his past into the bathroom every morning. And he was saying, because of that experience, I don't see a human being that's worthy of celebration. So if you've experienced trauma or abuse or discrimination or you've been abandoned or, you know, you're a human being and you've done things you've regretted or you wish you could change and you'd forgive Jim or me for it, but you stand in judgment of yourself, you will resist this because right now you see a human being who doesn't deserve celebration.
If you're like Jim and I and you are very much achievement driven, you may realize as you resist this that you Don't celebrate yourself unless you've done something, unless you've worked out, unless you've got the money in the bank, unless you're driving the Range Rover, unless you fix that thing. And what I'm here to tell you is we got it all opposite, Jim. You see, we've been withholding the very support and celebration that we need in order to feel inspired, encouraged and motivated to take the actions that change our life. Hey, I'm Mel Robbins, the creator of the five second rule.
What is the five second rule? It's a form of metacognition that gives you immediate control over your thoughts and actions. Using the rule is so simple. The moment you feel your instincts fire up, just start counting backwards to yourself.
To switch the gears in your mind, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, then give yourself a push forward. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Counting backwards requires focus. And when you focus, your prefrontal cortex awakens. And by the way, that's the part of the brain that helps you learn new positive behavior patterns. I first mentioned the rule in a TED Talk.
Since then... More than 8 million people have discovered the rule through that talk and its powerful countdown trick to take control of their lives, become more confident, happy, and even make their dreams come true. I created this series of videos to help you better understand the 5-second rule, the science behind it, how it works, and the specific ways you can use it to improve any area of your life. In this video, I'm going to show you the specific way that you can use the five-second rule to increase your productivity.
Now first, let's talk a little bit about productivity as a concept. Productivity is not about blasting through your to-do list and doing more. It's actually about doing less. Productivity is the ability to make progress on the things that matter to you.
Sounds simple, right? I mean, just move the ball down the field on the important stuff. But it's not easy.
Why? Blame your feelings. You see, you're capable of being more productive. You're just waiting to feel like doing what you need to do.
And guess what? You're never going to crack the whip on yourself when you have a million other things that you need to do and you've got people that are making demands on you. One thing that you must understand is that you have the power to decide what's important.
And productivity actually boils down to simple five-second decisions. Here's one that you need to start making immediately. that will have a tremendous impact on your ability to be productive.
When the alarm goes off, do you wake up early to work on your business or do you blow it off because you don't feel like it, you're tired? Or do you stick to the plan to finish some important tasks or do you mainline Facebook instead because, ah, you'd just rather relax. When you change your decisions, you'll change everything because productivity boils down to the ability to make small five-second decisions that put the things that are important first.
And here's one five-second decision that will make you more productive than any other. Get up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do and push yourself to work on the most important priorities first. This isn't just me, research shows that your most productive hours are the first two to three hours after you wake up and get ready.
This means that for peak productivity you've got to do whatever you can do to make sure the most important work to you gets done first during the day. that window of time. So here's how you're going to use the rule. The moment your alarm goes off and you want to hit the snooze button, use the rule.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, push yourself out of bed. Then use the rule again. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, sit down and get working on the things that matter to you instead of checking your phone, instead of letting your day get hijacked. You see, the moment you feel yourself wanting to give in to distraction, you're going to use the rule again.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, do a search and troll and get back to work. back on task to the things that matter to you. It doesn't really matter how busy you are.
We're all busy. If you really care, you'll find the time. And that's how you're going to use the rule, to find the time to work on things that matter to you.
This is what Rachel did. She wanted to change her life, so she decided to make progress on what was important. And she did this by starting with getting up earlier, getting out of bed, and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, focusing on what mattered. And as you can see, See that small five second decision, getting up 30 minutes earlier, started a chain of events that changed her entire life. She lost 30 pounds, she bought her first home and she reinvigorated her marriage.
Why? The reason why is because she learned how to beat the feelings and excuses that stopped her and she found the time to work on things that matter. That is the definition of productivity. Getting the important stuff done only works when you push yourself to do it.
And when you push yourself, five second decision, to wake up earlier and start your day off right, you will be shocked by what changes it ignites. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to productivity. There are tons of strategies that I discuss that are based in research in chapter 10 of the five second rule book and how you can use all of this research in combination with the five second rule to not only become more productive but to end procrastinating.
forever to regain your focus whenever you get distracted and lots of other things that are going to help you improve your quality of work and also your life all right so i just did this ask me uh anything chat with the community at the skim app i love the skim and the questions were fantastic and i got this great one from leanne mel i just listened to your book the five second rule recently and loved it i tried to put the five second rule into practice and i'm failing. Am I too afraid of what? I don't even know.
Exhaustion maybe? What am I missing? It's a great question and so I want to address my comments to those of you that have learned the five-second rule.
You've tried the countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and it's not working. I got a level with you. The five-second rule.
Always works. It's backed by science and it has helped change the lives of millions of people. The problem is not the rule.
The problem is you actually don't want to change. I'm dead serious. I want you to just stop and think about that for a minute. For people who try to count down, but then don't actually push themselves forward. For those of you that are struggling with self-doubt, struggling to get up on time, struggling to make the calls to grow your business, struggling to stay motivated, you know about the five-second rule, but you don't use it, there's a simple reason why you're not using it.
You don't want to change. Look, change is hard. I get it.
If you're going to change anything about your life, you're going to have to face the unknown. You're going to have to step out of your comfort zone. You're going to have to try something new.
You're going to have to risk rejection and judgment. It's scary. I get it.
That's why most people never change. So if you're like Leanne and you've got all the tools at your disposal, but you still are stuck, the reason why you're stuck is you don't want to change yet. So stop complaining about the tools and go inward and actually examine. What are you afraid of?
Seriously, what do you get out of staying stuck? What do you get from staying heavy? What do you get from not making the money that you want?
What do you get from dating a string of losers? You get safety? I don't know.
You get the ability to complain? Are you the one that's constantly dominating all your friendships because you're constantly griping about how bad your life is? I don't know what you're getting out of it, but you're getting something. The moment you decide that you're sick and tired of it, the moment that you decide that you are so ready to change, the five-second rule, this puppy right here, the 5-4-3-2-1, it'll be there. And it'll work.
And look, when you start deciding that it's time to change, you may have to use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5,000 times a day for weeks on end because you're pushing through self-doubt and you're pushing through procrastination and you're pushing through resignation and you're pushing through fear over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then what's going to happen, and I see this happening around the world, I know that it works. We have proof that it works. If you use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you push through everything that's stopping you right now, because you, this is your year. This is the moment that you're going to change.
At some point, something's going to click and the momentum's going to kick in. And suddenly change isn't going to be scary. Change is going to be what's happening. So figure out or admit the fact that you don't want to change.
That's why none of this is working. And the moment that you're actually ready to, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it'll be there and it'll work. One of the things I love about Mel is that she's not someone that just pulls things out of books and regurgitates things. She literally takes time to do real research and provide real techniques and real how-tos that are actually science-backed.
But the one that changed her entire career, that has impacted millions of lives, is called the 5-second. rule. So we're going to get into the whole philosophy and how did she actually create the five second rule and all about how it can be used in your personal life as well, your business. What I really admire, um, getting towards talking about that five second rule is how it's you, you know, there's a lot of people that give advice, but you're the first that I've really, that I love that, like, it's all science backed. I mean, this isn't just something that you whipped up and, you know, decided to.
To kind of just create from a branding perspective, I mean, there's obviously, it's amazing how you branded yourself and how you branded the five-second rule, but I love how it is all science-backed. A lot of the philosophy, a lot of the techniques. Everything we talk about has to be proven. Everything. I love that.
I don't give you some bullshit I've read in a book or something that I've read on Instagram. The only things that we share are things that are backed by science, that have been researched, that we have seen. Working in our own lives that we see working for our audience.
And I think that is critical because let's face it, anybody can put up a inspirational quote that they've read from somebody else. Anybody can tell you to be positive or do this or put in the work or hustle or whatever the hell it may be. At the end of the day, it's just talk.
You have to know how. And I also am somebody who is a little bit cynical. So, you know, I'm sort of embarrassed that I'm in self-help on some level because it sounds stupid, right?
You know, I mean, I come from, I mean, I'm older than you. I'm almost 50. Self-help had a really bad name 20 years ago. And I also am Ivy League lawyer. Yeah.
And I... I'm an entrepreneur. There's a lot of bullshit. There's a lot of fake people out there that are renting houses and Ferraris and telling you if you use their click funnel strategy or whatever strategy that you'll be rich like they are.
And yeah, you may and chase the money if it energizes you, but there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. And so if you're going to Follow influencers and you're going to look to other people for advice. Remember one thing.
Would you actually trade lives with them? Would you actually want to do what they're doing with their life? And if the answer is yes, then listen. But then always come back and reflect on whether or not that advice feels true for you.
and adjust it. Because the things that I'm saying, they work for me. And I know they work for millions of people, but they might not work for you based on your mental health, based on your financial situation, based on what's going on with your family. The timing might not be right.
You might not be mentally capable of doing these things without professional help. So you have to be responsible for yourself. And that's the most important thing about personal development. Yeah.
We're here to inspire you and give you things to think about. In the hopes that you will take them back into your lives and try them and figure out what works for you. Do you know how often you hesitate and stop yourself?
All day long. There's actually a neurological reason why change is so hard. Your brain is designed to stop you from changing.
Let me explain. You see, change requires you to do things that are uncertain. Scary or new?
Your brain is designed to protect you from doing things that are uncertain, scary or new. What's your brain's favorite way to protect you? To trap you in your head by making you overthink. I've studied and interviewed the leading researchers in psychology and human behavior and what they've taught me is that the moment, the moment you want to change, break a habit or do something hard or scary and you hesitate, Your brain goes to work to stop you. Now there's all kinds of fancy names for this.
Cognitive biases, the paradox of choice, the psychological immune system, the spotlight effect, I could name hundreds of them. You don't need to know the fancy names. You just need to know one simple fact.
There is a system in your head that is stopping you every step of the way. And the five second rule is the only tool that you need to beat it. So how does the five-second rule beat the system in your head?
There are two explanations. First, I'm going to give you the simple one. Then I'm going to explain the science. At its most basic level, the five-second rule is a tool that helps you take action.
It gets you out of your head, and that's the secret. You've got to stop thinking and start living before the system in your head has a chance to stop you. Now let's talk about the science. The five-second rule leverages...
proven principles in modern psychology. And there are literally hundreds of examples that I could point to, but in this video, we're just gonna focus on five of them. First, let's talk about two concepts, one called locus of control, the second called a bias toward action. So a locus of control is a foundational principle in psychology.
You should Google it. Back in the day, researchers figured out that there are basically two kinds of people. People that believe that they're in control of their lives, And folks that believe that life is just happening to them and they're a victim of whatever might happen. Now, when you look at these two types of people, people that have an internal locus of control, a belief that they're in control of their lives, they're happier, they're more successful, more productive. So the question becomes...
How do you create an internal locus of control in yourself? The answer is simple. It's called a bias toward action. So a bias toward action is a psychological principle that means you're the kind of person that has a bias toward taking action instead of a bias toward thinking. How do you create a bias toward action?
You guessed it, the five-second rule. The five-second rule is a tool that will teach you how to take action. And over time as you use it, you not only learn how to take action, you become the kind of person that operates with a bias toward taking action.
And when you take action over and over and over on your instincts, on your desires, on your commitments, guess what you get? You build an internal locus of control. You become the kind of person that believes that you're in control of your life because you're proving it to yourself.
One five-second decision. at a time. Let's move on to topic two, behavioral flexibility. So just a few years ago, scientists thought that our brains stopped growing at the age of about 25. What we now know is that your brain never stops growing.
We have the ability to learn new things throughout an entire lifetime. We call this behavioral flexibility. One of the things that's exciting about the five-second rule and that we see from people all over the world is that when they utilize the rule over and over and over again, They not only create immediate change in the moment with a five-second decision, but that over time, as they repeat the new behavior, whether it's speaking up in meetings more or it is pushing yourself to exercise over and over, that you actually create new habits and become an entirely different person.
This is what your brain is designed to do in terms of its neural pathways and the way that new neural pathways can develop. Every time you use the five second rule and five four three two one activate your prefrontal cortex and shift your behavior You are not only creating immediate behavior change over the long run. Thanks to behavioral flexibility You're creating lasting behavior change.
The third principle is do good be good now This is a principle that I first learned about from legendary psychological researcher and University of Virginia professor Timothy Wilson basically it means that you can't think your way to being happier or better. You actually got to do something. Now this do good, be good philosophy dates all the way back to Aristotle.
And it's based on the belief and now the proven technique that in order to change, you can't think your way to being more positive. You've got to do things. You got to act and then your mind will follow. What is the five second rule? It's a tool that will help you stop thinking wrong.
and start doing. Do good, be good, and then your mind will follow. The fourth principle, and that's the golden rule of habits. Now, I could spend two or three hours just talking about habit research, and whether you read Charles Duhigg's best-selling book or Gretchen Rubin's book on habits, or you watch a number of TED Talks, all researchers believe that habits come down to one golden rule, and that's this.
You can never change the things that trigger you. You can't control your urges or how you might feel, but you can always choose how you behave. If you want to break a habit, once you have a habit, it's always going to be encoded in your brain.
The only way that you can break it is to replace it with new behavior. There's also something in the research around habits called a starting ritual. A starting ritual is a... repeated behavior that you adopt in order to trigger a new habit. The five second rule is so incredibly powerful when it comes to breaking old habits and adopting new ones because number one the five second rule and counting backwards five four three two one is a starting ritual.
It will interrupt the old behavior pattern and it will trigger a new one. The five second rule over time and this is really cool actually becomes the new pattern of behavior. Instead of Stopping yourself with self-doubt or blowing things off or overeating, you have a new pattern of behavior.
You catch yourself, you gain control, you have confidence, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you do the thing that you know you want to do. And finally, the principle called activation energy. Now, activation energy is something that was first introduced into the field of human behavior and psychology several decades ago by a rock star professor at the University of Chicago that studied a state of flow.
His name was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and he studied, was one of the first really, to study human behavior, human performance, and he coined this term activation energy, actually borrowed it from chemistry, and it's a term that describes this phenomenon. In order to start any kind of chemical reaction it takes a tremendous amount of energy to create that initial spark. A lot more energy to start it.
than to keep it going. There's a direct correlation to you and me. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to just get started? How hard it is to get to the gym? How hard it is to get out of bed?
How hard it is to put down the bottle when you go to pour a second drink and you know you shouldn't? That feeling, how hard it is to get started, this is what Mihaly's talking about. You need activation energy to start the chain. To start to sit down, to start to get out of bed, to start to walk out the door, that's the key to creating any kind of change. This activation energy inside of you that causes the initial boom.
And then what do we hear over time? Once you start, there's a chain reaction and that allows you to keep going. So what's this have to do with the five-second rule?
Freaking everything. The five-second rule creates activation energy. in you. The five second rule is how you activate change inside of you.
It is a tool. When you start counting five, four, three, two, one, you awaken your prefrontal cortex. You begin the process of changing.
You push yourself in a new direction. That first push, that's going to be the hardest. Once you get moving, it gets so much easier.
So those are just five, just five. Psychological scientific principles that explain the power of the five-second rule. Wait, first off, when did you discover the five-second rule? Okay, so 2009. That's when you first tried it or discovered it or?
Oh, it's a total horror show mistake. Okay. Yes. Okay.
So 2009, I was unemployed and feeling like. You were unemployed? How?
Well, okay. Too much charisma, too much passion. Uh, yeah, because everything's working right now. That's why.
I'm not like this when things are not working. Ask my husband. I'm 22 years. Well, what had happened is I had had all these career changes and I got into the media business, again, by mistake. I had a coaching business and Inc.
Magazine was writing an article about coaches and they featured me in it and CNBC called. Got it. And that led to me doing some stuff with CNBC.
And I spent a year still coaching people and then doing some stuff for CNBC. And then Fox called and they were interested in having me host a television show. Now, you got to understand, I'm from North Muskegon, Michigan. I mean, the media business, Fox, LA.
The closest thing I had ever seen to a celebrity, Lewis, was the Muskegon Lumberjacks, the farm team. Right? Right.
From our, for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, the AA team. Yeah, my dad was the hometown doc for the hockey team there.
Right, right, right. So I thought, wow, my life's about to change. I'm about to be a celebrity.
Wow, we're going to solve all, this is amazing, you know. So I was originally going to be hosting a show for Fox where we were making over small businesses. Nice. Yeah, pretty cool, right? We show up, we...
like do extreme home makeover for the office. Everybody's happy. We all know that doesn't solve business problems, but it makes for a nice television show.
By the time I get to LA, they've changed the format. It's now called Someone's Gotta Go. And I'm going to be firing people on national television from real jobs.
Wow. Uh-huh. That sounds fun. Horrible. Plus, we haven't told the offices that this is what we're doing.
Oh my gosh. So you show up in act one and you've got everybody all like this because you're going to think they're going to get. new IKEA furniture and a paint job, and this is going to be the best thing in the world for their small business. Now, meanwhile, I'm a fourth generation small business owner. So that's like my people.
Grew up at a kitchen table with farmers and, you know, my mom at a retail store and my other grandparents were bakers. And so when it comes to like the heart and soul and what's so important when you launch your own business and how personal it is, I mean, this was like gut-wrenching. So I show up, the first act, you kick out the owner of the company who then freaks out, then all the employees freak out. Act number two, we announce that somebody's getting fired and then that's the bad news. The good news is that I'm not picking.
We're going to have you vote somebody out. So it's survivor in an office place. Oh, my goodness.
So when I learn all this, I have a panic attack, even though I'm on Zoloft. And I call the guy that got me the gig and say, you've got to get me out of this. Like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And he said, well, I'm sorry, but they've already cast the entire show and you're out there for five weeks and you don't have a choice. They're going to sue you.
And I said, then fine, get me some Xanax because I don't think I can get through this thing. Like, this is awful. Luckily. We taped two episodes and legal tabled it. But here was the problem.
I was attached to the show and I only got paid if the show was shooting. And being an entrepreneur, I also kind of put all my energy into this, shut down the coaching thing. Really thought that it also kind of negotiated a deal that was a sort of a back end deal thinking I'm a, you know, entrepreneur. Always thinking about got to have a piece of the action. Yes.
Yeah, of course. Yeah, that was a dumb move. And I was in a contract for a year while they figured out what to do.
So you couldn't do another show. Yeah. So, you know, I just felt like I had made a huge mistake and I felt really embarrassed. And I didn't know at the age of 41 what I should be doing with my life. And while it's neat that I had jumped careers so many times, I started to feel like somebody that actually wasn't successful at all because I didn't have a career track.
I had a bunch of jumps from one thing to another. Now, looking back, it makes perfect sense. But standing in the middle of the mess, it just felt like everything was caving in, probably just like when you were sleeping on your couch, feeling injured and like everything I thought that was about to happen isn't happening now.
Meanwhile, my husband had opened up a restaurant business. It had been his dream. He worked in high tech and came home one day after getting laid off and said, I I'm never going to get on a plane and do a PowerPoint presentation for a company I don't care about or own. And I said, great, what's your plan? And he said, I'm going to open a pizza restaurant.
And I looked at him. And I said, was there a trust fund that was part of this marriage that I was unaware of? Because I'm not quite sure how we're going to get the money. Did someone die?
You got an insurance policy? Yes. And he said no.
And I then said the most famous lines of our 22-year marriage, Lewis. I looked at him and I said, listen, buddy, inspiration is for strangers. You get your ass back to that job and you pay the mortgage and you forget the stream.
You're not going to. Wow. Well, because change is scary.
Yeah. So we fought and he won. And the first one was a real home run. He opened a pizza store. Oh, he did.
Yeah. 40 seats right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He and his best friend.
And they won best of Boston. It was incredible. What do you do when everything.
They make money though. They did on the first one. So what do you do when everything's working? Let's go all chips in.
Let's put in the home equity line. Let's put in the kids'college savings. Let's get friends and family.
And because you're so excited, you think it's going to work. So you go big, big, big. Well, the second one did not work at all.
And it did not work at all so badly that when it was finally closed, it was close to an $800,000 loss. And it meant our entire home equity line, kids'college savings, everything went right down with it. That was right when.
I lost the Fox show. So I'm unemployed. The liens start hitting the house.
The phone starts ringing all the time and it's collections calls. So you unplug the phone. That would stress me out. Well, you just unplug the phone.
I mean, that's how you deal with that. But I remember two things from that period of my life that were really painful. And one was having to call the town and tell them that we could not afford the $175 for our sixth grader.
play soccer so we needed to pull her out and I remember there being times because I was so afraid to look at the checking account that I would stand at the grocery store and items would scan and I could just feel that wave of anxiety rising thinking I don't I don't think the check card's going to go through and so I would stand there I always had an excuse and it was to look at the person and go oh that's strange it just worked at the gas station. My gosh. Because I what would have been more empowering is to probably say, oh, well, I guess I don't have the money for this. Let's take this, this and this and just kind of like the easiest thing to do is to tell the truth.
But I was so filled with shame. Yeah. So I started to develop this habit of hitting the snooze button because what would happen is the alarm would go off in the morning.
And the first thing I would think about is all the problems that we had and how awfully things had gone off the tracks. You didn't want to deal with them. No.
And I also didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't think I could. And this goes back to the feelings.
Like you think that you need to feel confident or courageous in order to get started. You don't. You actually just have to start.
And that's the riddle of life. That lying in bed hoping that you wake up some morning motivated to change, that's not the answer. You actually have to learn how to push yourself. You have to learn how to leverage the power of your decisions and you've got to learn how to take action when you don't feel like it. Because every morning when I woke up, I did not feel confident.
I felt like a loser. I felt like the world's worst parent. I felt like I had failed at every single turn. I did not know if Chris and I could pull out of the spiral. I did not know if we were going to go bankrupt and lose the house and move from our community.
I did not know if our marriage would survive. I knew I wanted it to. And see, this is the knowledge action gap. You can know what you want.
You can know what you should be doing. But how do you make yourself do it when the feelings and the motivation isn't there? When all you got is fear.
And so every night I would lie in bed and I would say to myself, All right, that's it, Mel. Tomorrow, it's the new you. Tomorrow, you're going to wake up and be motivated.
You're going to get up. You're going to exercise like everybody says you should. You're going to meditate.
You're going to get those kids on the bus. You're going to screw Fox. You're going to look for a job.
You're going to cold call Cox Media, and you're going to do auditions. Come on, girl. Let's go.
Let's go. Let's go. You're going to take a cold shower. Woo! You know, here we go.
And I meant it when I was saying it. Maybe it was the alcohol that was talking. But then I would wake up and I didn't feel any of those things.
So I would hit the snooze and I would hit the snooze. Now, why was I hitting the snooze when I knew it wasn't the right decision? I'm going to tell you why. And this is something that I was blown away by when I discovered it. You don't make decisions with your goals.
You don't make decisions with your prefrontal cortex. You don't make decisions with logic. Do you know how we make decisions?
I didn't invent this. A neuroscientist by the name of Damasio, who does his research in Brazil, who gave an incredible TED talk and wrote about this forever and ever and ever. We make decisions of feelings.
95% of our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment. And that is the problem. You need to take control of the moment and leverage the power of your decisions and make them up here. Because when I was lying in bed, I wasn't saying to myself, I should get up. because that's going to help me start my day right.
I was saying, do I feel like getting up? No, you don't. No. Do you feel like making that cold call?
No, you don't. Do you feel like doing that third set of reps? No, you don't.
Do you feel like having that hard conversation? No, you don't. Do you feel like ending this relationship, whether it's in business or in your life, that is sucking you dry?
No, you don't. We make... decisions based on our feelings and that is robbing you of joy and opportunity and it is blinding you from the fact that all how you change your life is one five second decision at a time one push at a time and if you if you accept the fact that you may never feel ready and you may never feel motivated and you may never feel confident you may never feel courageous and that's okay but you can still push yourself forward what happens over time is as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes action, that you start to see yourself becoming the kind of person that speaks, even though your voice is shaking, you're the kind of person that, that, that has a bias toward moving instead of a bias toward thinking, guess what happens? You build the skill of confidence and courage. And so what happened for me is I was stuck, Lewis.
I mean, I was so stuck. I was on, I mean, we were heading straight for divorce. We were heading for bankruptcy.
I knew I wanted to change things. And so one night I see this commercial. This is the stupidest story on the planet, but this is what happened. I see this commercial.
And, you know, again, I also was drinking too much. I mean, I probably had a couple of Manhattans in me. That's my drink.
I'm from the Midwest, just like you. All right. A little Manhattan there. A little bourbon.
And there was a rocket ship launching. On a commercial. Yeah. And I had this instinct. This innovation, this disruptive idea, right?
Oh my god, Mel, that's the answer. Tomorrow morning, you're going to launch your ass out of bed like a rocket ship. You're going to move so fast, you can't even think about your problems. Dumb, right? Totally dumb.
Seems like this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I cannot believe I have this chick on my podcast. I understand it.
You got to get moving first. Yes. That's the thing. You just got to wake up at 6 a.m.
or whenever it is and go into the gym. When you're in the gym, you're going to start moving the first weight. And then you'll start moving the second weight. Actually, people use the five-second rule at the gym because you know how much time people waste at the gym standing around thinking about the next thing?
Probably 70% of the time. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So the next morning, the alarm goes off. And nothing had changed in my life. I woke up. to the lean on the house, the fighting with Chris, the unemployment, the lack of confidence, the lack of courage, like the whole thing.
But I did something I had never done before. I went five, four, three, two, one, just like NASA. I actually counted.
And then I stood up and I was like, what the hell just happened? What? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
The next morning I used it again, it worked. The next morning I used it again, it worked. And then I started to notice something. And this is this is one of those things. So we have a we have an 11 year old son who has dyslexia.
And when they finally diagnosed him, it was as if, of course, it was as if like, how could we have possibly missed this? Are we the worst parents in the world? I mean, the kid can barely write.
He can't cut his food. He doesn't read like, no wonder he doesn't do team sports. It was right under our nose. And what I'm about to tell you is right under everybody's nose.
There's a five second window between the instincts, the shoulds. the urges, the inner wisdom, the things that can change your life if you listen to it. Got a five second window from the moment you feel that instinct to move. And if you don't, your brain is actually designed to kill it. Five seconds is all you have.
The second you hesitate, it's actually, and you feel yourself hesitating, that is a moment of huge power because what's happened is you've just started to pull back from something that you need to lean into. And if you count backwards 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and this is the neuroscience behind why this stupid little trick works, counting is an action. Counting backwards requires focus. It's also not a habit for you yet.
So when you feel yourself hesitate, you're triggering your mind that something's up. Like Lewis didn't hesitate when he pulled on his pants. He didn't hesitate when he's drinking his coffee. He didn't hesitate when he walked out the door to the gym, but now he's hesitating to make that call. Your mind now goes into a cognitive bias called the spotlight effect.
It magnifies whatever it was that you hesitated doing. The moment. The moment, yeah. Like all of a sudden you're like, hey, I don't feel like it.
Like, I don't know, maybe I'll do it later. And your mind is doing it because your mind's trying to protect you. Hesitation signals a red flag to your mind that something's up.
Just that small hesitation. It's a habit that we all have. Should you hesitate if you're getting a tattoo?
Yes. Should you hesitate if you're gambling? Yes.
Should you hesitate if you are signing a legal document? Yes. You need your prefrontal cortex for those things.
You need to interrupt it, make a power, make a decision. Should you hesitate on making a phone call? No. Should you hesitate on speaking up in a meeting? No.
Should you hesitate when you feel yourself starting to procrastinate and you know you got work that you should get done? No, you shouldn't hesitate at all. Should you hesitate in saying the thing that you really feel in your heart?
No, you shouldn't. Should you hesitate and edit yourself when you're talking? No, you shouldn't. But we've all trained ourselves to. So it's actually this habit of hesitating.
You start catching yourself. It's a huge moment of power because you have a decision to make and you got to make it in the next five seconds. Are you going to go on autopilot and get trapped in your mind? Or are you going to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and awaken your prefrontal cortex and drive forward?
So I started to use this rule as I noticed that every day, all day long, I had these moments of inner wisdom where I would know that I needed to pick up the phone and stop isolating myself. I would know that I needed to call a bunch of media companies and start auditioning for radio show hosting gigs. I knew that I should get out of bed on time. I knew I should stop myself before I snapped at Chris.
Right? Self-monitor. Yeah. I knew I should not feel, let the frustration be the things that was driving me. And so I started to use the rule all day long.
Whenever I felt this, I should do this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I would make myself do it. And slowly, five seconds at a time, my entire life started. started to change. And my husband used it in his business and he and his business partner dove in.
They went on to open seven more restaurants. I went on to launch and sell two businesses and get recruited by CNN and join their team. I had a syndicated radio show that, that ended up winning the Gracie award, which is kind of the female media, you know, awards for the number one talk show in the country.
And, you know, I never intended to tell anybody about the five second rule. First of all, because it's stupid. Right. I mean, come on. Count backwards?
That's the dumbest thing ever. It's not stupid to me, though. Anything that works, works for me.
That's true. You know what I mean? I'll take any stupid thing.
That's true. And so, but I also was like, how do you start talking about something like that, right? Yeah.
So, I was asked to give a TED Talk like six years ago. And TED, six years ago, not the brand that it was today. They weren't even putting the talks online yet. Really? Yeah.
The TEDx talks were not online yet. And so, that was the first speech I'd ever given in my life. If you want to see what somebody looks like having a panic attack for 21 minutes straight, watch that speech.
I was backstage and it was like one PhD after another going out there. I'm like, what the hell have I gotten myself into? This is the fattest thing.
And so at the very end, I wasn't even planning on talking about it. I say, oh, by the way, there's this thing I do. That's it.
I don't even explain it. And you know why I didn't explain it, Lewis? I didn't know why it worked. So you didn't have the science, the research, you were just like...
Zero. Zero. And then something crazy happened. They put that talk online a year later and people started to write.
We've heard from more than 100,000 people in 90 countries that have written to us that are using the rule in ways big and small to change their lives, to change their marriages, to change their thinking patterns, to grow their businesses. We know of 11 people that have stopped themselves from killing themselves. Wow. Um, in the moment, there's a gentleman that we talk about in the book and you can see his social media posts in London. He was a, he was a veteran and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and he boarded a ferry with the intention of jumping overboard and he got to the railing and he was standing there and his inner wisdom kicked in.
And this is another thing I want everybody watching to understand. I don't care what you're facing or how low you get. Your inner wisdom is always there. It is. And the thing is, is that we often don't listen to it.
And so he's standing there intending to kill himself and that inner wisdom kicks in. And he remembers the five second rule. And he goes five, four, three, two, one.
And he turns and physically moves away from the railing and finds the first person working on the ferry and tells him that he's suicidal. Saved his life. He saved his life because he listened to. the inner wisdom. And this is the other thing I love about this rule.
It's not something to think about. It's a tool to use. So the part of the problem with a lot of the advice that I've found for me personally, is that a lot of advice is all about kind of doing mental battle. And if I go upstairs, I'm behind enemy lines and I tend to get hijacked.
So I love this tool because 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 interrupts those patterns. It actually prompts the part of the brain that I need in order to change. And it makes changing easier because I've now got my mind working for me instead of against me. And it gets me out of my head.
And so I'm super excited to share this rule with people because I now know not only that it's working, just not for me. It's working for people around the world. And, you know, in the book, it took me three years to write it.
It's all the science behind the rule. It's got more than 150 social media posts in it. So you see stories from around the world of people using it to end procrastination, to build confidence, to deepen their relationships, to launch businesses, to explode the sales.
Why does it help with sales? I'll tell you why. Because you can't sell by thinking.
Selling is about action. We have groups. from companies around the world, sales teams that put 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 up on the wall.
I'm sure they hate me. That's cool. Yes, because cold calling, it's a momentum thing. If you stop and think, the phone is not getting, the dialing is not happening when you're thinking. If you're thinking about all those no's you've been getting, you're not going to want to do it again because it doesn't feel good.
Yes, and if you're in the middle of a negotiation or you're in the middle of a really difficult conversation, and again, remember what we said earlier? You cannot control your feelings that rise up, but you can always control how you think. and what you do.
So if you're in the middle of a difficult conversation and you feel those feelings come up that normally trigger you to start editing yourself, or to censor yourself or to silence yourself or to think sabotaging thoughts and like a business negotiation. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Awaken the prefrontal cortex. Get back in the game. I started to use it for every moment in my life where I knew what to do, but I didn't feel like it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 literally just decimates any excuse that you have.
And as I started to use it in my life to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, not be an asshole to Chris. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Turn and walk away from the bourbon and not have a drink. 54321 pick up the phone and network. 54321 walk out the door and go to the gym. Everything changed because my decisions changed.
And the thing that was interesting about that period of my life is that there were a couple things that is true for all of us that got revealed to me in that moment. And here's what's true for all of us. Number one, our life is defined by our decisions. Number two, Most of us know what we should be doing. Number three, if you're in a situation where you should do something and the excuses roll in, you only have five fucking seconds before the excuses win.
That's it. And it has to do with how your brain is designed. And so I started seeing...
this five-second window everywhere. Everywhere. You walk into a networking meeting and the five-second window is right there because you look around and you see all these people you should talk to and you feel yourself freeze.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you can start walking. If you're trying to sell something, the five-second window is always there because you either have a phone you need to pick up and make a phone call or you have a person you need to talk to. But instead of doing it, that five-second window's right there, and the excuses roll in, and then you're not doing it.
Yep. And so... It's almost like we talk ourselves out of it, right?
After five seconds, like, why not to do it? All these excuses. And then it's even more sophisticated than that, which is what I discovered. And what's more sophisticated about it is that you have two modes to your brain. You have the prefrontal cortex, which is the mode of your brain, it's the front part of your brain, that does all your strategic planning, your decision-making, your...
Not all your decision-making, that's wrong. It does your intentional decision-making, conscious decision-making. It's what you're using when you're acting with courage.
It's what you're using when you are learning anything new. If you've ever taken a standardized test, when you walk out of a standardized test, what do you have? You have a freaking headache because you've been using this part of your brain. That's the one part.
The other part is the interior part of your brain which automates everything. It's where self-doubt is. It's where habits are. It's where...
automated decision-making is. It's where every negative bullshit shit that we do it's stuck right here. So what the five-second rule is actually doing on a very sophisticated level is it's switching off this part and awakening the part that gives you control. And so the problem with our excuses if you want to get into the brain science is that if you start to think and you start to think I feel tired or I don't want to or I'm too stressed out or now's not the right time that becomes automatic and it gets encoded right here.
So part of the problem with our excuses is that when you stop and think and hesitate, you trigger your brain to automatically talk you out of it. That's the problem. It's not the excuses. It's that your brain has done it over and over and now it takes over.
So I invented the world's most powerful cheat code for the brain. One night when I was sitting in my living room watching television. Remind me to tell you the story about the reticular activity system, the RES in the brain, and my metaphor of doing laundry.
Okay, you are in my go zone for sure. I know, you are good. Of all people on the planet, you are the one that is going to go, Ah, this is so good!
Alright, we're going to laundry after this. So, the five second rule. So the five second rule is... Brilliant. Desperate.
Are you kidding? It is brilliant, but the story is desperate. It's 2008, we're in the middle of the housing crisis.
My husband has followed his dream and gone into the restaurant business, opening up a string of little pizza restaurants with his best friend. We were new entrepreneurs, so of course when location number one was great, what do you do? Complete idiots. We cash out our 401ks, our kids'college savings.
We get a home equity line because that's free money. We cash out the credit cards. We ask friends and family to invest.
We go all in. And then Chris and his business partner, as is the case in the restaurant business, the The location was a huge dog. Too big, too expensive, wrong location, tons of traffic driving by every day as you're sitting there with an empty restaurant knowing you're f***ed.
These guys are so committed to returning an investment. I have to hand it to Chris and Jonathan. They work day and night to pull this plane crash out of like the room, factoring in this, and like just anything you could possibly do. So we find ourselves in a situation in 2008, 41 years old, and we're $800,000 in debt. Wow.
Dude, I could not pay for it. There was a moment, the rock bottom moment was this morning where I went, and we live in a nice neighborhood, friends have invested, we can't let them know this is happening. Boy.
Kids, three of them under the age of 10. Ugh. Whoa. I remember going to the grocery store.
And I went to an Ivy League school. I have a law degree. But here I am unemployed.
We've lost everybody's money. We're about to lose the house. And I'm doing that.
I don't know if you've ever played this sort of like mental bingo game with your check card where you're like, OK, please, dear God, let the let the electronic system not talk to the bank. Absolutely. Yes, please.
Yes. So I'm standing there. She's scanning this stuff, knowing that the balance is red. And I'm thinking, please, please, please, please, please just let this go through, please.
And the woman looks at me and says, oh, you know, this was declined. I was ready with my excuse. I would always cock my head and go, well, that's weird, because it just worked at the gas station, which was a complete lie. I've done this. And then I'd be like, okay, kids, let's go to the car and get my other card.
And we would walk out of there and leave the stuff, and I'd get in the car and drive away. Oh, my God. Gosh. And then I, of course, would come home and drink to numb all of the everything. So I was sitting in a chair and I was doing that thing.
Have you? I'm sure you have. Have you ever like? been in such a little moment where you give yourself a pep talk?
Yes. That is a pathetic moment. I have been there. Yeah.
I was there to it. Yeah. You know, that's it.
No. Tomorrow morning. It's the new you.
No more drinking. Gotta be nice to your husband. You gotta look for a job.
Girl, you gotta get these kids on the bus on time. And by God, woman, when that alarm rings, you have got to get out of bed. You cannot lay there. Like a human pot roast marinating in fear. You cannot hit the snooze button four times.
You have got to get up and get the day started. And then, honest to God, what happened is a rocket ship launched across a television screen. It was probably the four Manhattans that gave me this idea.
I was going to say, are we sure? It's really stupid, you know? And I thought...
Such a great storyteller. That's it. Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, you've got to launch yourself out of bed.
If you move fast enough, Mel, you will beat the anxiety. You won't be in the bed when the anxiety hits. So I, the next morning, and this is the power of the five-second rule. Now, keep in mind, I didn't know any of this at the time. A lot like the high-five habit.
It was this super simplistic moment that changed everything. And what changed everything for me was the very next morning. It was a Tuesday in February outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I'm familiar with that location. And the alarm rings.
And what I'm about to share with you, if you've never heard this, you'll never see life again the same. You never will. Once you see what I'm about to show you, you can't unsee this.
There is a five-second moment of hesitation that defines your entire life. It's the moment of hesitation that is the gap between what psychologists call a bias towards thinking and a bias towards action, right? The moment you have an impulse to move.
to say something, to do something, you'll start hesitating as you think about it. If you don't physically move within those five seconds, your basal ganglia takes over and you drift into a bias toward thinking. If you can manage what you think and do in that five-second window, you know the secret to changing any habit, any behavior, any thought pattern.
Now, I didn't know that then. All I knew is I had thought of this dumb thing while I was drunk, and now it's February in Massachusetts, and it's dark and it's freezing. The alarm goes off. I start thinking, I'm not going to fucking launch myself out of it.
This is dumb. How is this going to help? I don't want to get out of it. It's cold.
It's dark. It's dark. I start reaching for the snooze button, and then I go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I stand up. And I'm like, that's weird. Oh, my gosh.
I go on with my day. The next morning, same thing. I immediately remember, I immediately, Dom, I'm not doing it, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I stand up again. It was the third morning, and look, I'm like you, somebody that I'm like super optimistic, but really resigned, you know what I mean? Like kind of skeptical, even though I'm really positive.
Like, yeah, prove it, you know, like that kind of thing. So I'm like, okay, I start arguing. Okay, so you invented some stupid ass thing that helps you get out of bed.
How the fuck is this going to pay off a million dollars, right? And then I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're about to lose everything, woman.
What do you got to, like, why not try it? And so this was the simple thing I said to myself. Any moment today, I know what I should do.
But I don't feel like it? Just count backwards, see what happens. I'll explain the science around this thing in a minute.
So I walk into the kitchen, and there's my poor husband, Chris. I love him my life. We're celebrating 25 years married next week.
Congratulations. Poor guy standing there, minding his own business, looking for breakfast. And you know how that thing happens where you see somebody you love and you just want to kill them? Yes.
So there's Chris and I'm like. And you know, here's the thing, I knew he wasn't trying to bankrupt us. I knew the man was working, I knew he was full of shame and scared and felt so bad. And here's the other thing I knew, I knew I didn't wanna get a divorce. Okay.
I knew I didn't wanna treat him like this. I was so triggered and here's why. It is so much easier Ed to be angry than it is to be afraid.
And they're closely related aren't they? But you've checked the anger button. Yeah. So I go five, four, three, two, one. And that counting backwards, here's what it's doing in your mind.
It is interrupting habit loops and emotional responses that get stored in your basal ganglia and run on autopilot and control your fucking life. And when you start counting backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the moment you start counting, you've made a decision to interrupt the pattern. Oh, boy, yeah.
And by the counting backwards, when you first start doing it, it engages your prefrontal cortex because it requires focus. By the time you get to one, you have created a moment where you have taken control and you now can consciously choose what you think or do next. And so I used it every single day in secret to walk away from the bourbon, to pick up the phone and call and start network. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go out the door and exercise. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Don't snap at the kids.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Get out of bed even though you don't feel like it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Tell the truth. Reach out to friends.
All the things. Because here's the thing. We all know what we need to do. We don't know how to make ourselves do it. Do it.
So the five-second rule, I never intended to tell anybody. You'll love this story. In three years flat, I go from unemployed to cold calling my way into a radio audition and getting a job at a digital marketing agency because we had bills to pay.
And I end up with this little Saturday morning show that ends up doing really, really well in Boston, WTKK. And then it gets picked up by Cox Media and I end up winning an award called the Gracie Award and CNN calls. And they're like, we love radio hosts. We love how you talk about complicated topics like you're sitting at a kitchen table.
We don't want Fox News to have you. You're in, woman. And so I became a legal and social commentator paid by CNN. Incredible. So my life is turning around.
Chris and Jonathan are working day and night to get the business. They end up opening more units. And like, so that gets turned around.
Our marriage gets better. I'm not in personal development. We still have liens on our house. Like, we're still like trying to figure. This is 2011, and somebody calls and is like, hey, your college roommate said you've changed your jobs a lot.
Would you ever come give a talk about it at this thing called TEDx? I'm like, I've never given a speech before, but okay. I used to be a criminal defense attorney. I can do this.
This was the first TEDx conference, so there was no real major protocol, right? Okay. So I show up with my 20-minute speech and no prep. No prep. If you watch my TEDx talk, you will see me having a 21 minute long panic attack on stage.
If you look closely, I have a chest rash that comes on from anxiety. I'm darting all over the place. I forgot how to end that speech. Yeah, that's what happens when you're really nervous. You forget the end.
And so I paused at the very end because that was not about the five second rule. And I look out into the audience and I go, oh, there's this thing I do. I call it the five second rule.
The moment you have an instinct to move, you got to move in five seconds or your brain will kill the instinct to move. I was so. Disassociated it I gave out my email address and then I left and I went back to my life at CNN and back to working hard with Chris to claw our way out of debt and prove our marriage and pay our bills and like I'm not kidding we got the liens off our house just like three years ago and so a year goes by so it's now 2012 somebody starts people start messaging me on Facebook about the speech and I'm like Oh, were you in San Francisco?
They're like, no, I saw it online. I'm like, it's online? I didn't even know. It gets a million views within a year.
People start to now, 2013, ask me to come talk. I have no formal speech. I'm not even really talking about the five-second rule all that much. I'm sort of mentioning it in this speech. It's starting to spread.
I'm now up at night with a bottle of wine answering emails from people in India and, you know, like Bali and the UK about... I've lost a hundred pounds with this count backwards thing. Why is this working? And because I work at CNN, I can email somebody like Dr. Amen and say, Why is it working? Yeah, can I interview you about this little brain hack?
Is this not incredible? It is incredible. There is no other explanation other than the universe or God said, this is something that needs to get out into the world and this chick is the one who's going to do it.
Unbelievable. Because I'll tell you what, it takes some very big balls to stand on a stage. It does.
with 20,000 people and convince an arena full of people that you can change your life by counting backwards from five. It's so simple. And believe it with every fiber of my being.
And so I now understand the science, but more than that, I have the real life stories of literally hundreds of thousands of people. And we know of 111 people who have not committed suicide. Because they have counted backwards. We know of veterans that are retraining their reaction to triggers associated with PTSD.
Obviously it does not regulate a dysregulated nervous system. It gives you a moment of control. It works with OCD.
We have pediatricians using it with kids to interrupt the thoughts that cause anxiety. Over and over and over. The things that you know what you need to do.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 is a tool you can use in five seconds flat to interrupt the that's holding you back and push yourself to take the actions that change your life. you subscribe.