Book Name: The 5 Second Rule
Writer: Mel Robbins
Inside this book, I’m going to share everything that I’ve learned about change
and the power of everyday courage. You’re going to love what you are about to
learn. The coolest part will be when you start to use the Rule and see the results for
yourself. You will not only wake up and realize just how much you’ve held yourself
back. You will also awaken the power that’s been inside of you all along.
As you read the stories inside these pages, you might even realize that you’ve
used the #5SecondRule before. If you look back on your life and reflect on some
of the most important moments, I guarantee that you’ve made a life-evolving
decision purely on instinct. In five seconds flat, you made, what I call, a “heart-first
decision.” You ignored your fears and let your courage and your confidence speak
for you. Five seconds of courage makes all the difference.
Just ask Catherine. When she first learned about the #5SecondRule at her
company’s executive leadership offsite, it made her realize she had used the Rule to
make one of the most important decisions of her life—she just didn’t realize it at
the time. In 1990, her sister Tracy was killed and Catherine traveled back home to
help. That’s when “a 5 Second decision” changed not only her life “but so many
others as well.” She decided to raise her sister’s “two little ones” who were “left
behind” when Tracy died.
I love how she describes the decision as a “no brainer”— because when you act
with courage, your brain is not involved. Your heart speaks first and you listen. The
The rule will teach you how.
Will it take some effort on your part to discover the power within you? Yes, it
will. But as Marlowe said just a few pages ago, “It is absolutely incredible and awe-
inspiring how easy things become” when you do.
Doing the work to improve your life is simple, you can do it, and it’s work you
want to do—because it’s the most important work that there is. It is the work of
learning how to love and trust yourself enough to stop waiting and to start leaning
into all the magic, opportunity, and joy that your life, work, and relationships have
to offer.
I’m so excited to hear about what happens when you start using the
#5SecondRule. But I’m jumping ahead of the story. Before we can talk about all of
the exciting ways that you can use the Rule, I need to take you back to 2009 and
explain how this all started.
cour-age/’kerij/
thing
The ability to do something that is difficult or alarming Stepping outside of your comfort zone Sharing your ideas, speaking up, or showing up Standing firm in your beliefs and values And some days… getting out of bed.
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CHAPTER TWO HOW I DISCOVERED THE 5 SECOND RULE
his all started in 2009. I was 41 years old and facing some major problems
with money, work, and in my marriage. As soon as I woke up each morning,
all I felt was dread.
Have you ever felt that way? It’s the worst. The alarm rings, and you just don’t
feel like getting up and facing the day. Or, you lie awake at night with your head
spinning as you worry about all of your problems.
That was me. For months, I felt so overwhelmed by the problems I had that I
could barely get out of bed. When the alarm rang at 6 a.m., I would lie there and
think about the day ahead, the lien on the house, the negative account balance, my
failed career, how much I resented my husband… and then I would hit the snooze
button. Not once, but over and over again.
In the beginning, it wasn’t a big deal, but as is the case with any bad habit, as
time went on, it snowballed into a much bigger problem that impacted my entire
day. By the time I finally got up, the kids had missed the bus and I felt like I was
failing at life. I spent most of my days tired, running late, and feeling totally
overpowered.
I don’t even know how it started—I just remember feeling so defeated all the
time. My professional life was in the gutter. Over the past 12 years, I had changed
careers so many times that I was developing multiple personalities. After graduating
from law school, I started my career as a public defender for the Legal Aid Criminal
Defense Society in NYC. Then I met my husband Chris and we got married and
moved to Boston so that he could pursue his MBA. In Boston, I worked crazy
hours for a large law firm and was miserable all the time.
When our daughter was born, I used my maternity leave to look for a new job
and landed in the Boston startup scene. I worked for several tech startups during
those years. It was fun and I learned a lot but I never felt like tech was the right
career for me.
I hired a coach to help me figure out “what to do with my life.” Working with a
coach led me to want to become one. So, like a lot of people, I worked during the
day, focused on the kids when I got home, and then I studied at night to get the
certification I needed. Eventually, I launched a coaching business. I loved it, and I
would probably still be doing it if the media had not called.
My media career began as a fluke: Inc. magazine published an article featuring
my coaching business and an executive at CNBC saw it and called. That one call led
to lots of meetings. After months of tryouts, I landed a “development deal” with
ABC and a call-in radio show on Sirius.
Sounds fancy, but it wasn’t. I was surprised to learn that most development
deals pay next to nothing and that radio pays even less than that. In reality, I was a
mother of three driving back and forth to NYC, sleeping on friends’ couches in the
city, coaching clients on the side to make the ends meet, leaning too much on
friends and family to fill the childcare gaps, and doing whatever I could to make it
all work.
After several years of scraping by in the media business, I got my “big break.” I
was cast to host a reality show for FOX. I had visions of magically solving all of
our financial problems by becoming a TV star. What a joke. We shot a few episodes
of a show called Someone’s Gotta Go, and then the network tabled the show. In an
instant, my media career hit a dead end. I only got paid if we were shooting. I
found myself unemployed and locked into a contract for ten months that prevented
me from pursuing another media job.
By this point, Chris had finished his MBA and started a thin crust pizza
restaurant with his best friend in the Boston area. In the beginning, things were
going great. The first location was a home run, the company won Best of
Boston™, multiple regional awards, and the pizza were fantastic. They opened up a
second restaurant and, on the encouragement of a large grocery chain, a wholesale
operation. On the outside, it looked like business was booming. But on the balance
sheet, the wheels were starting to come off. They had expanded too quickly. The
second restaurant failed and the wholesale business needed more cash to grow.
Things got scary very fast.
Like a lot of small business owners, we had poured our home equity line and
life savings into the restaurant business and it was now disappearing before our
eyes. We had no savings left and the home equity line was fully tapped out. Weeks
went by without Chris getting paid. Liens started to hit our house.
With me out of work and Chris’s business struggling, the financial pressure
mounted; scary letters from attorneys seemed to arrive daily, and checks constantly
bounced. The collection calls were so relentless that we unplugged the phone.
When my dad sent us money to cover the mortgage, I was both grateful and
embarrassed.
In public, we tried to keep up appearances because so many friends and family
members had invested in the restaurant business, which only made the pressure
worse. Chris and his partner were working around-the-clock to save it. I tried to
keep an upbeat façade, but on the inside, I was overwhelmed, embarrassed, and
afraid. Our financial problems were tearing us apart. I blamed the restaurants and
he blamed me for pursuing a career in the media business. In truth, we were both to
a fault.
No matter how bad your life can seem, you can always make it worse. I did. I
drank too much. Way too much. I was jealous of friends who didn’t have to work. I
was bitchy and judgmental. Our problems seemed so big that I convinced myself
there was nothing I could do. Meanwhile, in public, I just pretended everything was
fine.
In hindsight, I can see that is was just easier to feel sorry for myself and blame
Chris and his struggling business than to take a look in the mirror and pull me
together. The best way to describe how I felt was “trapped.” I felt trapped by my
life and the decisions I had made. I felt trapped by our money problems. And I felt
trapped in a frustrating struggle with myself.
I knew what I should or could be doing to make things better, but I couldn’t
make myself do those things. They were small things: getting up on time, being
nicer to Chris, getting support from friends, drinking less, and taking better care of
myself. But knowing what you need to do isn’t enough to create a change.
I would think about exercising, but I wouldn’t. I would consider calling a friend
to talk, but I didn’t. I knew that if I tried to find a job outside of the media industry
it would help, but I couldn’t motivate myself to look. I didn’t feel comfortable
going back to coaching people because I felt like such a failure myself.
I knew what I needed to do but I couldn’t make myself take action. And that’s
the thing that makes change so hard. Change requires you to do things that feel
hard and scary. Change requires courage and confidence—and I was tapped out of
both.
What I did do was spend a lot of time thinking. Thinking made everything
worse. The more I thought about the situation that we were in, the more afraid I
felt. That’s what your mind does when you focus.
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