Mel Robbins’s ‘let them’ theory is changing lives. These 6 magic words changed hers.

“Let them” is the two-word phrase that Mel Robbins made famous when she wrote a book encouraging people to take control of their own lives by relinquishing judgment of (and from) others. Your friends didn’t invite you to dinner? Let them. The car driver in front of you is going too slow? Let them. Your coworker is stepping on your toes at work? Let them — and spend your time doing something productive rather than worrying about it. It’s a mantra that’s struck a chord with millions around the world, propelling Robbins to household name status in the process. But there’s a different phrase Robbins herself uses in her own day-to-day life: What if it all works out?

Those are “six magic words that change everything,” the 56-year-old author and podcast host tells me during a conversation for Yahoo Life’s Unapologetically series, where we’re set to discuss aging and reinvention. Robbins appears to have a positive outlook on both those things, but it wasn’t always this way, and it didn’t come overnight.

“Nothing that I teach or that I share online or in the podcast or in books or anywhere came from positive motivation. … I don't know what it is, but I am negatively motivated,” she admits. “I literally had to learn everything the hard way. I had to just about lose everything that mattered to me. I had to get so sick of my own shit that I was like, There's got to be an easier way.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Robbins’s lore — as I was before accidentally attending the New York stop of her “Let Them: The Tour” — it’s important to know the former lawyer’s work in self-help began when she needed it most. At 41 years old, she found herself in massive debt, unhappy in her marriage and abusing alcohol, all while raising three young kids. She struggled with negative thinking until she decided to flip the script.

“If you're going to torture yourself by constantly considering the negative, you owe it to yourself to force yourself to consider the positive,” says Robbins of the six-word question. “It is magical for anxiety. It's magical for procrastination. It's magical for perfectionism. It's magical for overthinking. It stops you from stopping yourself … and it has absolutely changed my life.”

So does she believe in being older and wiser? Not really. But establishing honesty with herself and with others has helped. Here’s what she has to say about it.

Why are these simple mantras such a staple of your practice and advice?

When you recognize that almost everything that you believe was planted in your brain by parents or society or friends or the media, you also have this other epiphany: If my brain was taught to believe this, maybe I should get serious about teaching my brain to believe things that make me feel good instead of making me believe things that don't. That to me is kind of the biggest insight, that you don't have a choice over what's happened in the past and what brought you to where you are right now in this moment. … But you always have a choice from this moment on [in terms of] what you do next and what you say to yourself about the things that have happened. And that is a life-changing realization.

That's not just positive thinking bulls***, because I don't think you just say positive things and the world's problems go away. What I'm talking about is intentionally encoding in your mind patterns of thinking that lift you up and make you more optimistic and resilient, which better equips you to deal with the very real issues, problems, challenges and opportunities that you're facing. They don't make things disappear. Your mindset has the power to armor you up in a way so that you're stronger and better equipped at facing what life throws your way.

What was the turning point that brought you to that more positive way of thinking?

Reinvention in my life has been constant. And reinvention happens in different ways. You can be forced to reinvent yourself because you get fired or you can't pay your bills or you let yourself go and you can't climb a flight of stairs without hyperventilating or you realize you have been in a string of relationships with people that treat you like garbage. … So there are the moments where life forces your hand.

For me, it was more an accumulation of things that were not working in my life, an accumulation of a way of going through life that didn't feel good and it finally just boiled over, and I'm like, I have to change, I'm not happy. … When you realize that, like, Wow, I've been depressed for 40 years. I'm kind of tired of feeling that way, that's the only realization that you need to go, There must be a better way. Of the 8 billion people on this planet, someone must have figured out how to go from where I am and what I feel to feeling a little better. And if someone else has done it, then maybe I can take those steps too.

Does age have anything to do with that?

I think about life as if we are all on one big, long walk together. You start at mile marker zero, and you end wherever it ends. On the road of life, there are always going to be people that are slightly in front of you and people that are behind you, and not because of age. I think your mile markers mark the time here, but where people are on the road of life in relation to you has to do with whether or not they've gone through something.

If you have the kind of mindset where you could learn anything from anyone, there are things that you've gone through that I haven't gone through yet, you're a couple steps ahead of me. And if I have an open mind and open energy, and I'm willing to lean into life and be interested in other people, there are things that you would teach me because you've gone through them and I haven't. The same is true with me. Just because I'm older doesn't mean I necessarily know more. I've certainly made more mistakes, but I look at everybody as somebody that you can learn from, and I personally feel like you are best equipped to help the person you used to be.

You have to have a level of self-awareness and honesty that seems to come naturally to you. Would you say that’s true?

Oh my god, no. I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was a people pleaser. I would do anything to make you like me. I would pretend I liked the same music you liked.

What's interesting is I don't think it naturally comes with age either. I think a lot of people that say they know who they are in their 50s are lying. I think you can figure out who you are at any age if you actually start saying what you really feel and telling the truth and saying, “I don't know but I can find out” or “I've never experienced that” or “I disagree with you.” … I think you can have that realization at 30, you can have it at 25 — but there's so much social pressure.

What did you think your 50s would look like?

Well, I always find it very jarring that when I was in my 30s, Betty White was on The Golden Girls. She was my age [now]. … I thought 50 would be time to get retired, time to start looking old, time to be irrelevant to society because, you know, it's about the 20-year-old celebrities and we're like the old mayors getting thrown out into the corral. No. It's actually the opposite. I feel like the longer you live, the more you know who you are and who you're not. And that's a very freeing thing.

There is this massive kind of leveling up or self-awareness that we all have about the benefits and the importance of taking care of ourselves and understanding that just because you get older doesn't mean you're getting frail or ugly or unwanted or undeserving. … What's exciting about being 50 is that, given the world that we live in, there is so much amazing information about how to make the most of your life, whatever that means for you, no matter what age you are.

You are a person who came into public consciousness in your 50s. Does that bring any pressure in terms of what you look like in this decade?

I think one of the reasons why people are so inspired by what I'm doing is it happened late in life. It's not like I was a public figure in my 20s and then did multiple reinventions and now I'm hosting a podcast — and there's nothing wrong with that. But literally, I'm a woman who has been married 30 years, I've raised three children, I have experienced bankruptcy, depression, anxiety, postpartum depression, the ups and downs. And I have never thought about whether or not I need to be good-looking or better-looking. In fact, our content does better the worse I look because I look like myself

I don't give a s*** what I look like. I really don't. … The obsession with beauty is both something that has been shoved at women and something we've allowed ourselves to be consumed by. And it is very liberating to understand that there is power in allowing yourself to be seen first by yourself and then by the world around you. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't look nice at work or dress up for an interview or dress the part. It doesn't mean you shouldn't pull yourself together because it makes you feel more confident. You should absolutely do those things. But it is liberating.

What age would you say you feel?

Oh, 25 maybe. Although I was really f***ed up when I was 25, so maybe I don't want to go back to that age. I mean, that was pre-therapy, pre-getting the anxiety and childhood trauma under control, pre-diagnosis of ADHD.

It's such a cliché, but I think age is more about energy and attitude. There have been periods of my life when I was a lot younger — I was in my mid-30s, for example — and I felt old and life felt heavy and I felt trapped or stuck or just did not know who I was, you know what I mean? So I do think it's really about the energy that you bring to life and the attitude that you have about life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.