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  • Bigger welcome! Hello, San Francisco!

  • TEDxoh my God, blinding light!

  • Hi, everybody! How are you?

  • (Audience cheering) Fine?! Oh my gosh! Okay, so...

  • My name is Mel Robbins, and for the last seventeen years,

  • I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want.

  • Within reason! My husband's here.

  • So, I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom,

  • in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in,

  • if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any means necessary.

  • For the last three years – I host a syndicated radio show.

  • Five days a week, I go live in forty cities

  • and I talk to men and women across America who feel stuck.

  • Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lives right now?

  • That is a hundred million people!

  • That's insane!

  • And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing,

  • which is also insane, it's called "In-laws".

  • I move in with families across America – (Laughter)

  • You guessed it!

  • who are at war with their in-laws.

  • We move them into the same house, I verbally assassinate everybody,

  • we open up Pandora's box,

  • and I get people to stop arguing about the donuts

  • and who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner,

  • and talk about the real stuff.

  • And that's what I want to talk to you about.

  • I'm here for you.

  • I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than eighteen minutes

  • about how to get what you want.

  • So I want you to take a millisecond right now

  • and think about what you want.

  • You!

  • And I want you to be selfish.

  • Screw Simon and the "We" thing. This is about me, right now!

  • (Laughter) (Applause) Sorry, Simon.

  • What do you want? And here's the deal.

  • I don't want it to sound good to other people.

  • Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill.

  • Losing your manboobs, so you can hook up with somebody,

  • now that's motivation. (Laughter)

  • So, I want to know: What do you want?

  • Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income?

  • Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to find love?

  • What is it? Get it, right here.

  • You know what it is, don't analyze it to death, just pick something.

  • That's part of the problem. You won't pick.

  • So, we're going to be talking about how you get what you want.

  • And frankly, getting what you want is simple.

  • But notice I didn't say it was easy.

  • It's very simple.

  • In fact, if you think about it,

  • we live in the most amazing moment in time.

  • So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be,

  • you want to use healthy eating to cure your diabetes,

  • you want to figure out how to take care of the elders

  • and start a new hospice center,

  • you want to move to Africa and build a school... Guess what?

  • You can walk into a book storeright now! –

  • and buy at least ten books written by credentialed experts

  • on how the hell you do it.

  • You could Google it.

  • And you could probably find at least, I don't know - a thousand blogs

  • documenting the step, by step, by step transformation

  • that somebody else is already doing.

  • You can find anybody online and cyber-stalk them!

  • (Laughter)

  • You can just walk in their footstepsjust use the science of drafting.

  • Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody is already doing it!

  • So why don't you have what you want,

  • when you have all the information that you need,

  • you have the contacts that you need,

  • there are probably free tools online that allow you to start a business,

  • or join a group, or do whatever the heck you want!?

  • It all comes down to one word:

  • F*©#.

  • Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about?

  • The f-bomb. It's everywhere!

  • You hear it all the time!

  • I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word.

  • I mean, you don't sound smart when you say it.

  • And it's really not expressing how you really feel.

  • It's sort of a cheap shot to take.

  • And of course you know I'm talking about the word "fine".

  • "How you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine."

  • Oh, really? You are?

  • Dragging around those extra forty pounds, you're fine?

  • Feeling like roommates with your spouse, and you're fine?

  • You haven't had sex in four months, you're fine?

  • Really?!

  • I don't think so!

  • But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine: It's actually genius.

  • Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it.

  • But when you think about this word "fine", it just makes me so angry.

  • Here we are at a conference about being alive

  • and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as "fine"(很好)?!

  • What a flimsy and feeble word!

  • If you're crappy, say you're crappy!

  • If you're amazing say you're amazing!

  • Tell the truth!

  • And this not only goes for the social construct:

  • "Oh, I don't want to burden you with the fact that I hate my life",

  • or: "Hey, I'm amazing! But that would make you feel terrible."

  • The bigger issue

  • The bigger issue with "fine" is that you say it to yourself.

  • That thing that you want, I guarantee you,

  • you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it.

  • That's why you're not pushing yourself.

  • It's the areas in your life where you've given up.

  • Where you've said,

  • "Oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change,

  • so I just can't have that conversation."

  • "I'm fine. We've got to wait until the kids graduate, before we get divorced,

  • so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms."

  • "I'm fine. I lost my job, I can barely pay my bills,

  • but whateverIt's hard to get a job."

  • One of the reasons why this word also just annoys me so much is,

  • scientists have calculated

  • Oh yeah, I'm coming down! (Laughter)

  • Scientists have calculated

  • the odds

  • of you

  • being born.

  • That's right. They've crunched the numbers. I see you up there.

  • They've crunched the numbers on you

  • Yeah, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this.

  • They've crunched the numbers on you being born.

  • And they took into account all of the wars,

  • and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs,

  • and everything else.

  • And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you,

  • yeah, right here, put your computer away,

  • stand up for me, Doug! (Laughter)

  • So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody

  • the odds of Doug being born

  • at the moment in time he was born,

  • to the parents you were born to, with the DNA structure that you have,

  • one in four hundred trillion!

  • Isn't that amazing? Doug: I'm so lucky!

  • Mel: Yes! You're not fine, you're fantastic!

  • You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself.

  • Thank you. Thank you, Doug. (Applause)

  • Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage.

  • Because all of you – we're all in this category.

  • One in four hundred trillion.

  • All day long you have ideas that could change your life,

  • that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel,

  • and what do you do with them? Nothing!

  • (Grunts) Hopefully I won't moon you. (Laughter)

  • You didn't pay for that. (Laughter)

  • And I want you to just think for a minute, because we all have

  • I love to use the analogy "the inner snooze button" –

  • you have these amazing ideas that bubble up.

  • You've been watching people all day

  • and I guarantee you, like ping pong ballsbam-bam-bam

  • and everytime you have an idea, what do you do? – Hit the snooze!

  • What's the first decision you made this morning?

  • I bet it was to go back to bed.

  • "Yeah, first decision today, I'm one in four hundred trillion,

  • I'm going to go back to sleep."

  • And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It's cosy, it's warm!

  • If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you,

  • or in my case, I've got my husband and my two kids and possibly the dog.

  • And the reason why I'm bringing up this first decision that you made today,

  • and the inner snooze alarm, is because

  • in any area of your life that you want to change,

  • anythere's one fact that you need to know.

  • This one:

  • You are never going to feel like it.

  • Ever.

  • No one's coming, motivation isn't happening,

  • you're never going to feel like it.

  • Scientists call it activation energy.