2 Ways to Believe in Yourself & Achieve Cool Things

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Niecy Nash-Betts won on her fifth try

  The episode is built around the actor's viral Emmy acceptance speech. She was 53, had been nominated for a Primetime Emmy five times and had lost four, and finally won Outstanding Supporting Actress for Dahmer. Mel asks listeners to compare it with their own losing streaks, such as four breakups, four rejected house offers, four medications that didn't work, or four promotions that went to someone else.

• 02

  Expect worthwhile work to gut you

  Mel's first takeaway comes from Nash-Betts thanking her partner 'who picked me up when I was gutted from this work.' Getting in shape, managing your health, writing a book or going back to school will include days that flatten you. If you expect that going in, a hard day doesn't derail you, because you saw it coming.

• 03

  Self-esteem means thanking yourself out loud

  Mel defines self-esteem as how you value and perceive yourself. Nash-Betts said, 'I want to thank me for believing in me and doing what they said I could not do,' and then, 'Go on, girl, with your bad self.' Mel notes how rarely anyone credits themselves, and that we're quick to give all the credit away.

• 04

  'Nobody has to believe it but you'

  Asked backstage why she thanked herself, Nash-Betts said she's the only one who knows what it cost: crying over roles she couldn't get, going through a divorce on camera, still showing up for her children. She added, 'It's not called them esteem or us esteem, it's called self-esteem.' Mel's point is that only you know the internal battle behind your outward smile.

• 05

  Speaking your truth unlocks power

  Nash-Betts dedicated the award to Black and brown women who've gone unheard yet over-policed, naming Glenda Cleveland, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor, and said an artist's job is to speak truth to power. Mel argues everyone has to speak their own truth, and that thanking yourself for the battles you fight is one way to do it.

• 06

  Action comes before belief

  You can't think your way into self-belief. You act as if you believe: start the walk before you feel motivated, quit drinking before you want to, apply for the job or school before you're sure you'll get in. Every day there will be at least one moment of self-doubt or friction to push through.

• 07

  Goggins: self-doubt is cured one day at a time

  Listening on the treadmill to David Goggins in an interview with Andrew Huberman, Mel heard him compare self-doubt to alcoholism: there's a cure, but it only works one day at a time, and the cure is your actions. His line: 'There's no hacks, bro. It's you against you.'

• 08

  'You against you' means fighting a past version of yourself

  Mel first took it to mean today's mood against today's goals, but she now reads it as battling an old self who still lives inside you. Goggins, in his own words, is fighting the 300-pound 'lazy' man he used to be; his profanity online is aimed at himself. Identify which past version of you is chirping self-doubt, and you know who you're fighting.

• 09

  Outwork the old you, every day

  Mel's secret is to name that version and outwork it: get up with 5-4-3-2-1, go to the gym when you don't feel like it, keep pushing past insecurity. It's never one and done; the old self will show up again at the next launch or the next risk. Blaming other people's judgment hides the real obstacle.