6 Powerful Mindset Shifts That Will Change Your Life

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  A tour is a different animal from a speech

  Mel spent a decade as a keynote speaker, once in front of 27,000 people, so she assumed her first live tour would be easy and told the production team as much. But a corporate speech is someone else's event: you get a clicker and an hour. On tour, she was responsible for everything. The first leg covered Boston, New York, Toronto, Chicago and London, and she calls it one of the highlights of her life precisely because it stretched her so far.

• 02

  Lesson 1: What if you did it bigger?

  The team behind stadium tours for major musicians included Marcus, who told her she could walk out and give a great speech, or bring her stories to life as theater and leave people "gobsmacked." She chose theater without understanding what it meant. Her point is that you can't know what you're saying yes to when you've never done it bigger. Most of us are waiting for someone to give us permission to swing harder, so she dares you to.

• 03

  Expect the stretch to hurt, and get to your "Saturday night"

  After a messy opening night, Mel called her husband Chris on Friday morning saying she hated it and wanted to cancel. By Saturday night she loved it so much she wanted to quit everything else and just tour. If you stop where you think your edges are, she says, you never reach your Saturday night. Do the new thing at least three times before deciding how it feels.

• 04

  How it feels to you won't match how it looks to others

  Her 143 Studios team called the first show unbelievable and hilarious and told her not to cut anything. Mel thought it was too long and wondered whether anyone had laughed. Discomfort is your inner experience of growing, not a verdict on how you're doing.

• 05

  Lesson 2: Bring the fun

  On night one she was "stiff as Frankenstein," focused on hitting marks and remembering lines. Reminding herself she wasn't performing heart surgery helped her loosen up, and by night two she discovered she loved physical comedy, crawling across tables. Fun is contagious. The stadium crew said it was their favorite tour ever. Her view is that people under less tension don't slack off; they show up with more care.

• 06

  Lesson 3: Start with the end

  Before beginning, picture what you want to have happened once it's over. Her answers weren't sell-outs, money or viral clips. She wanted to create a surprising, moving experience, have the show get better every night, and have fun with the crew, venues and audience. These became guardrails rather than promises about how it would feel. After the Friday panic, she called a meeting, asked for feedback, cut lines and got coaching on being more physical.

• 07

  Lesson 4: Things will go wrong, and you'll be fine

  Live theater went wrong in ways keynotes never had, almost every night. The fix is usually simple: acknowledge it, laugh, adjust, or try again. Her twist is that when something bold feels wrong, like a new outfit, you're probably doing it right, because that's what stretching feels like. The nerves are part of the ride and don't go away.

• 08

  Lesson 5: Fear means it matters

  Co-author Sawyer Robbins was petrified throughout. Her sister Kendall, an experienced singer-songwriter who joined to sing one song, rolled into rehearsal in sweats unbothered because, as she said, it wasn't her tour. Yet Kendall is nervous about a festival side stage with a smaller crowd, because that one matters to her. Nervous about a presentation? You care about work. Afraid to ask someone out? You probably like them.

• 09

  Lesson 6: Do it because you think you can't

  Sawyer's on-stage line is that completing something you told yourself you'd do, however small, feels "better than love." Mel argues you become someone who handles scary things by handling them, and that "can't" is often code for "I've never tried." You won't feel ready beforehand. You do the thing first, then you believe you can.