Give Me 60 Minutes and I'll Eliminate Your Self-Doubt Forever | Benny Blanco and Mel Robbins

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Start now and move the idea 3.5 inches

  Benny Blanco grew up in Virginia with no famous parents or money and says he isn't especially talented. His point is that most goals are reachable if you start. People stall on setup, like whether to use a typewriter, a phone or longhand, and three weeks go by. Pick the idea you're too embarrassed to tell anyone and move it "three and a half inches forward" today. What you start may not be where you end up. At 11 he wanted to be the world's biggest rapper.

• 02

  Fear of embarrassment drives the what-ifs

  People hold back because they picture friends mocking a post, a video getting zero views, or being cut from a team or told they can't act. Blanco says fear of embarrassment is learned and doesn't match reality: "I fail every single day."

• 03

  Have "amnesia to failure"

  A successful friend noticed Blanco wakes up after a flop and carries on as if nothing happened. His logic is that if you forget the failure, everyone else will too. He demonstrated with a whiteboard covered in the word "failure" that he wiped clean. Nobody keeps a scorecard on your life except you, "and if they are, they're an a-hole."

• 04

  Show up, then find the room

  His first two rules are to show up every day and get into the room, physical or digital. If you're there when someone else isn't, you become the next best option, and being in the room means you either learn something or get a chance.

• 05

  You'll never feel ready, so go all in with conviction

  Mel reads from his book: wait to feel prepared and "I will come back to check on you in 5 years and you will still be standing exactly where you are." He describes the pre-launch nerves as "it's about to happen" fear, not fear of doing it. If you can sell the dream to yourself and the people around you, things start moving your way.

• 06

  Rejection usually hurts less than you remember

  Ask yourself honestly how bad the last rejection was. It's like being turned down for a date as a kid: embarrassing for a few hours, then forgotten. It will be harder than you expect and you'll want to quit, but quitting "just open[s] the door" for the next person trying the same thing.

• 07

  Success means giving everything, then learning

  Blanco is competitive until the result is in. If he gave it everything, he counts it as a success whether or not it charted. His way of letting go is to ask, "What else could you have done?" He's only upset with himself if he held back. A failure stays a failure only if you didn't learn from it.

• 08

  Doing it and not doing it are both hard, so pick the hard that leads somewhere

  Mel says sitting in self-doubt and watching others go after things is painful too. Blanco agrees that kids, relationships and jobs all get hard. If it's all hard, choose what could bring relief instead of "a hole of misery."

• 09

  The real skill is showing up for decades without feeling like it

  Blanco still has impostor syndrome; he felt it walking into the studio full of crew that day. Mel's summary is that it doesn't get easier. You keep questioning yourself and show up anyway. On a bad day he says, "Today, I couldn't do it," and works harder tomorrow.

• 10

  Life is a three-legged stool

  Name your three legs: Mel chose family and relationships, purpose and impact, and health. Wealth with children who hate you means the stool falls. Blanco says he got all three working only in the last five years and feels more stable than ever. When one leg wobbles, step back and fix it first.