Reinvent Yourself: How to Let Go of Past Mistakes and Create a New Version of You

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

If you've ever regretted the choices that you've made, or you just have this feeling that you're meant for so much more than where you are right now, that there's some greater purpose that's just uniquely meant for you, but you just don't know what it is.

Well, I have good news.

You have press play on on the exact conversation you need to hear right now i just walked out of our studios here in boston i am so moved like moved to the core by what our guest today is about to share with you i feel so inspired right now so energized and by the time you're done listening to this you will as well You're about to hear a story of redemption, reinvention, forgiveness.

You're going to learn how to find your purpose and how to change the very essence of who you are.

So if you feel weighed down by the mistakes you've made in the past, this conversation could set you free.

Because one of the most potent, influential, and authoritative voices in the world today is here to help you change your life.

He's a Radio Hall of Famer, co-host of the Breakfast Club, which is one of the most popular radio shows in the world, a three-time New York Times best-selling author, and an Emmy Award-winning executive producer.

His name?

Charlemagne the God.

Charlemagne is here to share things that he's never talked about before about the mistakes he's made and the lessons he's learned.

And what you're about to hear, it is going to shake you to the core.

Because Charlemagne delivers so much insight, so much wisdom with a level of conviction and passion, it is going to move you.

He's going to tell you that you are so much bigger than the mistakes that you've made or the life that you're living right now.

Nothing could be more worthy of your time than than listening to this, which is why I am absolutely thrilled that you're here.

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Hey, it's your friend Mel.

Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

I am ecstatic that you are here with me right now.

You know, it's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together, but today, today you are in for something truly special.

And if you're a new listener, I also just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family.

I am so thrilled that you're here.

And because you made the time to listen to this particular episode, here's what I know about you.

I know that you're the type of person who not only values your time, but you also want to use the time that you have in this life to create a life that is driven by purpose.

And if you're listening to this conversation today, because somebody sent this episode to you, that is so cool because you have people in your life that care about you.

And they not only care about you, they see a bigger possibility for your life, which is why they recommended that you listen to this episode.

So thank you for trusting them because it shows that you see bigger possibilities for your life too.

And so does the person that you're about to meet, Charlemagne the God.

Charlemagne hopped on a plane this morning after co-hosting one of the biggest radio shows on the planet.

It's called the Breakfast Club.

And just to understand how influential his perspective and his voice is, 4 million people listen every single week to The Breakfast Club.

To put this like in a visual sense, 4 million people?

That's 50 Super Bowl stadiums where every single seat is full and everyone is tuned in listening every single week.

And that's just the people listening to the radio.

There's another 6 million more people that follow the show on YouTube.

And that's not all that Charlemagne does.

He's been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

He's a three-time New York Times best-selling author, an Emmy award-winning executive producer.

He's also the co-founder of the Black Effect Podcast Network, one of the most successful podcast networks in the world, where he has produced 47 shows that have won all the biggest awards that are available to shows in podcasting.

He's also the founder of a publishing imprint, Black Privilege Publishing, in partnership with Simon Simon ⁇ Schuster, which has released 12 books and already released bestsellers, including his latest, Get Honest or Die Lying.

He's hosted several award-winning television programs, and he is also the founder of the Mental Wealth Alliance, which focuses on advocating for mental health.

And to top it all off, he's also an ambassador for the food bank in New York City.

But his life wasn't always this way.

And you're about to hear the extraordinary story, the twists, the turns, the lessons learned, the regrets, and the mistakes that he's made.

And look, you can always learn from your own mistakes, but today

you have the honor of getting to learn from his.

So, Charlamine, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

I'm so thrilled that you're here.

Thank you for having me, Mel.

I am a huge fan of yours.

I appreciate that.

And the feeling is definitely mutual.

Oh.

You know, I bought my

let him theory book in here, and it's so funny.

Last week, my wife comes to me and my wife goes, I ordered you a book.

You need to read it immediately.

Because I've been complaining about some things, right?

Really, I was complaining about people.

And she was like, you need to read this book immediately.

And it came and it was the let him there.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm doing Mel's podcast on Wednesday.

And she was like, really?

And then today she sent me

tickets because you're going to be in New York at the beach.

Yes.

She said, I want to go to this.

Yes.

Well,

it's all God.

I was like, wow, I'm literally doing her show on Wednesday.

Well, we are destined to be together today together.

And I'm going to come see you in April on your show.

And so this is the beginning of a lot of amazing things that we're going to do.

And here's how I'd like to start.

Could you tell the person who is listening right now, that's spending time together with us, what they might expect to be different about their life or the life of somebody that they care about based on everything that you're about to share with us today about your life, lessons learned, the incredible things that you sell in your best, you talk about in your best-selling books.

What could change about their life?

We'll see.

And the reason I say we'll see is because, you know, you never know where a great conversation is going to take you.

You know, like we're all on different spiritual journeys.

I feel like right now, sitting here on the Mel Robbers podcast, this is part of a spiritual journey that I feel like I've been going on my whole life.

So let's see what comes up.

Well, I'm going to tell you something.

I am a huge fan of yours.

I have devoured your books.

I listened to you.

Thank you.

There is not a doubt in my mind

that by the time our conversation is is done and you so generously share mistakes made, lessons learned, the tools that you use in order to transform your mind to build this extraordinary career, the things that you've learned as a parent about forgiveness, about regret, about peace.

You cannot listen to this conversation I'm going to predict and not feel completely transformed.

I would not have invited you to be here if I did not think that you were of service to a bigger mission and that listening to you is one of the most worthy things that somebody could do with their time.

Ooh, maybe that's what it is.

I want people to hear this conversation today and immediately walk away and say, you know what?

I need to go be of service.

I need to answer that call.

that's going on in my spirit right now that's telling me to go out there and just go do something.

Do something for myself, but more importantly, go do something for somebody else.

Go be of service.

That's what I want people to learn from this conversation, how to be of service.

Well, now it feels like we're in church, Charlemagne, and I could not be more thrilled to be here with you.

But all of this wisdom that you're about to pour into us, it actually didn't come from all the success.

It came from all the struggle.

And even though you are one of the most influential voices in the world today, the person who's listening may be meeting you for the first time.

So what would you like them to know about you?

You know, right now I'm a multimedia personality from, you know, radio to television, the books, the podcasts, like you said, but I come from extreme humble beginnings.

Mounts Corner, South Carolina, raised on a dirt road, grew up in a single wide trailer.

You know, mom was a school teacher, an English teacher who kept the book in my face.

My dad, you know, did construction, but, you know, he had his own issues with mental health and, you know, run-ins with the law and, you know, drug addiction and substance abuse.

But, you know, the one thing that we always had was love.

And they always, especially my dad I always say my dad raised me out of fear and not love

and

what does that mean he didn't want me to end up making the same mistakes that he made and he would always tell me that if I didn't change my lifestyle especially when I started you know really getting in trouble in the street that I was going to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under a tree so that was literally his mentality he didn't want his oldest son to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under a tree so he really used to be on me but he would discipline me for things he didn't necessarily teach me.

What does that mean?

I remember being in therapy.

The first real breakthrough I had in therapy is

realizing that.

Like I'll give you an example, right?

Like I remember one time I had just got my license and so I'm following him.

He was like, yo, follow me as I'm driving in the car.

Just follow me.

All right.

So I'm following him.

Mind you, I'm a 16-year-old kid.

I'm following him.

He's driving.

So he's driving down Gillyard Road in Monster, South Carolina.

I'm following him.

When you're driving down Gillyard Road, you veer off into a highway called Highway 52.

So there's a stop sign.

He doesn't stop at the stop sign.

He just goes through on the highway.

So what do you think I do?

I just go through on the highway.

So then he pulls over.

So I pull over behind him.

He gets out the car, road one to nine.

He smacks the shit out of me, tells me to pay attention.

I didn't see that stop.

See that stop sign?

And I'm like, you didn't see the stop sign?

I didn't say that to him.

I'm like, you didn't see the stop sign?

But that's my point.

He would discipline me for things that

he never taught me.

So yeah,

he raised me very hard.

And I always said it was out of fear and not love.

Just it was the fear that I would end up, you know, making a lot of the same mistakes that he made.

So

we'll say one thing you do got to learn about your kids is that your kids are going to live their life regardless.

No matter how much you try to hold on to them, no matter how, you know, much you try to discipline them, they're going to still live their life regardless.

And guess what?

You got to let them.

You got to let them.

Well played.

That's right.

Well played.

Talk to me about the name Charlemagne the God.

When I was in night school, because I got kicked out of two high schools.

So I was in night school.

So how old are we talking?

Probably the same age, like 17, maybe 18.

I'm not sure.

So I graduated from night school in 1998.

I'm sitting in night school.

And at the time, I used to call myself Charlie Chronic because...

And this, you know, it sounds so stupid now when I'm old, but it's like, you know, but we used to have a crew called the infamous Buddha Head.

So all of us took names of marijuana.

So you had like Mikey marijuana, Ichabodism,

and I was Charlie Chronic, right?

Bobby Buddha.

Like that was our names.

And I used to always say my name was Charles because when I used used to sell crack, I would wear a hoodie, give this alias because I didn't want the guys and women who were buying crack from me to go back and tell my parents.

I'm from a small town.

Oh, of course.

So, you know, everybody's judgmental, even though you're buying it from me, you still go tell my parents.

Of course.

And so I'm reading in a history book about Charlemagne.

And Charlemagne, it says Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great.

And he was a Roman emperor who went around spreading religion and education.

And I literally was like, that's a cool name.

I'm going to start calling myself Charlemagne.

And, you know, the God comes from the 5% teachers.

The 5% teachers, they say God is a Greek word derived from the Aramic words, guma, azdaba, which means wisdom, strength, and beauty.

So I'm like, I'm going to start calling myself Charlemagne the God, which really didn't make no sense because Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great.

So it's like Charles the Great the God.

But guess what?

I was 19 years old smoking a lot of weed.

So it didn't really have to make sense.

It just looked cool.

And I always said, that's going to look really good on a marquee one day.

You're a good marketer.

I said, that's going to look really good on the cover of a book one day.

But it also means, I've read in your work, that God is within you.

Absolutely.

And talk to me more about that.

You can either submit your will to the God in you or you can submit your will to the devil in you.

And, you know, God is in each and every one of us.

It says in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, it says, God created man in his image according to his likeness.

And I feel like, you know, if you keep that mindset, it'll at least give you something to constantly strive to.

It'll give you, it'll give you something to constantly look.

towards and know that you have that, you know, that inner being within you, like knowing that you're really a spiritual being living a human existence.

And I mean, I've always literally tried to move like that.

Like, you know, I'm one of those people that actually believed my grandma and my mom when they told me God was always watching, you know, even though I didn't always make the right decisions, I still strive to move like God was always watching because God is within.

I am an extension of my creator.

So I want you to talk to the person and speak to that like

moment in your life where

you are dealing drugs.

You are using an alias because you don't want your parents to find out, which is, you know, smart thinking.

You know and believe as a spiritual person that God is always watching.

And so you have the sense, because you've already talked about choice.

There must be this tension of you feeling like, this isn't what I'm meant to do, but I'm making a choice to do this.

Like, what do you want to say to the person?

Because I think that's a very relatable thing in life, where you have the sense of a greater purpose, but you are trapped where you are now.

And you even see yourself, I think about moments in my life, whether it was drinking too much or drugs or it was cheating on people that I was with or stealing or whatever the hell it may have been, things that I knew in the moment were choices that I was making.

And I felt like I had no other choice, but I still, do you know what I mean?

But I still felt like there was something better for me, but I didn't know how to bridge it.

Like, what would you say to the person that's listening that actually feels that right now in their life?

Man, Man, number one, whatever you're doing that's negative, you can't escape from it.

There's a million, tens of millions of people who have done the exact same thing that you're currently doing.

And you know how that movie is going to end.

And it's going to end the same way for you if you continue down that path.

And what I would tell folks is you don't have to know what it is you want to do.

You just know that you want to do something.

So why not put positive energy into whatever whatever it is you're trying to do?

Or just put positive energy into your life, period.

Like, you know, an acronym that I love is a positive energy activates constant elevation.

Positive energy activates constant elevation.

And that's peace.

Oh, it is.

Yeah.

Positive energy activates constant elevation, right?

So for me, it was, I know that if I constantly keep doing this, like my dad said, I'm going to end up in jail, dead or broke, sitting under the tree.

And when you start seeing that actually happen, whether it's to you or other people around you, if you continue down that path, once again, you made the choice.

So you got to deal with it but for me i decided to say yo i'm gonna do whatever i gotta do to not do this so i worked at i worked at taco bell i worked at a clothing store in the mall called demo i did telemarketing i was the guy that would call your house and try to sell you 20 cds for a penny like i did

i i did so many i did so many odd jobs like just just to avoid being in the street.

Was there a moment though?

Because, you know, I used to, I was a public defender for legal aid and in New York City.

And I do feel like when you are in that loop of making really bad choices and you feel like you have no options, you're also surrounded by people that are doing the same thing.

It takes a level of courage to wake up and go, I'm not doing the same thing.

That's so true.

Do you remember, like, was there a moment?

So what was the moment where you're like, I'm not going down like this?

The first time I got arrested, I was sitting in the backseat of a car and one of my homeboys shot at somebody.

So, you you know we all ended up going to jail literally they came and got me out of the high school the second high school i had went to because i got kicked out of the first high school and my mom was teaching at this high school scratch high school and they thought i would behave more because my mom was there so i ended up getting caught up in that situation i think i did 45 days in the county jail my dad ultimately ended up bailing me out and i tried to be on the straight and narrow a little bit but to your point the allure of the streets right like you know a lot of the the people that i was hanging around and being with they were in the streets heavy so i was your community.

It's your friends.

It's what's around you.

And then you start to tell yourself the story.

I got no other options.

Absolutely.

And so it goes from acting up in school to now all of us are getting a little bit older, but we're getting introduced to things like the drug game.

And I'm watching people make a little bit of money.

So I want to make a little bit of money too.

And I remember

I was involved in a drug bust.

You know, the house that we used to sell dope out of got busted.

And I remember just being in those handcuffs and all of us, it's literally like 11 or 12 of us in a holding cell in Monks Corner, South Carolina, in the Berkeley County Detention Center.

And I was just like, yo, I'm back in jail again.

And I remember looking at the steel toilet in the holding cell with all of these people in it and just throwing up.

And I was like, it's it for me.

Like, literally, I'm going to figure out my life in a real way.

I am going to, because another thing that I always thought about when my dad would tell me that people end up in jail, dead, or broke, sitting under the tree, I had a lot of people that I used to look up to who didn't make the best choices, and I saw that happening to them.

Something just started clicking to me, like, yo, there's no redo on this thing called life.

Like, this day that you're living right now, you're never getting back.

So, you're going to have to start making changes in your life right now to get to where it is that you need to be.

Because, you know, one day you're going to wake up and you're going to be 30.

And Biggie Smalls had this great lyric.

Biggie Smalls said, Being broke at 30, give a brother the chills.

And that's where my mind was at.

And I was still broke at 30, but I I was on my way.

I was on my way because I was already in the radio business at that point.

Well, I want to highlight something because I believe that the only thing that it takes to turn your life around is the decision that the way you're doing life isn't working anymore.

And that's what you just described.

And I think so many people.

I've come to believe, and I'd be curious to hear what you think about this.

I've come to believe that the single biggest obstacle that actually stands in people's way.

And yes, there are big factors around poverty and money and racism and bias and all this stuff.

But the biggest obstacle is actually discouragement and despair, the sense that there's nothing you can do.

That's right.

And I love your story and I love what you stand for because you time and time and time again have made a decision.

How I'm doing things no longer works for me.

And I don't give a shit what other people are going to think about it.

I'm going to figure this out.

And I don't even have to know how I'm going to change my life or what it's going to look like.

I just know I'm not doing it like this anymore.

And so you make the decision, you work a bazillion jobs.

How the heck do you get into radio?

Because I think the other thing that happens for people, and it's probably, I can feel so many people sending this episode to their adult kids, listen to this man.

How did you go from no experience, a bazillion odd jobs, having, you know, been arrested to actually making a break in radio and in the business?

You said a lot of things that, you know, just make me really think about that journey, right?

Like you used the word just now.

You said discouragement, right?

I had a lot of encouragement early on, even though my dad wasn't always doing the right things.

And even though he was hard on me, he was always encouraging me to do the right thing.

Same thing with my mom.

She was an English teacher, always encouraging me to do the right thing.

So even when I was getting in trouble, I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.

So to answer the question, the positive energy that activates constant elevation, I used to want to rap like most people who come from communities like I come from.

When you black and you know, you growing up in a certain environment, the people you see who look like you are usually in entertainment or athletics.

I'm only five, six, so there wasn't going to be no NBA for me, right?

But as far as

maybe.

And then I was always, my grades was always so bad, I could never play football.

And so for me, I always wanted to rap because I used to always love storytelling.

Always love storytelling.

You know, my mom, like I said, my mom was an English teacher.

I grew up on the booker program, reading four books a week, you know, to get a free pizza.

You know, my mom would always tell me to read things that don't necessarily pertain to me.

So I grew up reading Mad Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly.

So I was always in love with storytelling.

So I'm in a recording studio, right?

Because if you want to be a rapper, you got to be where people are rapping.

So I was in this recording studio, two of them actually.

One of them was called TNT Studios, another was called Never So Deep Records.

And well, the guy who owned Never So Deep Records is a great mentor to me to this day named Dr.

Robert Evans.

But at the studio, I met a radio personality named Willie Will.

And he worked at Z93 Jams in Charleston, South Carolina.

And I'm a curious person.

If I see you doing something positive or doing something that looks cool, I'm going to ask you.

And I just asked him, like, yo, how did you get in the radio?

And he said, I got an internship.

And I said, what do I got to get an internship?

He said, go down to the radio station and ask for an internship.

And I'm like, it's that easy.

I said, I'm not in school or nothing.

He was like, so?

It's 90.

This is 1998, Charleston, South Carolina.

Things were totally different.

And that's what I did.

I went down to the radio station and I filtered out my internship papers and I started as an intern.

Like literally, I was the guy that would drive the radio station vehicle to the concerts or to the different remotes and help them, you know, set up their posters and things like that.

And then that eventually turned into me getting a gig in the promotions department, which is just being a paid intern.

So I was making what, $5 an hour or something like that.

And then I would always be in the studio with Willie Will.

And Willie Will would bring me on the mic sometime and, you know, we'd be talking.

And I remember one day, my man Ron White, who was the music director, still a good friend of mine to this day, he comes to me and he goes, yo, you ever thought about being on the radio?

And I'm like, no, but I am now.

And so he started putting me on Sunday mornings, 11 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

And they used to do something called voice tracking, where you would record your voice and they would air it.

And, you know, I was too much for Sunday mornings.

So they started putting me on Saturday nights, seven to mid, seven to 10, it was voice tracked, 10 to midnight, it was live.

And that's where the bug bit me.

And I was like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Well, you not only got the bug, you dominate on radio.

And I I want to read to you some of your words from your book, Shook One, which is an incredible book.

And there was one passage in particular that I wanted to read to you because we were kind of like talking about this theme of the power of making one decision.

Like my life is not working the way that I want it to work.

It doesn't feel the way I want it to feel.

And you had this second huge epiphany because you had become known as like this shock jock.

And you were like saying all kinds of crazy stuff about about people.

And that was kind of the way that people knew you.

And you had this epiphany that this is not who you want to be anymore.

And so I want to read to you this from page 245 of your best-selling book, Shook One.

For many years, I was edgy and risky with my words on my mic.

I pushed the envelope on topics like sex.

People would listen to me and say, man, Charlamagne is wild.

There's a reason Rolling Stone called me the hip-hop Howard Stern.

Today, I have a much different mind state.

While I'm always going to be authentic with my life's experiences, I'm embarrassed by things that I've said in the past.

There are moments when I just want it all wiped from the internet.

I cringe thinking about my daughter watching some of my old clips, but I can't surrender to those fears.

I've come to accept that I can't be a prisoner of my past, because the truth is, largely with the help of therapy, I've evolved a great deal over the past few years.

I'm not the same thoughtless instigator I used to be.

I'd love to have you share about the decision to make a huge risk in your career because you gained so much fame and influence by going about things a certain way.

And then you made a decision, I don't want to do this anymore.

What happened?

And how have you changed?

Same way that when I was sitting in Monks Corner, South Carolina, and, you know, My father would tell me, if I don't change my lifestyle, I'm going to end up in jail, dead, or broke, sitting under the tree and, you know, watching, you know, people who I loved, who made poor choices, end up in those circumstances.

It's the same thing now.

I love hip-hop.

I love being a hip-hop radio personality, but a lot of the hip-hop radio personalities that I grew up admiring, there was a glass ceiling and they didn't realize it.

And so they thought that they was growing, but they kept hitting their head, kept hitting their head, kept hitting their head.

And I'm looking at them now and I'm like, yo, these people are washed.

Like, I don't want that to be my life in the future.

And that was from a professional level.

And just from a personal level, it's like, yo, my daughters know their daddy.

They know their daddy is silly.

They know their daddy is a very unserious person.

But there's just some things that I don't want to have to explain

because when I said these things, I was on drugs.

I was drunk.

Like I was wilding.

Like I wasn't in the right mind space.

But, you know, what I have learned, Mel, is that you got to love every version of yourself.

Like, you know, every.

How the hell do you do that?

I mean, come on now.

But how do you do?

Because there are, because every single one of us, the person that is listening right now, can look back at a moment in time.

Yes.

And just, you just cringe.

You want to erase that person.

We beat ourselves up over it.

How the hell did you get to a point where you could love every version of yourself?

Because I'm 46 years old this year.

I was born in 1978.

So I'll be 47, right?

I'll be 47 this year.

I know 20-year-old me.

did not know what 46 year old me knows.

I know 15 year old me didn't know what 30 year old me knew.

So it's just like, yo, you got to give yourself grace because you just did not know what it is that you know now.

So, why would you ever beat yourself up for what you did not know?

And, like I said earlier, to me, life is just a process.

I don't believe in good or bad.

I just believe in everything.

It's just one long process.

And there's things that happen for you along the way.

Not to you.

There's things that happen for you along the way.

And I accept it all.

I accept the good with the bad.

And, you know, one thing one of my, one of my therapists says to me is that,

you know, you can't have any of your success without having any of your

problems.

So, any problems that I had

growing up, any problems that I had when I was young, that all led me to this point where I'm at now.

And I go back and I think in my mind, I go hug the eight-year-old version of myself.

I hug the 16-year-old version of myself.

I hug the 20-year-old version of myself.

I have conversations with those other versions of myself all the time.

You do?

Like, tell me what's like, how do you think?

Can you believe we got, can you believe we're here

can you believe we got here yo man i'm glad when i'm glad 25 year old you decided to go this way i'm glad 19 year old you decided to get in the radio i'm glad you know you read all of those books when you eight year old you nine year old you ten year old you read all of those books when you was younger like you know i know you and your pops had some issues man but he did give you the autobiography of malcolm x when you was very very young and it taught you all about growth and evolution and you know knowing that somebody like malcolm little can become this great individual like malcolm x and introduce you to you know the nation of Islam, where they took the worst of us and made them the best of us.

So, you know, you got to give every single version of yourself grace.

Like Marty McFly didn't go back into the future, go back to the past and cursed his parents out.

He tried to help his parents, help his parents get on the correct path.

We have to do the same thing, you know, with ourselves.

You've got to give every version of yourself that ever existed grace.

One of the most beautiful things that you have said so far, and you've said a lot of things that are very beautiful and empowering and important

but

i really want to make sure that the person listening takes this and applies it you literally just said you've got to give yourself grace why on earth would you punish yourself now for things you didn't know back then absolutely what a beautiful gift you can give to yourself.

And I, and I also love how I'm starting to kind of read between the lines that you're also extending it to other people in your life.

Absolutely.

That we need to be able able to extend that grace to people in our lives and stop punishing them now for the things that they didn't know back then.

You know, I'm curious, as you sort of like have this like transformation in your mind that is both business, I see that there's a ceiling to this shtick.

And also as a person, I just don't want to operate like this anymore.

When you started to transform yourself on air, did you have any anxiety at all about how the dedicated, huge hip-hop audience fan base that you had built would be receiving receiving you?

Not really, because

I know that we're a smart community.

I grew up listening to Public Enemy.

I grew up listening to the Wu-Tang clan.

I grew up listening to Scarface and Killer Mike and like all of those brothers always had things in their music of socially redeeming value.

So I know who we are.

I just think that sometimes there's people in our community that got to have the courage to grow up.

I always say that the two greatest hip-hop albums, well, the two most important hip-hop albums in the future, people are going to look back and they're going to say Jay-Z 444 and Kendrick Lamar, Mr.

Morale, and the Big Stepper.

Because if you listen to the content of those records, Jay-Z is talking about the maturation of a man.

He's talking about not cheating on his wife anymore.

He's talking about issues with his father.

He's talking about going to therapy on that album.

I remember hearing that album on my third, it came out the day after my 39th born day.

Like literally, I was on a roof in New York, just turned 39.

Midnight hit, me and my wife were leaving, and I put it on in the car and it was like he was talking to me in that moment.

That was the soundtrack for my life right then and there.

Where I was in my life, therapy, dealing with issues with my pops, being faithful to my wife, like being apologetic, you know, the things I've done to my wife, right?

The cheating on my wife.

Like that was.

mind-blowing to me.

And I was like, oh, okay, God, I see exactly what you're doing.

Kendrick Lamar, you listen to his album, Mr.

Morale and the Big Stepper.

He's talking about, yo, his wife is on this thing.

Yo, you really need to go seek some therapy.

He's got this song on there called

Father Time, where he talks about his issues with his dad.

Men don't talk about that.

You know, it's always when it comes to daddy issues, you think women, but no, the daddy issues that you have as a man are real too.

So it's like, I knew we were beyond ready for these conversations because these conversations were already happening in our community.

They were just being done in secret.

When I put out that book, Shook One, it came out in 2018.

And I remember it was the week of Thanksgiving, 2018.

I'm home in Monks Corner, South Carolina, and my dad calls me.

And my dad is like, yo, man, I just, um, I just finished reading your book, shook one.

And he goes, you know, you know, your cousin, you know, just committed suicide.

My cousin was 25 years old, young man, tried to complete suicide four times.

And he was like, he used to do a lot of odd jobs with my father.

And my father was like, yeah, man, between that and your book, I just wanted to tell you, man, you know, I was going to therapy two and three times a week.

And I tried to commit suicide 30 plus years ago.

And, you know, I was on 10 to 12 different medications for my mental health.

And I'm like, I never knew any of this.

And so I remember asking my mom, like, mom, did you know dad was dealing with all of this?

And my mom was like, I thought he was just playing crazy to get a check.

Right.

But he really was dealing with his own issues.

And he never told me this.

But imagine if he would have told me this when I was young.

I would have knew what those panic attacks were.

I would have knew what those bouts of depression were.

But he never, ever told me any of those things.

So I think our community has always been ready for these conversations, hip-hop community, the black community.

It just takes somebody to have the courage to speak them.

Well, you wrote about that realization in your latest book.

And I want to go back, though, to what you said, because you were talking about how it was 2018.

People talk openly now about anxiety and depression.

And you have done extraordinary work in terms of destigmatizing those topics.

And one of the things that I'm curious about is how the hell did you even know that you were having anxiety or struggling with depression?

Because you're right.

It was not talked about openly.

Like you wouldn't be caught dead walking into a self-help aisle.

And most people didn't even understand the signs of anxiety or depression.

So how the hell, like in 2007, 2016, did you realize that this is something you were dealing with?

Conversations with other people.

I always credit, you know, folks like, you know, Neil Brennan, my young guy, Pete Davidson, you know, who's been going to therapy for a long time, you know, women in my life like Debbie Brown, who was just an amazing spiritual, you know, leader, has been a longtime friend of mine for almost 20 years.

These were people who I always heard having these conversations.

And when I was still dealing with the anxiety and still dealing with the depression, even though I was supposed to be at the greatest point in my life, because I was making more money than I've ever had in my life, and I was having more success than ever, but the panic attacks were increasing.

And, you know, the bouts of depression was still increasing.

Plus, I knew I wasn't really living the life I was supposed to be living.

I was out here being the hip-hop rock star, right?

So, I wasn't doing right by my wife.

All of these things were coming down on me.

And I remember just

saying to myself, I'm going to try therapy.

I'm just going to try it.

Me and my wife had a conversation.

She was like, Go.

And so I just started going.

And then that's when I started to get the language to understand, you know, what I was dealing with in regards to anxiety and in regards to depression.

But anybody who's first started therapy knows you go for one of two things, and you start peeling back layers and, you know, unearthing traumas that you didn't even know existed.

I could listen to you all day and I'm glad we're not done because I have a lot more questions.

And I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our sponsors.

And I want to give you a chance to share this with people that you care about.

Everybody deserves to see a bigger possibility for their life.

And I am definitely thinking bigger just listening to the conversation so far.

Don't go anywhere.

Charlamagne and I will be waiting for you after a short break.

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Welcome back.

It's your buddy Mel Robbins.

Today, you and I are getting to spend time together with Charlemagne the God.

I am so excited about everything that you're sharing with us from your life, Charlemagne.

And, you know, while we were on break, I was thinking about a topic I wanted to ask you about.

In your mega bestseller, Get Honest or Die Lying, you actually say,

I've been called a fake mental health advocate, or critics will say that I use discussions of mental health as a shield to distract folks from all the wild shit I used to say and talk about on the radio way back when.

So for the record, I started to work on my mental health because I knew that if I didn't deal with my trauma, my trauma would ultimately deal with me.

I love that last sentence.

If I didn't deal with my trauma, my trauma would ultimately deal with me.

What does that mean?

Because I think a lot of people don't understand

what trauma is and how widespread it is in people's lived experiences.

Trauma is things that have happened.

Well, to me, things that have happened to you.

And when those things happen to you, you just let it fester.

You don't actually try to get any healing for it.

And what we don't realize is trauma hurts you and hurt people hurt people, right?

So it's just like, you know, when you are dealing with your when you go out there and you deal with your actual issues you start projecting that level of healing onto people you can only meet people where they are so if you meet me when i'm a hurt person you know who's upset because i got you know molested when i was eight or upset because you know of how my father used to discipline me like are upset because I got beat up when I was 18 years old, 19 years old for running my mouth too much, which I deserved, by the way.

But still, it's like you project that onto other people.

And what you also realize when you get older is that 99.9%

of everything you're dealing with as an adult is a direct reflection or connection to something that happened to you as a child.

It's like I'm literally just talking to my inner child every day, telling him to calm down, calm down.

We know why that is causing you to act that way.

And so like, you got to go deal with your trauma.

Cause if not, I've seen, I've seen a lot of people self-sabotage.

I've seen a lot of people self-destruct, turn to drugs, turn to alcohol.

Are they just mean, nasty, rude people?

And, you know, that might be kind of worse than the drugs and alcohol because then, you know, people will leave you on an island unto yourself.

You know, you're right about that too.

You write in your book, Get Honest or Die Lying.

When I see folks who are willing to say anything and attack anyone for attention, I just shake my head because I remember that feeling.

Absolutely.

I know that behavior is eating them alive on the inside.

Absolutely.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because I think it is so incredible that you have gotten to the point where you can actually see that kind of behavior in other people with grace and kind of understand what it is.

What are you talking about in that section?

It goes right back to what I just said.

Hurt people, hurt people.

I can listen to people say certain things and I'm like, oh, that person is miserable.

Because you would never say that about somebody else if you weren't miserable.

I mean, you know, I used to always say, Michelle Obama say, when they go low, we go high.

But sometimes you got to take it to hell with them, right?

But sometimes if you're willing to take it all the way to hell, what does that say about you?

I'll tell you something.

I'm saying this, and I haven't shared this with anybody.

You know, I came up under Wendy Williams, right?

Wendy Williams was a great mentor of mine, you know, still a friend of mine.

Everybody sees the situation that she's in right now.

She's able to move around a little bit.

Literally this past Monday.

And she said something at dinner that was profound.

And she was just like, we were just talking about just her and the radio and, you know, just the way she used to be on the radio and what her future is going to look like.

And, you know, would she come back and be that same individual?

Of course she.

couldn't be because she's not that person anymore.

She's 60 years old now, right?

But she said something.

She said, you know, I think I might be in this situation because of how I used to talk about

That's what she said.

You know, she's, you know, she's trapped in the conservativeship.

And I was like, really?

I was like, I said, what do you mean, like karma?

She said, yeah, you know, just like God.

I've never heard Wendy talk like that in my life, but it was just confirmation for me that I made the right choices.

Made confirmation for me that I had the right understanding of the power of my words and the energy that I was putting out there.

You know, and I don't necessarily believe that she's in that situation because of that, but that was what she said.

So I just, you know, I want to, I tell everybody, all the podcasters and the YouTubers, you know, the radio personalities, this microphone has a lot of power and you can cause a lot of hurt or you can cause a lot of healing, you know, with the things that are coming out of your mouth.

I would tell you to choose, choose the healing.

So I think every single human being has said things that they regret.

Since you've done all this work on yourself and especially in light of what you just shared that Wendy shared with you, have you reflected at all on how your actions in the past or the things that you used to say on the mic have hurt other people?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

How do you process that for yourself?

You got to give yourself grace, you know, like I did what I did.

I said what I said.

I know the mind state that I was in, but I think sometimes we don't think about the mind state other people may be in.

And you don't know how fragile somebody may be.

And, you know, how something you said could have really caused them, you know, lifelong trauma or trauma that they're trying to work through.

And you get that through conversation.

Like sometimes people will come up to you and tell you like, yo, you know, you really hurt my feelings when you said such and such.

And what really, really, what really started to change a lot of it for me was when like a lot of the young artists started coming on the show.

And like the young artists who.

Like like I remember, you know, somebody like a young thug.

I remember a young thug who's saying like, man, you know, I used to hate when you used to say crazy stuff about me.

And, you know,

you used to really fuck with me.

It used to really bother me.

I'm like why

he's like because you charlemagne you know my mama and listen to you and you know aunts and everybody listening and you you don't think about that right like you when you're on the microphone you don't know these people but you they're humans too so the same way you might go online and see something somebody says about you that you don't like or you might oh that ain't true like it's the same thing with with other humans so yeah i i do think about that a lot.

But once again, I got to give myself grace because I was in survival mode.

I tend to forgive people for what they did when they was in survival mode.

You tend to do a lot of wild things when you're in survival mode.

And for me, when I got on Breakfast Club in 2010, I had been fired from radio four different times.

That was the seventh radio station I worked at.

I had a daughter that was two, three years old.

I wasn't going back to Moscone, South Carolina.

It was by any means necessary.

Like I didn't care what I had to say or who I had to say it to.

And it was the same thing when I used to work with Wendy.

I was literally just Wendy's attack dog.

Wendy bought me there because Wendy knew she was going to make the transition to television and she didn't want to be the same personality she used to be.

So she had me there to literally be an attack dog.

Like literally, get her, get him, get him, like literally.

And so it's just like, nah, that's not, that's not what I wanted for myself.

You also write in Get Honest or Die Lying about any chance I get, I walk out into my backyard, I put my hands on a tree, I lean my head against it and start to meditate.

That's tree hugging.

It's a valuable practice.

I was taught by my sacred purpose coach, Yadi.

Here's how I first learned it.

Can you tell us a little bit about like

what are you doing when you're doing that?

Like I'm trying to imagine you walking out in your sweatsuit with your bare feet and you walk right up to that tree and you wrap your arms around that tree.

Man, salute to Yadi, Yadi Alba.

Yadi is a sacred purpose coach.

Yadi, man, it's funny.

Me and Yadi, it was all, it started with face down, ass up.

Face down, ass up.

Face down, ass up.

In the grass?

Yes.

I know you're thinking about two-life crew, but that was the running joke.

The running joke was like, yo, go outside, take your shoes off, do some grounding, lay in your backyard.

I'm like, lay in my backyard, like lay down, put your belly on the ground, put your face to the ground, face down, ass up.

I know it sounds crazy, but literally, that's what I would go do.

And you would be surprised the healing energy that comes.

What do you feel?

Do that.

Put me there.

Peace.

Peace.

Do you feel energy come up like

that?

Yo, you can literally feel it from the earth.

I know when people, you're like, oh, he's a tree hugger.

Yeah.

And you would be too, if you could just take your shoes off, walk on the ground, put your forehead up against the tree, lean your back against the tree, lay down on your belly.

If you want to just lay, if you want to lay on your back, lay on your back on the ground, just take a few deep breaths, look up at the sun, look up at the sky, just pray, just talk to God.

And I guarantee you, if you allow yourself no phone, no distractions, I guarantee you you will feel some type of release.

Well, you know what's amazing about that is you're reminding us all of what we know to be true.

Because if you think about any experience where you've gone on vacation and you've actually had a chance to lay on a beach

or to sit down on a trail or to lay down in a park while your kids are swinging and you just take a moment, you feel at peace.

My favorite thing to do is to be in the water.

I feel like the direct connection to God is in the water looking at the sun.

So when I'm in the water, I'm looking up at the sun, squinting, praying, talking to God, telling God what it is that I want, what I'm thankful for.

A lot of gratitude.

Sometimes it's not even, I don't even ask for nothing.

I just go out there and just say, Thank you, God, thank you.

Gratitude is a lost art.

You know, everybody has this sense of entitlement nowadays.

Everybody feels like, you know, that the world is just supposed to open up and give you things.

It's like, yo, I'm grateful for every opportunity.

I even sitting here on Mel Robins show.

I'm just like, man, thank you, God.

This is a great opportunity.

Like, I'm grateful for everything.

And when you're in that water looking up at that sun, just expressing gratitude, the peace you feel.

If the person that's listening is just at a point in their life where they've got like the metal toilet moment and things just feel like it's just gone to hell, made so many mistakes.

They don't have the grace yet that you're talking about the fact that you need to extend to yourself.

Do you have any suggestions or advice for how you begin that practice of gratitude when you feel like you're just screwed up?

Well, you should say thank you because whatever you're going through, things could probably probably always be worse and if you don't believe me just turn the news on turn the news on there's somebody going through something right now that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy but that person is actually you know going through it so for me when i find myself in those metal toilet moments i'm here what am i supposed to learn from this moment Thank you, God, for the experience of going through it.

Like, I'm really big on that.

I'm really big on thanking God when things are not necessarily going my way because they're probably going my way.

You understand what I'm saying?

I have this thing where I feel like you can stand in this moment and you can look backwards in time travel and go, okay, I may not like what I see.

I may not have deserved that.

It may have been very painful, but I can actually in this moment look backwards and see how everything

led me uniquely here.

Absolutely.

I think it's an incredible skill.

And what you're accessing when you are practicing gratitude in the way that you're recommending is you're actually teaching people how to stand in this moment.

And And in the gratitude of thank you, even though I don't know where this is leading, you're actually practicing faith because you're saying, I'm grateful because I know it's leading me somewhere that I can't yet see

that is meant for me.

And I won't get there without this.

That's right.

And I'm 46 years old.

I've lived enough life to know God has not led me in the wrong direction yet.

So whatever moment I'm standing in, I'm supposed to be standing in in that moment.

And I need to deal with it.

You know, that's why my wife bought me the let them theory is because you know one of the things that i've been is just dealing with is just wondering about other people meaning like what about other people i've had different experiences in my life where sometimes people resent me for what i'm actually doing for them meaning like you can be actually doing good things for a person or have done really good things for a person or you know provided opportunities for a person and that person will grow to resent you like i've literally had i've had a friend say to me one time I don't want to do this deal with you because if I do it, people are going to continue the narrative.

I only get things because of you.

And I'm like, that's strange.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, cause I would, I would love to have a me.

And I've had a, I've had a lot of people in my life provide me opportunity.

I've had a lot of people in my life get me on the right path or, you know, allow me access to things that have gotten me opportunity.

So why would you ever feel like, I don't care if I'm with one person that's that's provided me 10 different opportunities.

Like, why would that be a thing?

And I've had just friends in my life who, regardless of how much I've done

for them,

they act like I did nothing.

And I'm not the type of person to be like, remember, I did this for you.

I did that for you.

I just do things.

I don't even care.

Like, I just feel like that's what you're supposed to do when you're in a certain position.

You share, you know, the wealth.

You share the opportunity.

Yeah.

So to find out that that person is like, oh, he don't do nothing for me.

What?

Now you got to, now you got to run down the list in your mind.

Now I got to go in my mind and be like, was I bugging when I did this?

And to me, that feels cheap to have to do that.

But sometimes you got to do that to remind yourself, it's not me.

It's this person.

And that is data about who this person is and where they are.

And so I can see that clearly when I say, let them say these things.

Let them be ungrateful.

Let them be so insecure about their own power and success and capability that they're actually threatened by my generosity.

Let them be so concerned about what everybody else thinks of them that they need to distance themselves from me because they are clearly insecure about their own power and skill.

And so they're trying to manage what other people think.

Can you expound on the threatened by your own generosity?

Yeah, of course.

So when somebody, I used to be this person.

Like I used to be a person who believed that there was a limited amount of success to go around.

I used to believe that if Charlemagne were just dominating on radio, there was no room for me because you've already done it.

And so if you would extend a hand, at first I would be grateful because I would feel seen by somebody that I really respect and I would feel supported.

But as I start to build something, I would then have to confront the fact that I'm only in a certain place.

And now I make a mistake.

And instead of seeing you, Charlemagne, as somebody who's leading the way, somebody who is there as inspiration, somebody that provides a formula, somebody that provides celebration and support and cheerleading and advocacy for you.

I make a major mistake because I have a very small mind and I think there's only so much to go around.

So now I start to see you, the very person that led the way and that cheered for me and that supported me as a person that I'm now against because I now want what you have.

And I don't actually see that the world is abundant.

When it comes to success and money and friendship and love and all and peace and healing, these things are in limitless supply.

And the only thing that, the only person that can take something that's meant for you is you.

That's it.

It's so sad that when people look at the game of life, right?

What happens is everybody is dealt a hand.

And some hands suck and some hands are better.

That's just how life is.

It's not fair.

But you don't win the game of cards by staring at the hand that somebody else is holding.

That's right.

You win the game of cards by staring at your own hand and figuring out how to play them and how to be a better player.

And how do you do that in life?

You learn from other people

because you and I and you and your friends, you're never playing against each other.

You're only always playing with them.

And if you are dealing with people in your life that reveal to you after you have supported them, after you have shown up for them, that they are actually just transactional, That's because of their insecurity.

Absolutely.

That's why.

And it hurts because you see the potential in other people.

And so you give and give and give because that's one of your core values to be of service.

But then when somebody starts to turn against you or all of a sudden is antagonistic toward you, it just feels weird.

Absolutely.

I'm basically saying, let them be on their own journey.

Let them be very scarce in their mindset.

Let them not understand the way that the world works.

Let them not understand me.

And let me give this a little space so that I can give them the grace and dignity of their own experience.

But I'm not wasting time and energy managing this person anymore.

That's right.

But that shouldn't stop you from being who you are.

Like, I got like my niece, salute to my niece, Nyla Simone, and she says this and it's very genderless when she says it.

She was like, you like to save holes.

Stop trying to save these hoes, right?

And I can't stop being me, meaning that God's not going to be.

Well, you can save hoes all you want.

Just don't expect them to become a church lady.

That's right.

And I mean, they may become one.

Yes, they might be.

They may.

So, but I'm saying, like, God's not going to judge me based off how people treat me.

He's going to judge me based off how I treat people.

Right.

And here, this is where the power comes because I want to give you this.

So, the let them theory, the first part is let them, because that's where you actually recognize you can't control what another person is going to do with the support that you give.

You cannot control that, right?

Your control is never in what other people are doing.

And we waste all our time and energy worrying about what people think and say and do and how they act.

And we have expectations.

And we have to learn to just let other adults be who they are and be who they're not.

And what these people in your life are showing you is they are not abundant people.

They are not secure.

And so when you lift somebody up, and you've already talked about this, if they have not done the internal work, you can lift them up on the outside, but you're still dragging up the devil inside them, right?

And so we tend to attack the very thing that could actually help us.

And as you're lifting up somebody to a different level and they have not done the internal work to be at that level, they will literally turn against the person that lifted them up.

It's because of insecurity.

And so you've got to let them reveal what they're, who they are at their core and how they're going to react to your generosity.

Then you go to the let me part.

Let me remind myself, I actually always have control because I get to choose how much time and energy I put into this relationship moving forward.

And your power is in your values.

You give

because you're a generous person.

You give because you believe in lifting people up.

You give because you believe God is in all things and you are grateful for all things.

So that is how you show up.

That will never change.

But people will reveal that they are not in that same energy space as you.

And then that's just data.

Let them.

So you can better protect your time and energy, but don't stop giving.

That is a just not to them.

Absolutely.

Is that helpful?

That is beyond helpful.

Beyond helpful.

I'm the type of person, I feel like if anything you build only benefits you, it's not big enough.

So I'm never going to stop being of service to people.

But what you said is absolutely true.

Once you get that data and you know who a person is, you know whether to pull away or how much to give or not to give at all anymore.

Exactly.

Exactly.

That's all that it is.

It's actually, you know how you talk about gratitude.

Thank you.

Thank you for thank you for revealing

how you actually feel because now I can protect my time and energy.

I am so thrilled that you're here.

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Welcome back.

It's your buddy Mel Robbins.

Today, you and I are hanging out with Charlemagne the God.

We're talking about purpose.

We're talking about redemption, reinvention, forgiveness.

There's so many things that you're here to teach us, Charlemagne, based on the mistakes and the regrets that you've made.

And one of the things that I wanted to ask you about is this.

So in your book, Get Honest or Die Lying, you talk about how much you hate small talk.

Why do you hate small talk?

Because it's bullshit.

Why do you think it's bullshit?

Because you're not really, two things happen with small talk.

And Mel, I know you know this.

People will come up to you.

Like, you know, I really like the frame of your glasses, Mel.

Like, you know, that's not what they want to talk about.

They got something.

They got something else they want to ask you.

So they're just beating around the bush to ask about it.

I'd rather you just come to me with whatever it is.

I don't want the appetizer.

I didn't order the appetizers.

I want the straight entree.

When it comes to conversation, give me the entree.

I don't need to be warmed up, especially when you know what it is you actually want.

You know what the request is.

You know what it is you want to talk about.

Don't try to warm me up to the conversation because it's just bullshit and we know it.

Waste of time.

Waste of time.

You know, you're right and get honest or die lying.

This is chapter 28, True Intentions.

One of the best ways to avoid making small talk on any level is to focus on your IG.

No, not your Instagram.

The IG I'm discussing stands for intention and goals.

Can you break that down for me?

What is intention and goals?

Intention and goals.

Like you know what the intention of your conversation is and you know what the goal you're trying to reach in the conversation is.

So just get to it.

Like you know what it is.

That's all that's that's literally what the opposite of small talk is.

The opposite of small talk is I have an intention.

I have a goal.

I'm going to go up to this person and I'm going to have the conversation.

I remember being a young guy doing radio in in Columbia, South Carolina.

First time I ever met Wendy Williams.

She's down there doing her nationally syndicated show from one of the stations in Columbia.

I walk in the studio.

I got mixtapes and I got parody songs I want her to hear.

And I'm like, yo, I got these mixtapes.

I got this parody song I want to hear.

I give it to the board.

I'm like, yo, put this in.

Wendy goes, yo.

Take that mixtape shit to my motherfucking husband.

Literally, just like that, verbatim.

Like no small talk, no beating around the bush.

I wasn't offended.

I go, well, where's your husband?

She was like, somewhere in here.

So I went looking for her husband and he was in the conference room.

Guess what?

He was just sitting in there.

He had time to listen, right?

But that was me not having no small talk.

Hey, this is what I'm here for.

I'm a radio personality.

I got these parody songs, these mixtapes I want you to have.

She didn't have any time for small talk because she's trying to do her show.

And that got me on the right path.

We forged a relationship that ultimately led me to New York.

How on earth do you deal with the criticism that you get on social media?

I don't care.

I really don't.

I don't pay no attention.

That's something I stress to everybody around me.

Stay off social media.

We are all in verbally abusive relationships with our smartphones.

Why?

Why would you allow somebody to talk to you like that?

You wouldn't allow somebody to talk to you like that in real life.

So why do you go online seeking it?

Why would you go look at comments in a YouTube channel or comments in a, you know, on Twitter?

I ain't been on Twitter since 2019.

like everybody running now because of Elon Musk.

I just forget Elon Musk.

I ran because of my mental health.

I need to protect my people.

I used to get on Twitter every morning and say, thank you, God, for blessing me with another day of life.

Guaranteed, like clockwork, it would be somebody saying, I was praying you died.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, why would I put myself up to that?

I don't need to go on Twitter to thank God.

I thank God every day of my life.

So for me, it's like, just don't read it.

Like, literally, turn your phone off.

Like, I remember my man, man, Trick Trick, he's a rapper out of the trail.

I remember one time I saw him say, man, as soon as I do this, and he turned his phone off and put it down, I don't even know what the hell y'all talking about.

And listen,

it's so true.

Ignorance is bliss.

You ask anybody that works with me.

I've come in the radio station sometime.

Did you see such and such?

Nope, I didn't.

What happened?

Like, I love being clueless because literally, why would I care about what another person's opinion of me is?

And the other thing I tell the folks is they're supposed to talk about you.

If they're not talking about you, then you're probably not doing what it is that you're supposed to be doing.

You're not making no impact whatsoever.

So whether or not they're talking good about you or whether or not not they're talking bad about you, they're talking and the algorithm doesn't know the difference.

Oh, God.

You're a genius.

No, I'm not.

Yes, you are.

That's just a little common sense.

Because, you know, I write about it in the second book about the tsunami of, you know, social media, because what we don't realize is sometimes we spend so much energy on people we don't like,

right?

So you're constantly talking about that person, talking about that person, or that person says something.

So everybody's coming at that person, but then that person's actual supporters start coming too.

They start commenting.

So now everybody's arguing in the comments about you.

But the algorithm don't know.

All they know is Mel's been mentioned 10,000 times in the last hour.

So who cares?

Have fun.

Enjoy yourself.

Talk to me about your morning routine because you seem to have really locked in the things that you do in order to keep your mental health and your focus intact, to keep yourself in peace, to keep you connected to God and gratitude.

How do you start your day?

Will you walk me through it?

4.15, the alarm clock goes off.

I immediately hit the snooze button.

Eight minutes, the snooze button goes off again.

So then I get up, I say my prayers, go take a shower, get out the shower.

I try to sit and meditate for at least, at least five minutes, because, you know, I'm cutting it close like in the morning to the morning radio.

It's a game of inches.

So I try to do at least five minutes.

But I read out of two affirmation books every day.

I read out of Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stort and I read out of Robert Green's Daily Laws, I think it's called.

And then I read what those affirmations are.

I kiss my wife while she's asleep.

I blow kisses to all my daughter's rooms.

Then I get in my car, go downstairs, and I'm either listening to.

a podcast like yours or Jay Shetty or Debbie Brown or I'm listening to, I love the Jon Stewart's the weekly show, whenever he does his episodes, because I think that he just does some of the greatest political conversations right now.

But that's usually what it is.

I just try to listen to something I know is going to get my energy where it, where it needs to be.

And my intention every day is the same.

My intention every day is to serve.

So I just wake up every day and I say, you know, God, I'm grateful for another day of life.

I'm thankful for another day of life.

And, you know, whatever the day brings today, because I know it's going to be a new adventure every single time.

I I know it's never a dull moment.

I'm ready for it.

How has having daughters changed you?

Man,

in ways that I can't even imagine, because I'm nowhere near

the type of disciplinarian my father was.

Like, I'm not putting any type of hands on my daughters in any way, shape, or form.

I apologize to them a lot.

My oldest daughter, she's 16.

You know, I snapped at her about something.

We going back and and forth about something.

I had to check myself and realize like, oh, this don't got nothing to do with her.

You know, it's something I'm projecting onto her.

I'm projecting my fears onto her the same way I said my father raised me out of fear and not love.

So when you apologize, I remember apologizing to my 16-year-old daughter and she said to me, it's okay.

You've never done this before.

Meaning, this is your first time.

as a father.

This is your first time raising a 16-year-old girl, which is very true.

Like, so I'm not going to always get it right.

And you think about how, man, you long for like just apologies from your parents.

Because I know a lot of the things that they might have done to us when we were younger, they didn't know any better.

They were just doing the best they could with the knowledge and the information and the wisdom they had at the time.

So it's the same thing now.

So when you ask me how my daughter's changed me, I really don't know yet.

I just know I am being changed.

There's just something that's changing me as just a human because the one thing I'm really fighting now is realizing that you got to relinquish control because you cannot control anything that happens to these four little beautiful souls.

You can't, nothing.

Like, you know, the only thing you could do is love them, encourage them.

You know, I try to give my daughters the best experiences that they possibly can can have and just teach them to be really great people.

The things that my mother and father and my grandmother instilled in me that really stuck with me my whole life, I try to to give to them.

Like when I tell them, you know, manners will take you where money won't.

You know, when I tell them when you walk into a room, make sure you make eye contact with everybody, you speak to everybody, like just say hello, like, you know, because everybody is a human being worthy of that, that level of respect.

Treat the custodian the way you treat the CEO.

Like, you know, that's, I'm big on that, especially with my nine-year-old.

Cause if there's any one of my daughters who is,

a hell raiser like I was when I was a kid, it's my nine-year-old.

But, you know, my only thing with her is you need to have that same smoke for the teachers at school.

Don't come to the parents and the people that love you and be crazy.

Because I was crazy everywhere when I was your age.

I don't tell her that, but that's my mindset.

But I do tell her, you know, you come home and I know you act with us the way that you don't act with at school.

I don't ever hear about this type of behavior with you at school.

At school, you see the,

oh, she's a pleasure and she's great.

But at home, you, you know.

Do you know what that means?

No, what does that mean?

Because I used to complain about my kids this way, too.

Okay.

A parenting expert therapist told me that that actually is a solution that they feel safe.

That they feel safe with you.

Yes.

Because they've been holding it together at school.

Yes.

And you know, I really want to acknowledge you and your wife or something.

And like, it's just, I think it's so beautiful.

You know, you started by talking about choices, and we've talked a lot about the power of a decision, right?

And you talked in the very beginning of this about how

your dad parented out of fear.

The choice that you have made to do work work on your inner self and to

learn how to extend yourself the grace that we all deserve

and to also learn how to show up and do better in that simple story of your daughter reflecting back to you the things that you have shared with us today.

Dad,

this is your first time doing this too.

She is actually evidence that all of the healing that you have done and all of the work that you and your wife have done have actually broken that pattern of parenting out of fear and have broken the way that trauma gets passed through families.

And I just really wanted to acknowledge that because that is incredible.

Man, you know, I remember during COVID, because my daughter's 16, I think when she might have been like, 13, 14, we started putting her in therapy, not for any reason other than why not?

You know, it's like, it's like, she's an athlete.

She's working out all the time, right?

For cheer.

So it's the same thing.

It's just like, why not go learn what you might be dealing with early?

And I remember during COVID, she came to us and she goes,

she's crying, I'm overwhelmed.

She was like, I'm overwhelmed.

She said that.

She was like, I'm overwhelmed right now.

And I was like, do you think me or your mom would be upset that your grades are slipping during this unprecedented time?

None of us have ever had to experience anything like this.

I can only imagine being in eighth grade and you're sitting there trying to do clay projects on the floor and you're, you know, trying to get through class during the day on your computer.

Like, I can only imagine.

But the fact that she had the language to come to us and tell us she's overwhelmed.

My nine-year-old and six-year-old, same way.

I talk to them about going to therapy.

I tell them about dealing with anxiety, dealing with depression.

Now you got movies like

Inside Out.

You know, you you got movies like Inside Out that are showing them their emotions and their feelings, Inside Out, part one and part two.

So these kids have the language.

And that's all I really want.

I don't know how possible it is, but I've always said, all I want to do is raise trauma-free babies, man.

That's it.

I mean, I know that they're going to go through their own experiences in life and they're going to have their own things that they got to deal with.

But I want to at least raise, have them have a trauma-free childhood

as much as possible.

Well, it's very clear you and your wife are giving them the tools to actually respond to anything that's happening, which is extraordinary.

And I just want to make sure that you, can you hear the acknowledgement and the work that you've done and the impact that it's having on the daughters that you're raising?

Yeah, I receive it from you.

You know,

for me, I'm just trying to be a good father, trying to be a better father than my dad was.

I mean, it's not like my dad was a bad father at all.

I don't ever want to say that.

But he will tell you about his own issues.

And, you know, just me learning what I've learned, not just about him but you know through the work i've done on myself i know all the mistakes that he made and you know he was one of my models for going to do the work as well because i just did not want to make the same mistakes that he made especially in regards to him and my mom you know and like you know his infidelity broke up his family and i saw the impact that had on you know not

me to a certain extent, but definitely to my younger brothers and younger sisters.

So it's the same thing.

I didn't want that to happen to my family so it's just like yo in order to not be what my father was

I had to be better well since I learned very late what he probably could have taught me early I just you know started doing the work on myself and applying it to my everyday life and it's been a amazing blessing You know, you talked about this earlier, but I want to read a passage from Get Honest or Die Lying.

It turns out that my father had been dealing with severe depression and anxiety most of his life.

He was going to therapy several times a week and was on multiple medications.

At one point, things had gotten so bad that he had to check himself into a mental health rehab.

He'd even wanted to kill himself, but hadn't because he didn't want to hurt his children.

You know, you mentioned how you didn't know any of this growing up.

How did learning about those struggles that your father had later in life change how you see your dad?

Oh, I gave him, it allowed me to give him so much grace because when I first started going to therapy, you know, I thought that I didn't like my father because of how he did my mom.

Really didn't have anything to do with that.

It was part of it, but what it really was, like, I was upset because, you know, I felt like he disciplined me for things that he never taught me.

And it was like, damn, this guy, you know, he was very hard on me in a lot of ways.

You know what I mean?

But it was literally because he was dealing with his own issues.

And so once he told me that and I found that out about him,

everything

made perfect sense.

I mean, everything from the infidelity to, you you know, how he used to discipline me, everything made perfect sense.

So it just allowed me to give him a whole lot of grace.

And I just, I wish he would have shared a lot of those things with me earlier, which is why I'm so big on sharing them with my kids now.

How do you think your relationship with your dad, especially before you even knew any of this, played into the experiences of having anxiety or being a people pleaser?

Like, how did that impact you?

The people pleasing, people pleasing came from when I was getting molested when I was eight years old.

And the reason I know that is because when I was eight years old and I was getting molested, when I wanted to make the young lady stop doing it,

she would call me, she would call me ugly and she would say I had a big nose.

And like, she really just started to like mess with me mentally when I would tell her to stop.

Right.

And so I just let her do it because I didn't want to experience that.

Like to me, the experience of being called ugly and saying I had a big nose and all of that crazy stuff, that was worse than what she was actually doing to me.

And that's a psychological mindfuck too, because it's not like it didn't feel good when I was that age, right?

So all of that, that's where the people pleasing came in.

I learned that in therapy years ago.

Like that's what made me a people pleaser.

And the type of people pleaser that you will allow people to run over you and do you dirty, but you don't care because you feel like you're keeping the peace by making them,

you know, making them happy so damn what was the other thing what yeah whatever how your relationship with your father particularly before you knew his struggles played into the own the anxiety that you feel oh yeah i mean probably just trying to impress him all the time you know uh especially when i when i wasn't in school no more and i was in night school and you know he would he'd pull up to the house and then you jump up and act like you was you you was doing something you got side and act like you was cutting grass or you know you were trying to figure life out just because he i knew he would be on my be on my ass so much but yeah I think in a lot of ways, he was the person that I wanted to impress the most in my life.

And that turned into, and that's fun.

I don't know why I'm just connecting these dots now.

That turned into me subconsciously stunting on him.

What do you mean?

Because it's like, yo, I don't know if you ever really believed in me.

Cause I remember when you would compare me to like, you know, my cousins who played football and, you know, like, don't you want to be like them?

You out here always getting in trouble, blah, blah, blah, this and that.

And so it's just like, you know, when you start to achieve success and you're actually doing things that nobody from your hometown has ever done you find yourself stunting like yeah pops yeah yeah yeah now what i'm the i'm i'm the man now you know like that's how you that's how at least how i registered it so i think the reality is all i really wanted to do was impress them i'm really just a little boy who always just wanted to impress my dad and wanted my dad to say yo i'm proud of you son which he which he has done you know my mom is my mom my mom set me free so long ago because i remember my mom saying to me years years years years years years years ago she said, you have accomplished more than anybody in this family has ever accomplished.

And she said to me, but just always be happy you're making a living.

And that's always been my mind state.

I don't get too high on any of this.

I don't get too low on any of this.

I'm just happy that I'm able to make a living.

And, you know, now I'm in a position to help others make, make a little living too.

I would love to have you speak directly to the person that's with us right now, that's listening or watching us.

And you've had this breakthrough.

So you know it's possible.

But, you know, if you think back to those moments in your life, and you've told us about a bunch of them where you're really struggling, what would you tell the person that feels like they're, they don't feel worthy?

They're struggling.

They just,

what do you want them to know about the strength within them, about how to think about this moment in their life?

so that they can get to that point where they feel what you feel.

First thing I would say is say thank you.

Regardless of what condition you're in, what position you're in, what's going on in your life, you're alive.

You're breathing.

So that means that God, the creator, whatever you want to call that entity, has a reason for you to still be here.

So say thank you and be grateful.

And then from there, just be of service.

And you start with being of service to yourself because you can't help anybody else until you help yourself first.

So whatever it is that you're going through, you know, figure out a way to get through it.

Figure out a way to find some healing from it.

You know, I don't know if it's therapy.

I don't know if it's just simply taking your shoes off and going to do some grounding, some breathing exercises, some meditation, something.

Find a way to serve yourself, to put yourself in a position to where you can get on your healing journey.

And then just go out there and start, you know, serving others.

Just

find somebody to go help.

Like go volunteer at the, you know, local food bank.

You know, go

help somebody.

take their groceries to the car.

Just find some way of being of service.

And I feel like, man, you'll start to see your life transform in ways that you can't even can't even imagine and you'll start to love yourself more i think that's one of the things that a lot of people lack too man we just lack real genuine self-love you know because the world is always making us feel inferior so it's very hard to feel you know like you're a person you know worthy of love if you can't look in the mirror and say to yourself man you know i really genuinely love you like i stay i stay on my michael jackson shit like if you want to make the the world a better place, you got to take a look at yourself and make that change.

Like you got to talk to that person in the mirror.

And when you talk to that person in that mirror and that person has gratitude and that purpose, that person's purpose is to serve.

Cause I always tell folks, your true purpose in life is service to others.

I'm like, everything we're doing is of service.

This podcast is of service, Mel.

People literally go and they listen to the Mel Robbins podcast because they're trying to find answers to something that's going on in their life.

And hopefully, you know, information is being dispensed that does it for them so you just got to find your purpose by just going out there being grateful and going out there to serve serve people find somebody to serve serve just serve and i promise you you'll see your life change in ways that you can't even imagine i mean that what you just said is actually it's the holy grail it it it is like everybody's like i don't know what my purpose is you just told us what your purpose is your purpose is to serve and to to work on yourself to be a better version of yourself you actually give guidance on page 36 of get get honest or die lying.

I absolutely love this.

Human beings that might have started out in one place, but have the potential to go somewhere else.

I'd encourage you to look for that same potential in the people you meet and more importantly, in yourself.

We are all works in progress.

The more we can embrace that process and let go of the unnecessary judgment and the holier than thou attitudes, the quicker you'll be able to evolve into the best version of yourself.

That's right.

What are your parting words?

Keep God first, stay humble, keep working.

That's literally my mindset.

Like when I tell you, I'm just, I'm just happy to be here.

When I tell you, I'm just a kid from Monks Corner, South Carolina, who is just extremely grateful for the journey that God has me on.

I love being, I'm 46 years old.

I love being me.

I love my life.

I love my wife.

I love my four daughters.

I love the circle of people that I have around me that I call family.

That's it.

Like, keep God first, stay humble, keep working.

That's my mindset.

It is just radiating off you.

Like you can feel, like you were talking about laying on the ground and feeling the energy.

You can feel the authenticity of that energetic alignment in your soul

when you say those words.

Thank you.

That's it.

Keep God first, stay humble, keep working.

That's literally my mindset every day.

I keep God first.

You know, I was raised a Jehovah's Witness.

My grandmother was a Baptist.

So all I ever knew was you believe in something.

There is a God.

My father was a Jehovah's Witness till he got this fellowship, but then he got into Islam.

But there was always God.

So God is always there.

That's number one.

Stay humble.

Yo, all of this can go away tomorrow.

Like literally, all of it can go away tomorrow.

The same person you meet up is the same person you meet on the way down.

So it's like treat the CEO the same way you treat the custodian.

You know, I feel like there's a lot of people, you know, hopefully when I'm not around, they say good things about me just because of how I carry myself when it comes, you know, to other humans.

And stay working, because what else are you going to do?

And when I say stay working, it don't even just necessarily mean a job.

Just stay working on yourself.

Cause as long as you're alive, you're a work in progress and God has more work for you to do.

Wow.

We went to church today with Charlemagne.

I'll tell you.

That's it.

Well, I hope you keep working because we're all benefiting from it.

Thank you for having me.

You are, you, you are a light.

You are a blessing.

You know, I don't know if you realize it, but you touch so many different people.

Like there's not a demographic of people I can point to and say, oh, oh, that's the Mel Robbins listener.

Cause I have so many different people come to me and be like, yo, you know, Mel Robbins, you know, my wife literally just gave me your book last week.

You know, I talked to people like Jason Wilson.

They speak so highly about you.

Like Jay Shay, like all like you, you are a real light to people, man.

So just please keep doing what you're doing because we need we need people like you in the world.

Oh.

Well, thank you.

Absolutely.

I can receive that.

And the let them theory is life changing.

Yes.

Man, because I used to say, let them drown.

Let them drown.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I got to get rid of the the drown part.

That's a little.

Yeah.

Well, because then you're going down with them.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

So I just like let them.

Let them.

Yeah.

Like if everybody makes their own choices, let them.

Yeah.

You know, I had a really interesting conversation with Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s son, Martin, and his wife, Andrea, on their podcast, My Legacy.

And as we were talking about it, he said, you know, Mel, this is my dad's teaching.

Because choosing peace does not mean surrender.

It's actually a sign of strength.

That's right.

And managing your response is power.

And when you surrender your peace and your love to hatred, then you actually lose your power.

It's a choice to let them show up with hate or let them show up however they're going to show up and then hold my power and let me choose how I respond.

Because taking responsibility for your life is like, let's look at the word responsibility.

It's the ability to respond.

And you are a person who has responded to the twists and turns of your life.

You started by talking about choice.

You understand

the extraordinary, enormous, transformative power of the choices that you make.

That's right.

The good ones, the bad ones, but the ultimate choice to then extend grace to yourself.

and to figure out the kind of person that you want to be and the kind of life that you want to live.

And you've made a decision to be of service and to lead with love.

And that choice has transformed your life.

It's transforming your marriage, your daughters, all of the people that listen to you around the world.

It's so powerful.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

See all that gratitude.

I fucking love you, Charlemagne.

I can't love you more, Mel.

Thank you.

Oh, and I love you too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for choosing to spend time together with us.

Thank you for listening to something that will help you create a better life.

And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life.

And if you take Charlemagne's advice today, be of service.

There is zero doubt that you will have a better life.

Alrighty, I'll see you in a few days.

A three-time New York Times best-selling author and a Wemy and Emmy Award-winning executive producer.

And if you're listening to this conversation today, because somebody

Charlemagne is also, charlamagne is also the founder of a publishing imprint black peer blah blah blah i get the bbbs are killing me here let me take some water he's also the is it the founder okay

okay go back up he's got so many things let me i feel like i'm like like

pace

holy shit great

thank you mel wow i needed that we needed that no that that uh

Yeah, that resentment conversation was great.

I needed that.

More than you know.

Well,

I'm happy it can help because I used to be a resentful piece of shit.

I'm not all myself.

Oh, and one more thing.

And no, this is not a blooper.

This is the legal language.

You know.

what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you.

This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

I'm just your friend.

I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.

Got it?

Good.

I'll see you in the next episode.

Stitcher.

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Saying no isn't just a good idea.

It's non-negotiable.

Let's talk about cutting the BS from your life by setting boundaries.

If you feel overwhelmed, if your to-do list is endless, if you're constantly drained, resentful, or you're stretched so thin.

I need you to hear this.

The problem isn't you.

The problem is you're not saying no enough in your life.

Now, here's what I want you to know.

You are allowed to say no.

No explanation, no apology, no guilt.

Just no.

No is a complete sentence.

And if somebody doesn't like hearing your no, let them.

That's the first part of the let them theory.

Let them be disappointed.

Let them be confused.

Let them think you're selfish.

Let them think whatever they want.

And you want to know why?

Because you're not responsible for how someone else reacts to your boundary.

So you're going to have to learn to get comfortable with people being disappointed or frustrated when you say no and you set that boundary.

Their discomfort is not your responsibility.

Their reaction is not your job to manage.

Saying no, it doesn't make you difficult.

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Saying no isn't selfish.

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And most importantly, it protects you from overextending yourself and trying to manage everybody else.

So the next time you feel that pressure to say yes, when your gut is like, no,

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Say no.

Then pause and let them.

Let them feel however they feel.

You have permission to step back and stop overexplaining your reasons.

No matter what they say or how they react, remember, let them.

And then I want you to remember the second part of the let them theory.

Say, let me.

What I love about let me is that it immediately shows you what you can control.

Let me shifts the focus right back to where it belongs, onto you.

Let me set a boundary clearly and firmly.

Let me say no.

Let me cancel these plans because I just don't have it in me today.

Let me focus on what I can control.

You can control your attitude, your behavior, your values, your needs, your desires, and what you want to do in response to what just happened or what's going on around you or the requests that somebody just made of you.

And here's why this works.

When you start clearly communicating your boundaries and you actually stick to them, something amazing happens.

You build trust with yourself.

Every no strengthens your ability to prioritize your needs without guilt and hesitation.

It's how you put yourself first instead of constantly putting yourself last.

So right now, I want you to think of one area of your life where you're constantly overextending yourself and you've been holding back from saying no.

Maybe this is happening at work.

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Let them have their reaction.

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Let them judge.

But you, you stay firm.

See, they're the ones that can deal with their reaction and their expectations and their disappointment.

That's not your job to manage.

Your job is to protect your peace and to protect your time and to protect yourself from all of this stuff you've been saying yes to that you now are going to say no to.

That's what a boundary sounds like.

No.

Then let them.

And you, you go live your life free from the BS.

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