Mel Robbins

1990s–2000s

Following law school, Robbins worked as a public defender in New York, including at the Legal Aid Society.^[6][7] In 1999, she began working as a life coach and executive coach in Boston. In 2007, she broke into radio with a local radio show Make It Happen with Mel Robbins which ran for a year.^[8][9]

2010s–2020s

During the early 2010s, Robbins hosted a few local radio shows.^[10] In May 2011, she published her debut book Stop Saying You're Fine.^[11] The following month she gave a viral TEDx talk titled How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over, where she introduced the "five second rule" technique.^[1]

In 2012, when George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin, Robbins was hosting a radio show in Orlando, Florida and covered the aftermath. In 2013, she was brought on CNN as a legal analyst during the Zimmerman trial.^[5]

For the next few years Robbins worked as a radio show host, CNN legal analyst, and motivational speaker.^[5] In 2017, she published her second book, The 5 Second Rule,^[12] which became a bestseller.^[13]

In 2019, Robbins hosted The Mel Robbins Show produced by Sony Pictures TV, which ran for one season.^[14] In 2021, she published her third book, The High 5 Habit^[15] followed by a fourth book cowritten by her daughter, The Let Them Theory^[16] in 2024. Both books were bestsellers.^[17] In 2025, Robbins began her first world tour: "Let Them The Tour".^[18]

The Mel Robbins Podcast

In 2022, Robbins launched The Mel Robbins Podcast^[19] which by 2025 was one of the most popular podcasts in the United States.^[20] The podcast, and Robbins as the host, have received many accolades including an iHeartRadio Podcast Award^[21] and a Golden Globes nomination^[22].

The Let Them Theory

The Let Them Theory, published in 2024,^[23][24] is a mantra marketed by Robbins which claims to reduce stress by encouraging an individual to focus only on what they can control by ignoring gossip and external criticism.^[25][26] The mantra received criticism due to its lack of evidence to support its claims, along with arguments that abiding to the mantra absolves the individual from being introspective.^[27] Robbins responded to the claim that the book's idea is "so obvious it's laughable" by saying "Yeah, it is a cheap trick – and it works".^[28][29]

Robbins's book was preceded by the online circulation of a poem, "Let Them", by Cassie Phillips in 2022.^[23][30][31] Phillips's poem contains lines such as "If they are showing you who they are and not what you perceived them to be, LET THEM"; in her book, Robbins writes, "Let Them show you who they are".^[23] A representative for Robbins told Atlantic journalist Olga Khazan that "neither Mel, the fact checkers, the researchers nor the publishers saw [Phillips's] poem"; Robbins said the mantra came from her daughter's exhortation to let her son go to a taquería before a school prom dance.^[23] In Khazan's assessment, a number of tattoos of the phrase "Let Them" produced in Robbin's book are visually similar to Phillips's tattoo of the phrase, which she had shared with her poem in 2022.^[23] Phillips said her poem was inspired partly by a line from a Tyler Perry Madea film.^[23]