September 17, 2015

It has been humbling to come to this realization about myself in the past few years.  However, it has also been incredibly liberating to see this pattern and to ask myself the question, “What would it be like to honor my real emotions and to live my life knowing that what I want and feel is just as important as anyone else?”

Honoring our emotions isn’t about being self absorbed, arrogant, or better than anyone – it’s really about being true to ourselves, honest with how we feel and what we want, and willing to engage in authentic conversations with other people – even, and especially, when we don’t feel or want the same things that they do.

So why can it be so challenging for us to honor our own emotions?  Some of the primary reasons for this are:

• We worry that people won’t like or approve of us
• We don’t value ourselves in an authentic way (i.e. we think we’re not good enough)
• We’ve been taught to put other people’s needs, desires, and feelings ahead of our own
• We’re not comfortable feeling and expressing certain emotions
• We don’t think we “deserve” to have what we want (i.e. we think we’re not important enough)
• We haven’t been taught healthy ways to feel and express our true emotions
• We worry that we’ll be seen as selfish or overly emotional

Here are a few things you can do to enhance your capacity to honor your own emotions:

• Be Real About How You Truly Feel – The first step of any process is always about being real, first and foremost with ourselves.  Even if we feel unclear or uncomfortable with a specific situation or certain set of emotions or desires, the more willing we are to be real about what we truly feel and want, the more ability we’ll have to honor ourselves and be authentic with others.  Making it a practice of getting in touch with our true feelings is essential.  A great way to do this is through journaling. It’s not about justifying how we feel to anyone else; it’s about being honest with ourselves and out emotions.

• Stop Judging Yourself – One of the biggest things that can get in our way in life, in general and specifically when it comes to feeling our emotions and expressing our desires, is self judgment.  We think to ourselves, “I shouldn’t feel this way,” or “If I share this, they will think I’m a terrible person.”  We use these self critical thoughts to suppress our true feelings, which can have significantly negative consequences on us and others.What if we just allowed ourselves to be real and to honor what’s true for us in the moment, without judging it?

• Give Yourself Permission to Feel – Because of our self judgment, we sometimes don’t give ourselves permission to feel… especially certain emotions.  As human beings we tend to have a hierarchy of emotions – liking the “good” ones (love, joy, gratitude, peace, etc) and not liking the “bad” ones (anger, fear, hurt, powerlessness, etc).  However, at the deepest level, all human emotions have value and can benefit us if we’re willing to feel them in an authentic and healthy way.  Giving ourselves permission to feel what we’re feeling is critical to our ability to honor and move through our emotions in a way that serves us, our relationships, and our life.

• Let Go of Your “Story” – Many of us, myself included, are attached to our “story.”  We love all of the drama and all of the details that make up the relationships, situations, and circumstances in our lives (both past and present).  While our life story, as well as the details of specific relationships and circumstances in our lives, are important at some level, too often we get caught in the story and all the drama, which actually takes us out of our emotional experience.  Where we have real power is in feeling our emotions authentically, not talking about them, rationalizing them, or explaining them – but in simply feeling them.  Human emotions are not sustainable – especially if they are honestly felt.  It only takes about a minute or two to genuinely feel and move through an emotion.  However, when we attach an emotion to a story, we don’t allow ourselves to truly feel it and thus can keep it stuck in place.

• Get Emotional Support – As important as our emotions are to our lives, our well being, and our relationships, sadly we don’t get a lot of emotional training in life (through school, at work, and in general) and we don’t often have built in, healthy emotional support mechanisms in our daily lives.  We live in a world that is primarily focused on action, results, and appearances – none of which has anything to do with our emotional experience (even though our emotional experience is not only one of the most important aspects of our lives, but is what drives much of what we do and produce in life).  There are, however, many ways we can find or enhance our emotional support.  Most of us have certain emotional support structures in our lives that we’ve set up for ourselves, consciously or unconsciously.  The key is for us to utilize these in a consistent and authentic way, as well as to make sure they are empowering us to honor ourselves and our emotional experience in life.

What do you do honor your emotions in a healthy way? What makes this challenging for you? Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, or any questions you have below.

September 3, 2015

In this video blog message, I talk about one of Wayne’s core teachings – how we can make the shift from ambition (focusing on our goals, achievements, status, possessions) to meaning (focusing on fulfillment, joy, purpose, and what and whom matter most to us).

This important lesson was the core theme of a film Wayne made a few years ago called “The Shift.”  I’m filled with both sadness (for his death) and gratitude (for his life).  He clearly didn’t die with his music still in him.  Thank you Wayne!

Check out the video below and feel free to leave a comment below about it. And, if there are people in your life or your social networks whom you think would resonate with this message, you are welcome to share it with them.

August 20, 2015

Check out the video below and feel free to leave a comment on my blog about it. And, if there are people in your life or your social networks whom you think would resonate with this message, you’re welcome to share it with them.

July 16, 2015

I’m excited to share a new tool with you!  I’ve recently partnered with Mind Power Technology, or MindPT, to bring you a brand-new visual version of my teachings. My session, which is called “Nothing Changes Until You Do,” can be viewed online or on the MindPT mobile app. As a gift to you, we’re giving it away for free…you can check it out here:

MindPT blew me away when I first learned about it.  It’s a personal change tool that works on a conscious and subconscious level, yet requires nothing more than relaxing and watching a stunning visual presentation.

Through the integration of neuroscience and positive psychology, MindPT uses a precise blend of high quality, clinically studied techniques. Each element is proven to improve emotional and physical wellbeing, and leads to peak performance and greater happiness.

I like to think of it as a pocket “trainer” for your mind.  Anytime you need an emotional boost, confidence, an attitude adjustment, direction, self-love, empowerment, inspiration or motivation… just pull out your phone and watch Nothing Changes Until You Do.

Feel better, and think better… in minutes!

When you watch it regularly, your automatic self-talk will change. That’s the brilliance of this approach.

 We know that we can talk ourselves into – or out of – anything. It all depends on what’s going on inside, in our belief system!  MindPT helps you upgrade your automatic self-talk to align it with your goals and your values. You will self-talk your way into greater happiness, enhanced health, more success, better relationships and the satisfaction of achieving your goals!

I encourage you to use MindPT for just 5-10 minutes every day. Use your “down” time to the max, and prepare to be blown away by the results.

I’m excited to share this with you.  Check out my session, Nothing Changes Until You Do, for free:

I think you’re going to really enjoy it.  And, I’m looking forward to hearing your results!

Also, make sure to go to the app store and download the free MindPT app for your wireless device so you can view my session on the go.  Your email address and password will allow you to access my MindPT session for free (normally $47)…or you can simply use the code “MikeRobbins” to get free access to the session.  Enjoy!

July 9, 2015

As we were rushing around to get out the door for our 4th of July weekend trip to the  lake, I misplaced my iPhone and was forced to leave without it…for 4 days!  What at first seemed like a curse, ended up being a blessing!

Check out the video below and feel free to leave a comment below about it. And, if there are people in your life or your social networks whom you think would resonate with this message, feel free to share it with them.

May 6, 2015

Given the focus of my work, especially in the past five years since the release of my book Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken, which is all about authenticity and vulnerability, I’m constantly in situations where I’m talking about, encouraging, and seeing the positive impact of vulnerability.

Because of my baseball background, I’m sometimes invited to speak to athletes, specifically baseball players. A few years ago, I got invited down to spring training to speak to a group of minor league players for one of the Major League Baseball organizations. This was a big deal for me and I was excited to have an opportunity to speak to these guys, given that I had stood in their shoes in my early 20s. I could relate specifically to what they were going through—spring training is an exciting but stressful time, where lots of evaluation takes place and decisions are made. A number of those guys would be released (i.e., cut) by the end of spring training, so how they performed over the next few weeks would have a big impact on not only their season but also their future baseball careers (or lack thereof).

I spoke to them that morning about how they could effectively deal with the pressure of spring training and how they could handle the mental and emotional ups and downs of playing baseball in a healthy and productive way. My talk went well and seemed to resonate with the guys. After I spoke, a number of them came up to talk to me. In addition to their comments and questions about my speech, a bunch of them wanted to tell me about something that happened a few days earlier. Because I heard about it passionately from a number of different guys (and got a few different versions of the same story), I wanted to find out more about what went down, so I asked my friend and former Stanford teammate AJ, who was running the whole minor league system for this organization at the time, what had happened.

AJ told me that he had asked his coaches to introduce themselves to the players at their first all-camp meeting the week before in a unique way. Instead of them giving their résumés, he wanted each of them to tell a personal story about a meaningful moment they’d had when they were players themselves. He said it was amazing and that one of his coaches, named Alan, blew everyone away with his story.

Alan got up and said, “I played for ten years in AAA, without a single day in the major leagues.”

No one plays in AAA (which is the highest level of the minor leagues) for ten years. If you get that high up and hang around for a while, you either make it up to the big leagues, or you walk away from the game. It’s very uncommon and actually quite difficult to spend that much time at that level of the minors. Alan went on to say:

I played for a number of different organizations, but couldn’t break through and make it. Toward the end of that tenth season in Triple-A’s, I finally made peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to make it. I was disappointed, of course, but because I’d given it everything I had, and it just didn’t seem like it was meant to be, I was actually okay with it.

Once I made my decision, I called my dad because we’d been talking about my career in the recent weeks. I said to him, “Dad, I’ve decided I’m going to retire. I’m not going to quit right now because the season’s not over, but when it ends, I’m going to stop playing. Would you do me a favor, Dad? Can you come see me play one last time? That would really mean a lot to me.”

When my dad got there, I was fired up. I really wanted to play well. He was going to be in town for five nights. The first night he was in town, I came up to bat in the second inning, hit a ground ball to second base, and grounded out. When I got back in the dugout, my manager walked over to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me to sit down.

He took me out of the game, and in the second inning. Now that only happens if you don’t hustle, do something stupid, or get hurt. But I wasn’t hurt, I did hustle on that play—I always hustled—and I hadn’t done anything stupid to warrant him taking me out of the game that early.

I didn’t understand. And I was mad. I didn’t say anything to my manager because I didn’t want to be disrespectful. But, how could he show me up like that, and in front of my father? Anyway, I just sat there at the end of the bench about as far away from the manager as I could.

Then, I heard someone at the other end of the bench say, “Can we tell him?” The next thing I knew, my manager walked all the way down to the end of the bench and got right in my face.

He said, “Do you want to know why I took you out of the game?”

“Yes sir,” I said. “I didn’t appreciate that; you showed me up in front of my father.”

“Well,” my manager said, “I took you out of the game because you just got called up to the major leagues.”

The next thing I knew, I looked up and all twenty-five guys on my team had gathered around me in the dugout to give me hugs and high fives. Those guys were so excited for me because they all knew how long I’d waited, how hard I’d worked, and how much it meant to me. The celebration went on so long in the dugout, they actually had to stop the game.

As amazing as this story is, the most incredible part is that when this coach told this story to a roomful of 150 Minor League Baseball players, he broke down and cried in front of all of them. That never happens there, ever. And a few days later, dozens of those players were coming up to talk to me about it because it had a huge impact on them.

That’s how powerful it is when we have the courage to be vulnerable—when we let people see who we really are and how we really feel.

Dr. Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly, is a psychologist and research professor from the University of Houston who studies human emotions, including shame and vulnerability. In a March 2012 TED talk, she said, “Vulnerability is not weakness, and that myth is profoundly dangerous.” She went on to say that after 12 years of research, she has actually determined that vulnerability is “our most accurate measurement of courage.”

Unfortunately, all too often we relate to vulnerability—especially in certain environments, relationships, and situations—as something we should avoid at all costs. However, it’s vulnerability that liberates us from our erroneous and insatiable obsession with trying to do everything “right”—thinking we can’t make mistakes, have flaws, or be human. In other words, being vulnerable allows us to let go of the pressure-filled, stress-inducing perfection demands we place on ourselves.

In addition to our own liberation, when we’re vulnerable we give other people permission to be vulnerable as well, and in so doing, we open up the possibility of real human connection and the opportunity to impact people in a profound way, which is what most of us truly want in life.

This is an excerpt from my book Nothing Changes Until You Do, with permission. Published by Hay House (May, 2015 in paperback) and available online or in bookstores.

How easy or difficult do you find it to be vulnerable yourself? What do you do to have the courage to be vulnerable in your life? What questions or suggestions do you have about this? Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more below.