The 5-Second Rule
The late-night infomercial that helped Mel Robbins become famous
Mel Robbins is now the most widely booked female Keynote speaker, author of two best selling novels, collaborated with Audible on two learning series, recently filmed a syndicated day-time talk show with Sony Entertainment and presented at TED with her talk now having over 20 million views.
But, not that long ago she was unemployed, drinking too much, overweight and looking down the barrel of a marriage separation. She wanted to change, but couldn’t work out how. She would put her gym gear near the door before bed, but in the morning when the alarm went off, her anxiety and self-doubt would kick in and she would hit snooze.
Then, one night, staying up late watching infomercials she saw an advertisement that used a Space Shuttle launch. You know the one; the shuttle, flames starting to come out from under it, the audible countdown from 10 seconds, as it reaches zero they say ‘LIFT-OFF’ and the Shuttle leaves the ground on its journey. Mel thought to herself, “what if I was a Rocket”. So she started using the 5-second rule.
This infomercial created a thought bubble that triggered a change with Mel; she was trained as a criminal defence attorney, then worked as a legal correspondent with CNN, but was now currently unemployed and…
