INTRODUCTION

My Story

At the age of 41, I found myself $800,000 in debt, unemployed, and
watching my husband’s restaurant business crumble. It felt like we
had failed at life with no hope of ever escaping the debt.
To deal with the anxiety and self-doubt, my main strategy became
avoidance. Avoid getting up by hitting the snooze button. Avoid the
pain with alcohol. Avoid responsibility by blaming my husband. Avoid
looking for a job by procrastinating however I could.
I enviously watched as my friends found success after success in
their careers while we struggled to get groceries on the table. I had
just been laid off and had no idea what to do with my life: I’d
already tried being a public defender for the Legal Aid Society in
New York City, being a lawyer in a large firm in Boston, working for a
few start-ups, doing business development at an advertising agency,
becoming a life coach, hosting a call-in radio show, and even
opening a small paint-your-own-pottery-studio. I felt completely lost,
like nothing I did would ever be enough to dig us out of the hole we
were in.
If

you’ve ever been in this situation, you understand how
monumental even the simplest tasks seem: getting out of bed,
opening your bills, being fully present with your family, cooking a
nice meal, applying for a job, going for a walk, canceling that
subscription, or even just being honest about the extent to which
you’re struggling. . . Everything feels impossible. Every morning
when I woke up, the anxiety was coursing through my veins, and I
thought, Is this really what it’s going to look like for the rest of my
life?

But you want to know the funny thing about being stuck? I knew
exactly what I needed to do: get up, tackle the dreaded pile of bills,
get the kids ready for school, make myself go on walks, reach out to
my friends for support, make a budget, find a job. And yet, I
couldn’t seem to do any of it.
How I Changed My Life
I’ll never forget the morning when everything changed for me.
The alarm went off, and there I was, lying in bed, completely
overwhelmed by our problems. Like so many of us, I was paralyzed
by my own thoughts, and the last thing I wanted to do was get up
and face another day.
But then, something strange happened. A thought popped into my
head that would ultimately change my life. It was so simple, almost
silly. I remembered watching a rocket launch and the way NASA
counted down to blast off: 5-4-3-2-1. I thought, What if I just
counted backward like that and launched myself out of bed?
It seemed ridiculous, but I was desperate, so I gave it a shot. I
counted backward: 5-4-3-2-1—and I got out of bed. Just like that. I
didn’t think about how tired I was or how much I didn’t want to face
my problems. I simply moved before my brain had the chance to talk
me out of it. It’s like launching a rocket: Once you start the
countdown, 5-4-3-2-1, there’s no turning back.
At that point in my life, I was so used to letting my thoughts
paralyze me and fear and stress consume me that the concept felt
completely foreign. I remember what a revelation it was when I
thought to myself, Wait a minute, I can feel horrible and still do what
I need to do? Yes, Mel, you can. And it worked.
In those five seconds, I had interrupted the cycle of overthinking.
It felt like a small victory, but it was also a revelation. If I could push
through those five seconds of fear, maybe I could push through
anything.
So, I began counting backward, 5-4-3-2-1 anytime there was
something I needed to do. . . but I didn’t feel motivated to do it.
5-4-3-2-1 Get up when the alarm rings.
5-4-3-2-1 Pick up the phone and start networking to find a job.
5-4-3-2-1 Open the bills that had been piling up on the counter for
months.
I started calling this countdown technique the “5 Second Rule.”
It’s so simple: The moment you have an instinct to act, you have
to physically move within five seconds, or your brain will talk you out
of it. Just start counting backward—5-4-3-2-1 and move. Take action
before hesitation kicks in.
Here’s why it works: Counting backward requires focus and snaps
you out of autopilot, giving you just enough of a push to get going.
It helps you power through fear, doubt, or procrastination. Every
time you count 5-4-3-2-1 it is like tipping the first domino,
momentum kicks in, and BOOM, you are no longer thinking about
what you need to do, you are already doing it. And the best part?
Once you start moving, it’s way easier to keep going.
One 5-second move at a time, I forced myself to put one foot in
front of the other and slowly step back into my life. I won’t lie to
you. It wasn’t easy. The next couple of years were among the
hardest of my life.
It’s not easy to claw your way out of debt or face the painful
issues in your marriage. It’s not easy to quiet the anxiety or push
through the self-doubt. It’s hard to update your résumé and look for
a job when you question the value you bring. It’s a grind to force
yourself to get back in shape and create healthier habits after you’ve
let yourself go.
And it’s definitely not glamorous to work all day, then come home,
take care of three kids, spend a few minutes with my husband, and
then stay up late every night, trying to figure out ways I can make
more money.
But that’s what I did.
The 5 Second Rule taught me that action is the answer. Thinking
about your problems will never solve them. Waiting around to feel
like doing something means you’ll never do it. It taught me that no
one is coming to save you. You must save yourself from yourself.
You have to force yourself to make little moves forward, all day,
every day, especially when you don’t feel like it.
Using 5-4-3-2-1, I pushed through the excuses, the anxiety, the
overwhelm, and the fear. And step by step, day by day, week by
week, I slowly took the actions that put my life and career back on
track. My husband started using it to push himself to face the issues
in his business head-on, and it worked for him too. But it would be
another three years before I told anyone else about the 5 Second
Rule. I had been reluctant to share it with anyone because, first, I
didn’t know why it worked. And second, I didn’t feel like I was in a
position to give anybody advice.
But that all changed one fateful day when an old roommate
recommended me as the “perfect person” to give advice on career
change at a small event. I suppose she thought of me because I had
changed my career so many times, even I had lost count. The event
offered to fly me and my husband to San Francisco and put us up in
a hotel. When you’re struggling financially, that sounds like a free
vacation, so I said yes. This was the first time I had ever given a
speech on a stage at an event. The only public-speaking class I had
ever taken was in high school, and as soon as I boarded the plane,
that’s when the panic started to sink in: What on earth have I gotten
myself into?
When I walked on stage and saw 700 people in the audience
staring back at me, my mind went blank, and I could feel my chest
and neck turning red.
I
then proceeded to have a 21-minute-long anxiety attack
onstage. About 19 minutes in, I forgot how to end my talk on career
change, so I blurted out the 5 Second Rule and how I use it,
because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I must have blacked
out, because I also don’t remember the part where I gave everyone
in the audience my email address. And as I walked off that stage, I
thought that was the worst experience of my life. Thank God it’s
over.
It turns out that small event was one of the first TEDx conferences
ever held. They filmed it, and a year later, posted the video online.
Not only did it go viral—it’s become one of the most watched TEDx
talks of all time. The 5 Second Rule and its 5-4-3-2-1 countdown
spread by word of mouth around the world. As it spread, people
started to write to me at that email address, sharing stories about
how the Rule was changing their lives. I was so moved by people’s
stories that I would sit up late at night, after I had put our three kids
to bed, answering their emails one by one.
When I had been drowning in my problems, I felt like I was the
only one who had trouble doing the things I needed to do. It’s not
true. We all struggle with motivation. It’s a universal problem, and
the 5 Second Rule seems to be a solution that not only works for me
but also works for people all over the world.
The stories were amazing: People had used 5-4-3-2-1 to push
through fear, procrastination, and excuses to change jobs; lose 100
pounds; get sober; launch and sell businesses; improve their health
and marriages. The medical and clinical uses blew me away. Doctors
and psychologists were using it to treat PTSD, OCD, and depression.
Even as I’m writing this Introduction, we have heard from over a
thousand people who have used the 5 Second Rule to stop
themselves from attempting suicide and to ask for help.
As that TEDx talk became more and more popular online, I started
getting invited to speak at other small events. I remember being
asked to talk to a group of Realtors at a bar. It was embarrassing
standing there with a beer in my hand, trying to talk over the music
and people gabbing in the next room. But I survived. I spoke in
church basements, a high school classroom, then a friend’s brown
bag lunch at work, and it just grew from there.
I would break out in hives as I held the microphone, and I wasn’t
getting paid. But the more I talked about the Rule and saw how
powerful it was for everyone who tried it, the more I became
obsessed with understanding why such a simple hack could lead to
such profound results.
So, I put my lawyer hat on and started researching habits, human
behavior, and the science of motivation. I needed to make a case:
Why does counting 5-4-3-2-1 work? I gathered evidence from the
experiences of ordinary people who had been using it. I found
compelling precedent from the accounts of therapists, addiction
specialists, and medical doctors who had begun recommending it to
their patients, and all the evidence pointed to a simple explanation:
Small, Consistent Action Changes Everything
Meanwhile, my friends and extended family had no idea what I
was doing because I was too scared to tell them. Mel? Giving
advice? Give me a break. She nearly destroyed her own life.
At this point in my story, my husband had left the restaurant
business and was struggling with depression. We were still drowning
in debt, so I was working a full-time job trying to keep our family of
five afloat while dedicating nights and weekends to speaking at
small events and basically writing a dissertation on the science of
motivation on the side.
I
knew I wanted to teach the 5 Second Rule full-time and
somehow make this my career, but I didn’t know how. Looking back,
I can see how paralyzed I was with imposter syndrome. What right
did I have to call myself an expert in anything? I suppose I was just
waiting for some kind of permission to put myself out there.
Maybe you’re doing that right now. Waiting for the right time.
Waiting to feel ready or a little less afraid. Waiting for someone to
come along and tell you that today is the day to start. The problem
with waiting is no one is coming. The only permission you need is
your own.
Deciding to get serious about trying to make money as a
motivational speaker was one of the best decisions I have made in
my life. I’ll share more with you about what led to this breakthrough
in the pages of this book.
Once I started getting paid, I put every dollar toward chipping
away at our debt. That first year I gave 17 paid speeches. The next
year, it was 47, and I was able to quit my day job. I couldn’t believe
what was happening. By the third year, it was 99 speeches plus a
24-city tour with JPMorganChase. I had become the most-booked
female speaker in the world. I was being hired by companies I
admired