A Review of The Let Them Theory
TLDR: Great message, frustratingly saccharine delivery
I just finished listening to Mel Robbins’ The Let Them Theory on Audible. I used my one credit for the month on this book because I was curious. I had somehow come across her video on social media (posted May 13, 2023), in which she has a camera turned toward her face and says she’s just heard about this exciting idea—just let people do what they’re going to do and be who they are. And this could eliminate so much of your stress!
However, I also came across a post in which the author took the position that Mel Robbins was selling an idea that she had allegedly “stolen” from someone else - a poet named Cassie Philips:
Only after listening to the audio book did I also come across a video from Andy Mort, posted on March 29th, 2025, in which he breaks down the timeline of events that supports the conclusion that Mel Robbins wasn’t being entirely honest about where she got the inspiration for her book:
Perhaps telling your audience that you’ve discovered this idea by hearing someone else say it isn’t wrong. You had to be there to listen for the discovery to happen, I suppose. But, in any case, I was hesitant to buy the book because I didn’t want to endorse some talking-head self-help guru taking someone else’s idea, claiming it as their own, and then making money off of it.
Obviously, I’m a little late to the conversation. A lot of people have weighed in, and more evidence of plagiarism has been gathered at this point. But I’m not trying to cover all that here.
But shit, she’s making money off of it anyway, and I’m still curious. So I compromised with myself and said, “Self, you are not going to spend money on a hard-covered book that will take up precious space on your limited and valuable bookshelf. But, since you have a free trial of Audible for the next month, you can spend your credit on listening to it in the car on the way to work.”
There. I could satiate my curiosity without feeling morally complicit.
Three chapters into the book, and I was still hearing Mel try to sell me on this theory that I was about to learn and that would change my entire life.
Eye roll!
If this entire book was going to be nothing but personal vignets and sales pitches on something so absolutely amazing that I couldn’t live without it, I could treat my ears to something else. Like rock music. Or anything else, really.
But I forced myself to keep hitting play because I thought the message sounded solid. I wasn’t sure how she was going to write a whole book on this idea (which might explain the drawn-out and repetitive sales pitch), but I’d try to keep an open mind.
A note on delivery
The unfortunate truth is that self-help gurus make their money on hype. They pump up their audience, assume fragile egos, then promise their audience that all their troubles are going to go away with this ONE simple thing that only they can deliver. And Mel Robbins was no exception.
An overuse of the words power and control was an ironic dead giveaway.
Why ironic?
Because the underlying message, which is valuable, is that you don’t have power or control over other people or external situations. And relinquishing this power, which you already don’t have, or accepting that you don’t have it, if you will, takes a load off. Then you can relax and focus on more productive self-affirming actions.
“It’s finally time to reclaim your power,” she says over and over again. “You can be a millionaire.”
This is the kind of rhetoric that is total horseshit. Yeah, I said it. Horseshit. Some people will NEVER be a millionaire, no matter how hard they work, who they network with, or how many different ideas they try or stick with. Or how often they say, “Let them.”
So excuse me, but don’t blow smoke up my ass.
This is probably why Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck was so much more effective for me. It was very much the same message as Let Them, but delivered in my language. The language of sarcasm. Of hard truths delivered in humorous profanity. Thank GAWD for profanity.
Mindfulness got this whole idea decades ago. Acceptance. Non-judgement. (Except, yes, I’m totally judging this Let Them book and all other poorly delivered, pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator self-help pages-better-used-for-toiletpaper crap.)
She does mention that the “theory” is backed by Buddhism and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy research, and stoicism. Thank you for that. But, like Andy Mort slides in during his exposition, this idea of “Let Them” isn’t a “theory.”
It’s just not. And, dammit, I get to say this because I’m literally paid to teach people, among other things, what makes a theory a theory.
A note on science
A true theory is a research-backed explanation for some phenomenon.
Did she do research? Sure…sort of. She spoke with experts about commonly understood concepts in psychology, like the amgdalae are the main areas of the brain that process stress and our fight/flight/freeze response. But this is hardly news.
And she spoke with people who told her (and us, her readers!) that people don’t change unless they want to change.
What irritates me about the way all of this research was packaged is that she picked out a few experts and credited them for her newfound—Outstanding! Amazing! Transformative! Incredible!—understanding of how people operate. So many sentences had this structure:
“Dr. So-and-so says [basic well-known fact about motivation/stress/relationships], which is why YOU have been [doing this destructive thing and are the cause of your own misery].”
After feeling like I’m being talked to like a five-year-old, I want to act like one and flip off my radio.
I did this a couple of times. I also argued out loud with her take on motivational interviewing, which she got wrong.
WRONG! Do NOT ask people leading or closed-ended questions after apologizing. That is not in the spirit of trusting them at all. What she’s selling is manipulation.
Actually—if I may chuckle a bit here—she does claim that we are all operating like 8-year-old children all the time. And keeping that very fact in mind will help us let people act like an 8-year-old because we’ll have more compassion if we see them as children trapped in adult bodies.
I’m so over hearing the actual science packaged as get-happy-quick tricks.
We aren’t “unlocking” anything. These things aren’t secrets. And we aren’t “tapping into the science.” Science is a systematic investigation that helps describe, predict, or explain behavior (or some phenomenon). It’s not some magical tool that you can implement to solve all your problems. Science is messy and deals in probabilities. A true scientist is never going to endorse such ludicrous statements as “proven by science” or “guaranteed, based on the science” because people are variable and we are, at least in the social sciences, like psychology, always working within a margin of error in the land of probabilities.
**After drafting this, I came across another Substack post written by a psychologist who has authored their own self-help books and shares similar concerns about using scientific evidence improperly:
Please, for the love of Pete, STOP overselling your message! Practice some humility.
But look, if this delivery helps a certain group of people who are turned off by profanity or who are turned off by the woo-woo Eastern-philosophy background of mindfulness, then great.
Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday is today, as I’m writing this (October 2nd). He, of course, was a paragon of non-violent civil disobedience. I can only imagine that if he were to hear this Let Them idea, he’d nod in agreement.
Indeed, we cannot control other people. Indeed, we should not enable other people. Indeed, we should proactively decide how we will operate in the world, including how we respond to people who are not good for us or who are making decisions that we don’t agree with.
Like I said, I can get behind the message. The message is solid. The delivery…well, not my cup of tea, anyway.
And, while I don’t believe Mel Robbins will ever read this, I’m sure that if she did, she would say, “People are going to criticize you. Let them.” And she wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over anything that I or any other internet opinionated nobody has to say about her work. And I endorse that. Truly, I do.
Let me have my opinion about self-help grifters. Let her make money off of poor people with low self-esteem, desperate for a quick solution to all of life’s problems, who will melt when they hear her say, “I love you” to her readers at the end of the book.
Yeah, but did you try it?
I HAVE found it useful and empowering to embrace this mindset.
After I started listening to the book, I said “no” to a request for money I’d normally cave to—Let them be disappointed and find another way to solve their problem. Let me support them without using money to rescue them.
I canceled plans with a new friend after communication started feeling forced—Let them show you who they are/how (not) interested in you they are, and let me walk away from something I feel isn’t good for me.
A student complained over email when I told them I wouldn’t be changing their grade on an assignment—Let them be frustrated and write passive-aggressive emails. Let me be firm, but encourage them to keep advocating for themselves.
I won’t credit my increased confidence and comfort with my own boundaries to the Let Them Theory alone, of course. I add this pep-talk of an audiobook to the messages I enjoyed more from The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, and years of mindfulness training. I’ll add it to Sarah Knight’s TED talk on “The Magic of Not Giving a F***,
and Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this same soup of motivation, I’d throw in Angela Duckworth’s Grit and Carol Dweck’s Mindset. And Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis and Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before.
I’m not sorry I listened to Mel Robbins’ book. Again, if I graceously separate the artist from the art, so to speak, then I have very few criticisms (save the one above on motivational interviewing. She really did miss the mark on that one).
Otherwise, go forth, letting people be themselves and live their own lives so that you can more easily live yours. I certainly need to keep practicing more of this.
Cheers!
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