I first heard the name Mel Robbins and, relatedly, the phrase Let Them Theory back in January, New Year’s resolution season. It didn’t take long before I started hearing it almost daily. Comedian Mae Martin praised Robbins on their podcast. Every fifth TikTok I saw referenced her; in one, a blonde woman in a puffy Kith coat sits in her car, explaining how having “Let Them” in college could have freed her from a group of mean girls. (“Let Them 👏💚,” Robbins commented.) I began to feel clueless and looked her up: Mel Robbins (no relation, except perhaps spiritually, to Tony) is a motivational speaker and self-help author with a New York Times best-selling book called The Let Them Theory, which was published in December and sold more than 100,000 copies in its very first week.
The book’s basic idea is this: If someone behaves in a manner you find displeasing, annoying, or hurtful, let them, because we cannot control other people. Then — although this part of the theory is often ignored — let me respond in accordance with my needs and values.
Robbins first shared the Let Them Theory on Instagram in May 2023, describing it as “this thing I just heard about.” In the book published 19 months later, Robbins credits her Gen-Z daughter, Sawyer, for inspiring Let Them Theory as well as co-writing the book (though she’s unnamed on the cover — for now). It has been compellingly argued by Substack writer Sage Justice and YouTuber Andy Mort that Robbins retrofitted her narrative to a phrase she discovered in a viral Instagram poem by Cassie Phillips, which also might have inspired at least some of the many “Let them” tattoos pictured in Robbins’s book. (Phillips has repeatedly referenced the alleged plagiarism on social media.) True or not, slogans cannot be trademarked — Robbins has acknowledged only that her book’s philosophy is owed in part to various religious traditions and psychological concepts.
Of course, not everyone is obsessed; critics include some therapists who find Robbins’s approach lacking in nuance. Still, the book is nigh unstoppable. I have a few guesses as to why The Let Them Theory is resonating right now. One is that it’s catchy and sounds easy to do. Another, more depressing hypothesis: Let Them Theory appeals to passive resignation, placing all real power outside our control. Let Them is easily adopted by people who want to do what they were already going to do while pretending their actions don’t really matter, because change is impossible and we’ve already lost. (Is Let Them why the Democrats are being like that?) Let Them absolves those who want it to, but does everyone deserve it?
Because my neck and shoulders have been tense for 38 years, the promise in these pages appealed to me. I read The Let Them Theory in the days leading up to a four-day trip to visit my family in Minnesota: the perfect opportunity for praxis. Below, an assessment of its efficacy in various situations I encountered.
How does Let Them work for …
… accepting strangers’ airport behavior?
Robbins writes that Let Them freed her from feeling annoyed by other people. Feeling annoyed by other people uses roughly 92 percent of my energy; I’m not sure who I’d be without that emotion. Still, where better to test this particular claim than at LAX? After a nausea-inducing $85 Uber ride to the airport, I inched through security with effortful detachment from the behavior of those around me. The people unlacing their tennis shoes at the last minute — and unimaginably slow? Let them. The people wearing belts and key rings through the scanner despite the agent’s repeated “NO METAL” pleas? Let them. There is real, if limited, power here: I can’t control how other travelers behave, so let me arrive at the airport way too early so I’m not rushed. Simple enough, but I soon noticed that Let Them also gave me a new vocabulary with which to judge others. In line for Starbucks, I witnessed a teenage girl have a two-part meltdown: (1) because Starbucks made her drink wrong and (2) because her dad brought it back to the cashier to be remade. Watching her mope, I thought, Someone needs to read The Let Them Theory!
… turbulence?
This year has been hard on the fearful-flier community. After a few highly publicized plane crashes (statistical improbability notwithstanding) and news of cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration, my flight anxiety — pretty well managed over the past decade with therapy and preflight Xanax — relapsed hard. I briefly debated canceling my trip. Instead, I mentally recited all the facts every nervous flier has rehearsed: It’s the safest way to travel — I’m more likely to be attacked by a shark than die in a crash. Etc. It was also in my pilots’ interest to land safely in Minneapolis, and I should let them. Then, after boarding, one of the pilots announced that our flight would be “pretty bumpy” (an understatement!) for the first half-hour. Panic set in. LET THEM, I scolded myself. But with every jostle, I gripped the armrests harder, as if the pilots were counting on me to help steer. (Perhaps my seatmate had also read The Let Them Theory, and that’s why he let me clutch his armrest too?) Obviously, we landed safely — no thanks to Mel Robbins.
… visiting one’s parents?
When I told my mother I was reading The Let Them Theory, she told me she was too. Later, she clarified that while she had the book, she hadn’t yet started reading it. And let me just say — given the number of times (and urgency with which) she told me to get a coaster for my water glass — I could tell.
… receiving criticism?
On the requisite trip to the Mall of America, my mom and I browsed a few stores for a suit I might wear to my wedding next year. At Nordstrom, I found what I considered a strong contender: black with chic silver buttons, formal but versatile enough to wear again, which made the price tag easier to swallow. After refamiliarizing myself with the store’s return policy, I decided to buy it, wanting to try it on for my partner, Mary, at home. After I bought it, I texted a picture to a friend. She … hated it. Openly, unabashedly, with so many exclamation points. Mel Robbins would have me let them have their opinion and let me keep mine. But my friend’s opinion ruined mine immediately. I would sooner die in a plane crash than wear this suit to my wedding. I reversed course so fast I had to wonder if I really have my own opinion about anything.
… professional jealousy?
A book I thought was awful is published with rave reviews: Let them. A reporter I dislike breaks a story I would have loved to break: Let them. Someone I follow on Instagram is flown to London, first class, for product placement: Let them. A onetime lawyer with $800,000 in debt spins gold (and full-length Times best sellers) from a few self-evident maxims: Let them. All of this is now fine with me.
… feeling your feelings?
Halfway through Chapter 7 (“When Grown-ups Throw Tantrums”), the titular them in “Let them” is redefined to mean one’s own feelings, not other people. (I found this fairly confusing since the second part of the Let Them Theory is “Let me.” So if “them” is your feelings, does that mean you’re both them AND me …? Or are you — me — separate from your feelings?) Semantics aside, this application of “Let them” follows basic meditative principles: Notice your feelings without judgment, and react without rushing to change them. But elsewhere in the book, Robbins calls herself “toxic” for being upset when her friend group suddenly started excluding her. So are we allowed to feel our feelings or not? I don’t know how to feel.
… maintaining a healthy, long-term relationship?
Many, if not most, Let Them acolytes on TikTok are young straight women whose ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands sound just terrible. In a modernized retelling of He’s Just Not That Into You, Robbins writes that “people’s behavior tells you exactly how they feel about you,” and I think that’s true. If The Let Them Theory empowers women to favor singlehood over dating assholes — and to leave men who fail them by every possible standard — great. But what if you’re married? What if you have kids? It’s harder to see how the book’s axiom applies to any relationship with real stakes involved or huge and unexpected changes in one or both partners. It is easy for me to let them with my fiancée, with whom I share political values, generally good health, socioeconomic status, financial habits, compatible chore preferences, disinterest in parenting, etc. The only thing I can think of where I have to let them (so far) is the absolutely psychotic way she loads dishes in the dishwasher and then I let me rearrange them myself. The example Robbins includes in reference to her 28-year marriage also mostly has to do with dishes, which I found interesting.
… reading the news?
Despite Robbins’s claims that The Let Them Theory will change your life, she neatly circumvents most crises bigger than a bad breakup. I think she’s smart enough to know The Let Them Theory doesn’t help much in situations like this. Or this. Or this. The very thought grinds my gears. Telling readers to focus on what they can change in their personal lives — and to ignore the rest — is skin-crawlingly naïve at best and oppressive at worst. In Chapter 10 (“How to Make Comparison Your Teacher”), Robbins writes that there is “enough money to go around for absolutely everyone including you … No one is taking anything from you.” No wonder she’s so popular on the corporate speaking circuit; rich people love hearing that.