My partner Jen sparked this whole journey with a single comment: “Chapter Two of the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins really resonated with me.”
That one line was enough. I grabbed my free Audible trial, downloaded the book with my 1-free credit, and listened to it all before Jen even made it to Chapter Eleven.
Affirmation, Not Revelation
While my excitement was high, and my expectations were higher yet, a majority of the book served as an affirmation of the things I have been doing. Instead, they named things I’ve been doing—sometimes clumsily, sometimes quietly, but doing all the same. The value wasn’t novelty; it was permission. It meant, keep going. My mantra that I often quip: Keep Digging (it’s my tattoo, it’s my lifestyle).
Part 1: The Framework
- 1. Stop Wasting Your Life on Things You Can’t Control
- 2. Let Them + Let Me
I learned early that trying to control everything was a losing battle.
Take the time, I tried to “baptize a cat.” I gave my first kitten a bath because it had fleas. Dude was his name. I kinda knew he was feral at his core, but still I thought it would be a straightforward dunk-and-done operation. Instead, it turned into a scene straight out of a horror-comedy: claws, water flying, me looking like I’d lost a fight with a rose bush. I was trying to force a creature into my script, and he wanted no part of it. Let the cat be a cat. Lesson received.
Or my first time running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign as Dungeon Master. I had a clear, cinematic vision of how I wanted the party to move through my story. But players don’t follow scripts—they follow curiosity, chaos, and dice rolls. The harder I tried to push them into my carefully built tunnel, the more resistance I got. Eventually, I had to let them play their game, not mine.
And then there’s the latchkey kid memory. Classic Gen X: I was the older brother, Charrina only 18 months behind me, and part of my job was feeding her after-school snacks. Easier said than done. Imagine trying to get a mule to eat. I learned patience, negotiation, and the art of letting her set her own pace instead of forcing mine.
All three of these moments taught me something that Robbins frames so cleanly: stop wasting your life on things you can’t control. Let Them. And just as important—Let Me. Let me learn, let me adapt, let me focus on what I can actually shape.
Tagline tie-in: This is the essence of Chapters 1–2: stop wasting your life on things you can’t control. Let them do what they will, and let me focus on the parts of life that are actually mine to shape.
Part 2: Managing Stress
- 3. Shocker: Life Is Stressful
- 4. Let Them Stress You Out
My senior year of high school was when stress first swallowed me whole. I experienced an anxiety—maybe even a panic—attack. And thankfully, it was the only one of my life. All the decisions, all the financial strain, all the life-impacting “next steps” came crashing down at once. My parents weren’t in a position to help much, and my part-time job barely paid for gas. On top of that, there were senior photos, graduation costs, yearbook fees—it all stacked up. I caved like a crumpled aluminum can of Mountain Dew.
That’s when my dad “talked me off the ledge.” He didn’t dismiss the stress, but reframed it. He reminded me that this enormous, overwhelming monster wasn’t one problem—it was many small ones, tangled together. So we listed them out like bullet points, broke them down into smaller and smaller parts—almost to the atomic level. Suddenly, each one looked manageable. And solving the small parts added up to solving the whole.
It was my first real lesson in managing stress: don’t let the totality crush you. Break it down. Handle what you can, one piece at a time.
And that lesson stuck. Even now, decades later, I still return to that method. When bills pile up, when work feels endless, when creative projects threaten to overwhelm me—I go back to the list. One bullet point at a time. One atomic part at a time. Stress hasn’t disappeared, but thanks to that moment with my dad, it’s no longer the monster it once was.
Tagline tie-in: Chapters 3–4 remind us that stress will never disappear—but it loses its power when you stop feeding the chaos and start breaking it into pieces you can manage.
Part 3: Friendship & Letting Go
- (Chapters 5–6)
One of my first friendships fit Robbins’ criteria perfectly: proximity, timing, and energy. His name was Chris Snell. We both went to Mountlake Terrace Elementary, though in different classrooms. One night at a Cub Scout meeting in the school gym, he left his coat behind. Like most 80s parents, his mom had written his name and address on the tag with a permanent marker. I recognized the street and asked my dad if we could make a detour.
When we dropped it off, his dad, Jim, answered the door. Chris was pulled over to thank me and apologize for the inconvenience. The next day on the playground, Chris and I found each other again, and instantly we clicked. I had a little sister, he had two little brothers—we were both the oldest in our families, carrying similar roles.
We were inseparable: weekend sleepovers, trading off between houses, Cub Scout camping trips, summer getaways to Mt. Baker’s Horseshoe Cove. Then came the first shift. His family moved to Bothell/Mill Creek right before middle school. Proximity was gone. Now we relied on parents to drive us to see each other.
High school created another shift. Timing layered onto the distance—different schedules, different activities. We made it work for a while, still convinced we were “best friends forever.” But then came the real shift: energy. Our focus turned toward girlfriends, social circles, new interests. Slowly, all three fundamentals that once aligned started to diverge.
After graduation, the divergence became permanent. I moved into the community college/workforce path, while Chris followed his dad’s footsteps and enlisted in the Navy. We both knew, deep down, this was it. We told ourselves we’d stay in touch, but life had other plans.
He married, had two sons, built a family. I walked my own winding road—marriage, divorce, relationships, writing. In between, we both carried loss: his father from a fall, my mother from gastric cancer at just 20.
Now, our once-daily friendship has distilled into a short birthday email each year—two or three sentences, catching up in the briefest way possible.
Tagline tie-in: Robbins’ Chapters 5–6 remind us that friendships change because proximity, timing, and energy change. Childhood bonds aren’t failures when they fade—they’re chapters that served their season. Let them be what they were, and let me carry forward what I learned.
Part 4: Motivating Change
- 14. People Only Change When They Feel Like It
- 15. Unlock the Power of Your Influence
This one was a hard pill for me to swallow. The caretaker in me always wanted to step in, patch the cracks, and keep the peace. I thought if I could push hard enough, reason well enough, or hold the line long enough, I could get people to change.
But no amount of negotiation worked on my dad. He was the most stubborn, obstinate, combative-to-change man I’ve ever met. For years, nothing anyone said or did could make him put down the bottle. He only faced his alcoholism when he decided to. Not when we wanted him to, not when the family begged, not when logic demanded it—but when he chose.
That was the turning point for me: realizing change isn’t something you can force. It’s something people step into when they’re ready.
And when they are ready? That’s when influence matters. Not the words you hammer them with, but the example you live in front of them. I’ve seen it play out in smaller ways. When I committed to fitness, others noticed. When I made writing a daily discipline, a friend told me it nudged them back into their own creativity. Change doesn’t stick when it’s shoved—but it can catch fire when it’s modeled.
Tagline tie-in: Chapters 14–15 drive home that people only change when they’re ready. My role isn’t to drag them there—it’s to live my own change fully, and let my influence ripple outward.
Part 5: Choosing Love
- 16. The More You Rescue, The More They Sink
- 17. How to Provide Support the Right Way
Looking back with the lens of The Let Them Theory, I can finally call it what it was: rescuing, not a relationship.
It began with proximity, timing, and energy. We both worked inside a small warehouse photo center—maybe twenty by thirty feet, tops. Proximity couldn’t have been tighter. Timing? I was the shift leader, and the crew was small—two people per shift, no more. And energy—my energy. It’s infectious, sometimes even attractive. We filled downtime with conversation. She opened up, I shared stories, and before long she developed a crush. But it wasn’t about me as much as it was about escape—her way out of an abusive marriage.
I drew a line: nothing would happen while I was her boss or while she was still married. Eventually, both conditions shifted. The photo center was closed, the crew disbanded, and she left her husband. What followed was not the beginning of a healthy relationship, but the beginning of my rescue mission.
I tried to restore her job within the company after she was fired. When that failed, I searched for opportunities, encouraged temp work, pushed her toward stability. Each time, the story was the same: a job quit, a job lost, another excuse. Then came the DUIs—two within two months—one car crashed, another totaled. And me? I co-signed a loan for a used car, putting down the deposit myself, believing she would pay it back. She did, mostly.
My family, especially my sister, didn’t approve. Her family didn’t either. Deep down, I knew where this was headed. Divorce proceedings without a lawyer, endless forms, constant phone calls, stress spilling everywhere. I won’t share every detail, but the truth is simple: it reached an impasse. I didn’t feel safe at her place anymore, and she wasn’t comfortable at mine.
By then, the three fundamentals that once held us together had all unraveled. Proximity faded. Timing skewed. Energy drained—because I was pouring out more than she ever could, or would. She even admitted it once: she couldn’t match my energy.
And so it ended. December 26, 2022. One day after Christmas, because she “didn’t want” to break up on Christmas. Another reason why Christmas leaves a sour taste for me.
But here’s the truth: the breakup felt more like relief than heartbreak. I was done rescuing. Done confusing rescue with love. Done carrying others at the expense of myself. Robbins said it plainly: the more you rescue, the more they sink. And I had lived that to the letter.
Tagline tie-in: Chapters 16–17 underline it clearly: rescuing is not love. Support without boundaries drags you both under. Love is letting them face their own battles while I protect my own peace.
Part 6: Relationship Mastery & New Beginnings
- 18. Let Them Show You Who They Are
- 19. How to Take Your Relationship to the Next Level
- 20. How Every Ending Is a Beautiful Beginning
The soul-crushing stress of work as a salaried manager. The ghosts of failed relationships. The nagging belief I’d never find Mrs. Right in Washington State. Layer on the commitments I made to groups and teams, and I was barreling straight into depression. It would have been my third time in the abyss—and honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d come back.
I knew this visit would be different. The tattoo on my calf—Keep Digging—wouldn’t be enough.
I’d wrestled with depression before: the summer before middle school while my dad fought his alcoholism, and again after my divorce, when I had my own brush with the bottle. But this time, I felt like I was out of rope. So I reached out to a lifelong friend. We sat down, and I told him my plan: I was moving to Arizona. Stepping down at work, transferring within the company, and heading to the desert. I’d live quietly, work until retirement, and then be done.
He gave me advice that still echoes: “Treat everything as a trial. If it resonates after 30 days, great. If not, walk away. I know you—you go all in too quickly, then end up spread too thin.”
So I made another pact with myself: no dating for a full year. From March 2023 to March 2024—no hookups, no apps, no flirting. Nothing. Just me, breathing in the desert.
And then? Audrey happened. A mutual friend of mine and Jen’s, she became an unexpected matchmaker. At a pool party in July 2023, Jen and I crossed paths. Months later, on Mother’s Day weekend 2024, Audrey nudged us together by sharing Jen’s contact info.
Since that day, not one has passed without us talking. Over six months, we peeled back the layers, revealing who we truly were. And what we found was beautiful. When you find love later in life, you don’t need years to figure out if it’s right. You know.
By November, Jen had flown to Arizona three times, and I’d visited her once in Washington. We started having the conversations—serious ones—about the future. Who moves where? Who uproots? We played the “follow the money” game, and the answer was clear: I’d move back to Washington. Back to Jen.
Now, five months into living together in her townhouse, working at a new warehouse with the same company, I feel at peace. Natural. Like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Arizona was meant to be an ending. Instead, it became the bridge to the beginning I didn’t know I was waiting for. How ironic, how perfect, that I had to leave Washington to meet Mrs. Right—only to find she lived there all along.
Tagline tie-in: Chapters 18–20 remind us that every ending holds a beginning inside it. Let them show you who they are, let me decide where I belong, and let endings become the soil where new love takes root.
And here’s the circle closed: it was Jen who sparked this reflection in the first place. One line about Chapter Two—“that really resonated with me”—sent me down this path of listening, remembering, and writing. Her words cracked the door. Her presence opened the rest. The book gave me language, but Jen gave me life to match it.
So this isn’t just a review. It’s a testimony. To Robbins’ theory. To the chapters that shaped me. To the endings that became beginnings. And to Jen—whose spark lit this fire, and whose love keeps me steady enough to Keep Digging.
los, Fil-Am Renaissance Man 