Boundaries. While getting my master's in counseling, it was one of the first concepts they hammered into our skulls. And not in the vague, "You should say ‘no’ more often" kind of way. I mean the foundational kind: This is me. That is you. This is my "stuff" (i.e., feelings, my beliefs, my values). That is your stuff. I am not responsible for, nor should I exert power over, your stuff, and vice versa.

"And how did that make you feel?"

A loud buzzer goes off from the back of the room. Then, sharp as a gavel: "Nope, sorry." That's my counseling professor, winding up for her catchphrase.

"No one makes anyone feel anything. Start over."

That one professor, boy, was she militant about it. The moment anyone said, "He made me feel…" she'd interrupt mid-sentence, mid-breath, mid-therapy roleplay. It drove me nuts. Sure, I understood the point, but did she have to be so literal about it? It's just a turn of phrase; everyone knows what we mean. Right?

Cut to many years later. A dark and stormy Chicago night. I'd just started a new job and was out for "welcome to the company" drinks with my boss and a coworker. We found a bar with exactly three empty stools. Perfect, except a couple sat between them.

My boss clocked the situation and, to my surprise, walked right past the couple to the end of the bar. "I can stand, no biggie."

I said, "There's an empty stool on the other side of them. I'll just ask if they'll slide down a seat."

You'd have thought I'd announced I was about to stage dive into their nachos. Both coworkers froze.

"Oh, I would never," one said.

My boss added, "Yeah, we don't want to make them feel put out."

And there it was. That phrase. The boundary professor's worst nightmare.

"Well, we're not responsible for their feelings, are we?" I said, collecting my imaginary gold star.

I asked the couple politely. They smiled, moved down, and that was that. I swear my colleagues looked at me like I'd just defused a bomb.

Then my boss said it, the line that still sends a chill down my spine to this day.

"Ohhh," she said, grinning. "You're one of those ‘Let Them’ people!"

There it was: a concept so old my grad-school professor was shouting it before Instagram existed, now reborn as a multimillion-dollar movement; trademarked, monetized and sold back to us as enlightenment.

The thing about self-help, especially the kind that goes viral, is that it rarely invents anything new. It just rebrands common sense in a way that feels like revelation. "Let Them" is a perfect example. The premise isn't groundbreaking; it's the same foundational concept every counseling student learns before they even get their ID badge laminated. The same principle you'll find in the AA Serenity Prayer ("grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change"), in the Stoics' "focus only on what's within your control," and in Buddhism's teachings on non-attachment. The lesson hasn't changed; only the lighting and the licensing fees.

Which brings us to Mel Robbins, motivational mogul and unofficial queen of recycled, yet viral, common sense. If you've been online at any point in the last year, you've probably heard of The Let Them Theory. It began as a short clip Mel Robbins posted on social media: just her, a neutral-toned sweater, and a voice so calm it could talk a raccoon off a freeway median. The advice? "When people behave in ways you don't like, let them."

That's it. Two words and a billion views later, Robbins wasn't just a motivational speaker, she was a modern-day sage. And like all modern-day sages, she brought the merch. Endless merch. "Let Them" mugs, sweatshirts, guided journals, even a scent diffuser that promises to help you "release control." There are even tattoos… you heard me, and not the temporary kind.

And credit where it's due, she's good at this. Her career has been built on turning psychological micro-habits into movements with trademark potential. Prior to "Let Them," there was "The 5 Second Rule," where she taught people to outsmart procrastination by counting backward from five (no, that's not a joke), and "The High Five Habit," which invited you to high five yourself in the mirror every morning to overcome self-doubt. Bestsellers, all of them, so obviously the woman is a marketing genius. She doesn't sell science; she sells simplicity. Every Robbins idea can be summarized in a single sentence, and every sentence sounds like something your therapist would say if your therapist was kind of dim and had a publicist.

What fascinates me isn't that people love “Let Them,” it's that they treat it like new scripture. As if Mel Robbins descended from the mountaintop of Spotify, wrapped in athleisure, to hand down the seventh step of emotional evolution. “Let Them” isn't therapy, it's branding with a side of borrowed enlightenment. And that's not necessarily a crime. A little wisdom remix never hurt anyone; she's just better at monetizing it. The real issue comes when we start mistaking marketability for mastery, when a good message becomes inseparable from its messenger. The phenomenon has a name, or at least, I'm giving it one: Halo Drift.

You've likely heard of the halo effect, a cognitive bias where one positive trait—such as attractiveness, confidence or charm—colors how we see a person's other, unrelated traits. Someone seems kind because they're good-looking. Smart because they're smooth.

Halo Drift, though, is what happens over time when that glow doesn't just color perception but also expands its territory. It's when someone delivers one good idea so convincingly that we start believing they're right about everything. A single viral moment buys them lifetime credibility. The halo forms, and then it spreads: over topics they've never studied, problems they've never solved and industries they've never worked in. It starts with one credible insight (a viral phrase, a best-selling book, a moving speech) and inflates into sweeping, unearned authority. The person who once gave helpful dating advice is suddenly quoted on geopolitics, trauma or God.

And it's not purely cognitive; it's cultural. Social media, parasocial intimacy, and the algorithmic economy reward drift. Every "like," "share," or "yes, queen" pushes that halo a little farther outward, until the influencer isn't just a person anymore. They're a worldview.

Mel Robbins nails one solid truth and suddenly she's being quoted about grief, leadership and quantum manifestation. Jay Shetty spends a few months with the Hare Krishnas and is reborn as a monk-turned-mogul, an authority on everything from marriage to skincare routines. It's charisma creep disguised as expertise. Different packaging, same drift. Each took one sticky idea and let the halo do the rest. We project depth onto confidence, wisdom onto warmth and enlightenment onto good lighting. The brain loves shortcuts, and certainty is the shortest one of all. When someone says something that resonates, especially when they say it with conviction, our minds reward us with a hit of dopamine and a sigh of relief. Finally, someone gets it.

Add a camera, a ring light and an algorithm that rewards the loudest confidence, and you've got the perfect storm: parasocial intimacy meets authority bias. We don't just like these people; we start to feel like we know them. Their voices fill the in-between moments of our lives: morning commutes, folding laundry, scrolling through existential dread at 2 a.m. After a while, their cadence starts to sound like our own inner monologue. And that's when the halo drifts, from the message to the messenger. At first, it's "I love that quote." Then it's, "I trust her." And before long, it's, "If Mel said it, it must be true."

At its core, "Let Them" does contain a sliver of wisdom. The problem isn't the slogan; it's what happens when we start mistaking a marketer for a mentor. Halo Drift thrives on that type of fallacy. It's how we end up upgrading promoters to oracles and outsourcing our discernment to whoever happens to sound calm on a podcast. But popularity isn't proof of wisdom; it's just proof of resonance. And resonance is easy to manufacture if you've got enough lighting, (manufactured) relatability and upload consistency.

The self-help industrial complex will keep spinning. They'll trademark old wisdom, remix it for TikTok and sell it back to us with better fonts. That's fine. A good mantra can be useful. A catchy slogan might even change your mood. Just don't mistake it for moral clarity.

So yes, let them trademark it. Let them sell it.

And let you keep the message, but leave the halo where it belongs.