How to Stop Being Overlooked & Start Getting What You Want With Top Business School Professor

Mel Robbins (0:00)

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.

I'm willing to bet that there is something that you want to do in your life that requires you to put yourself out there. Maybe you want to start posting videos.

You want to start a business, apply for a different job, ask for a raise, pitch an idea, sell something you made, ask someone out. But you keep telling yourself that the thing stopping you is, well, I'm afraid of whatever in things. I'm afraid of judgment. You put out the video and nobody watches. You launch the product and nobody buys it.

You make the call and they don't call you back. You submit the resume, they don't respond. You throw the thing, nobody shows up.

That's the fear that can hold you back from the life you deserve. That's why I'm excited for you to hear the conversation today. Our guest today is Emory University's Business School Professor, Marina Cooley. Now, I want to be clear about something. She's not here to teach you how to be an influencer, and she's not going to talk to you about turning your life into content. That's not what putting yourself out there means. It means having the courage to create something instead of spending your entire life consuming what everybody else is creating. How do you share your work? How do you ask for what you want, make your ideas memorable? How do you keep going when putting yourself out there makes you want to just crawl out of your own skin or crawl into a hole? If there's something you've been thinking about starting, sharing, asking for or creating, this episode and Professor Cooley is here for you.

Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited that you're here. I'm excited for our conversation. It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. If you're a new listener or you're here because someone shared this with you, I just wanted to personally welcome you to The Mel Robbins Podcast family and I cannot wait for you to meet today's guest, Professor Marina Cooley. She is here to give you the specific tools and the tactics that you need to know in order to get hired, promoted, and paid more. Professor Cooley is one of the top professors at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. In 2025, she was awarded Emory's highest teaching honor, the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, and was named one of the Poets and Quant's Top 40 Under 40 MBA Professors. Before teaching, she spent 15 years in senior roles at Coca-Cola, Honest Tea, Lava, and IBM, building brands and leading strategy inside Fortune 100 companies and fast growing startups. Today, class is in session. Grab your pen, grab your paper, because this episode will teach you the specific things to do. To get the job, the promotion, to get ahead, to get noticed, or simply get the recognition you deserve. So without further ado, please help me welcome Professor Cooley to The Mel Robbins Podcast. Professor Marina Cooley, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.

Marina Cooley (3:30)

Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

Mel Robbins (3:33)

Well, thank you for traveling into Boston. I cannot wait to learn from you. I want to start by asking you, could you share what might be different about my life if I take everything to heart that you are about to teach me today and I apply it as soon as I'm done listening to you?

Marina Cooley (3:53)

If you take everything we talk about today, you'll be able to amplify anything that you want in your life. So whether you want to be a chef or an author or you want to change careers or you want that VP title or you want to be an entrepreneur, all of that is available to you if you are willing to put yourself out there and get over your cringe and build those dreams out loud. And there has never been an easier and more accessible time to do that.

So do not for a moment think that it is too late.

Mel Robbins (4:26)

And what does dream out loud mean?

Marina Cooley (4:29)

It means that you're willing to know what you want and to ask for it.

Mel Robbins (4:32)

Oh, which part of it do you think stops most people? Knowing what you want or being willing to ask for it?

Marina Cooley (4:39)

Both. We are so busy and there's so much information coming at us that can be really hard to discern what you want.

And then if you are lucky enough to find out what you want, you are then scared about putting yourself out there and not getting it. And rejection feels really bad. So both of those things.