Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #305: The 13 Things Mentally Strong People DON’T Do, With Amy Morin Psychotherapist & Best Selling Author

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Have you been wanting to work with Heather? Her annual elite mastermind is open NOW!   She is only accepting 20 participants this year! Click the link below to learn more and apply now if you are ...ready to go to the next level! https://heathermonahan.com/the-elite-mastermind/ In This Episode You Will Learn About:  Tools for strengthening your mental health and emotional intelligence    How to live your life with TRUE inner peace   Improving your self awareness & decision making skills  How to say NO and create real balance in your life  Resources: Website: amymorinlcsw.com  Read 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do Workbook Join Mental Strength: Mastering The 3 Core Factors  Listen to The Verywell Mind Podcast  Email: Amy@AmyMorinLCSW.com  LinkedIn: @Amy Morin  Instagram: @amymorinauthor Facebook: @Amy Morin, LCSW Twitter: @AmyMorinLCSW Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com  If you haven't yet, get my first book Confidence Creator Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any order only when you order through DrinkLMNT.com/CreatingConfidence If you’ve been sizing NetSuite up to make the switch then you know this deal is unprecedented - no interest, no payments - take advantage of this special financing offer at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN Show Notes:  Do you feel like life is constantly throwing challenges your way? In your most difficult moments, it is vital that you rely on your mental strength and keep pushing through! Physiotherapist and best selling author, Amy Morin, is back to help you shift your thinking and overcome the mental hurdles you face EVERYDAY. Tune in and find out how you can make the BEST decisions for yourself! Most importantly we’ll discuss the power of saying NO, and when it’s truly time to say yes. You can live your life with inner peace no matter what path you choose!   About The Guest: Amy Morin is back on the show! Amy is a best selling author and psychotherapist, and knows more than you can imagine on mental strength and conditioning. Today she will be breaking down for us, from her new workbook, the BEST ways to tackle mental toughness.   If You Liked This Episode You Might Also Like These Episodes: How To CREATE When You Aren’t Feeling Inspired With Jess Ekstrom, The Founder Of Headbands Of Hope  The BEST Negotiation Tips Of 2022 With Chris Voss, Alex Carter & Molly Fletcher  The Simple Steps That Lead To Extraordinary Wealth, With Candy Valentino, Entrepreneur, Author, & Philanthropist 

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Sometimes people get wrapped up into thinking that mental strength is all about like success and wealth and fame and having all of the stuff on the outside, but they don't feel fulfilled on the inside. But it's the opposite. It's about figuring out how do you live your best life with some inner peace no matter what it is that you decide to do. We talk so much about emotional intelligence and people, I hear it every day. People are talking about emotions like they're positive or they're negative. But like that's not true. Your feelings can be a friend or an enemy and like literally every feeling is helpful sometimes and it can be hurtful sometimes. I'm on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week. She is not a first time guest to the show, which is shocking because I never have anyone
Starting point is 00:00:49 on multiple times, except for Amy Moore, because she's incredible. She's a best-selling author and a psychotherapist. She knows a thing or two about mental strength. And today she's going to be breaking down for us in her new workbook, the best ways to tackle. Mental toughness, mental strength. She's the best out of. Amy, thanks for being here. Hey, thank you so much for having me back, Heather.
Starting point is 00:01:12 Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to get into this. All right, first, for those who haven't listened to your prior episode, and it always helps me because, Amy, people see you, people that know you as international, bestselling author, millions of books sold. people can get caught up in the fanfare and say, of course she's that successful. She's a psychotherapist.
Starting point is 00:01:34 She's always had it going on. She's always had the easiest and best life. But that really isn't your story. And so if you could just give a little bit of context for people to understand, it hasn't always been rainbows and lollipops in your life. It has not. And I figured out once I got to know you better, like, oh, we have similar background from New England.
Starting point is 00:01:51 And we didn't grow up in like the richest of neighborhood. So grew up in rural Maine. I lived in a trailer park for much of my life and apartments, that's sort of a thing. And I went on to college, decided to become a therapist. And the therapist don't make a ton of money either. But I was doing okay and was married and life was like pretty good for a while. And then my mom passed away. My first husband passed away.
Starting point is 00:02:17 And like life was dark and not the best to say the least for a long time. You know, even as a therapist and an author, like I don't even have the words to describe what that period. of my life was like I was in my my 20s and it was just a terrible decade for me. And was it, do you think it was depression when you look back? You know, it was definitely like PTSD kind of stuff from what I witnessed when my husband passed away and he had a heart attack for people that don't know, but I was I was the one that was there with him when it happened. And I think for a long time and I had lost my mom from a brain aneurysm and then I lost him from a heart attack and it was like two people that were really healthy
Starting point is 00:02:56 and they just literally disappeared. They were fine one minute and gone the next. And so it just did a number on my brain. I think I just sat around like waiting for the next shoe to drop, thinking something horrible is going to happen at any moment and it's nothing. I have no control over it. And so I really had to figure that part of it out.
Starting point is 00:03:13 Like, okay, how do you live like this? You know, I can like lock myself in my house waiting for the next shoe to drop or I can get out there and try to figure this out. And when I started writing, it was actually out of necessity. I used to write articles for $15 because I lived in Maine and I needed to pay the heating bill. It was cold. And I didn't write like out because people are like, oh, it must have been so therapeutic. Like, no, for a long time I wrote articles from content mills that would be like the, you know, seven best shipping ports in Duluth, Minnesota, like really boring stuff that never would have in a million years gone viral.
Starting point is 00:03:48 And but it was out of necessity when I wrote the article, 13 things mentally strong people don't do started out. It was a letter to myself, as I say, I was like waiting for the next shoe to drop. But then life got good. Like, I got a new house. I got a new job. I got remarried. And I was like, okay, this is chapter two. And then my father-in-law got diagnosed with cancer.
Starting point is 00:04:06 And I just remember thinking like, this isn't fair. Like I, you know, I finally like turned the corner and think, okay, I'm not going to just wait for the next terrible thing to happen. Life could be good. And then that happened. And we knew it was terminal. They gave him a couple of months to live. And so I wrote a letter to myself called,
Starting point is 00:04:23 13 things mentally strong people don't do, thinking it was just going to be for me. And then I decided to publish it online for a whopping $15. And 50 million people read the article, and that led to my career. And now I get to be an author who lives on a sailboat in the Florida Keys. And I've been able to write a series of books and keep talking about mental strength and get to have a podcast from the sailboat. And it gets to be the editor-in-chief of very well-mined, which is all very cool stuff. But the path to get here, as you started out, by saying, it wasn't easy.
Starting point is 00:04:53 Yeah, but you even just glazed over other hard parts, which this is like for me as a writer. I love this part of your story, is that, yes, you wrote that article. The article went viral, right? So it showed you there was something there. Everybody knew there was something there. Obviously, you got a book deal, you know, whatever. So there was something, but you still didn't know for sure yet. You said, yeah, I'm going to write the book.
Starting point is 00:05:15 But it wasn't like you wrote the article and that went viral instantaneously. You wrote the book and the book didn't go viral instantly, did it? It did not. So since the article was so popular, like 50 million people read it, like for my publisher at first was like, you have to get out of the news. Like the media from all over the planet was calling like MTV and Finland and CNN in Mexico and all of these people and they were like, okay, we kind of need to eat you out of the news a little bit, write the book and then we'll get you back in the news. And we did when the book came out, but it didn't sell like 50 million copies. And so it did not hit any bestsellers list. It was kind of a it did okay. But it wasn't the runaway success that we had hoped. And so I remember thinking, well, that's awesome. I'm like a therapist and I got to write a book. That's really good. And then, you know, several like fortunate circumstances happened. Rush Limba read it on the air that he just read the article, but the book sold out immediately. And we hit the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, bestseller lists. And then it started to become translated in more languages. And we started hitting bestseller lists in like Pakistan and all these other countries. And then. And it was like a couple other just random media hits here and there that led to selling a lot more copies all of a sudden. And then I got to the point where it was like word of mouth was selling it. And it was in Target for a long, long time. And it did really well at Target because the books are front facing.
Starting point is 00:06:39 And people would see the front of the book as compared to when it's in a normal bookstore where you just see the spine and it's mixed in with so many other books. And so it was like, well, maybe I could write another book. and I kept marketing it the best I could, and I was doing as much media as I could, and then I said, what do you think about a second book? And I remember my agent at one point in time said, yes, you can probably, you've probably sold enough books to write a second book, but you probably won't get another deal with Harper Collins because your first book didn't sell as many as we had hoped. So I'd sort of resigned to that, but by the time I got around to figuring out what my next book was going to be, we had sold enough books that
Starting point is 00:07:17 Harper Collins was eager, and now they just published my fifth book, nine years. years later. To me, it's so incredible to see that journey and various points during this journey for you, you were resigned to, okay, well, I guess that didn't pan out. I'm just going to flip back to therapy and doing these other things that I love. It wasn't like you had this bold vision for you were creating this whole new niche in the marketplace, right? You never had that idea or certainty that was happening. I didn't. And like I never intended to write a book. And somebody said to me the other day, they looked at the back of my book. And on the back of my first book, we just listed the 13 things. And they said, oh, that's interesting. You didn't have anybody endorse your book. And I said,
Starting point is 00:07:59 well, you know, I didn't know anybody. I had literally never met another author. I didn't know anybody who had, was any kind of an influencer. Like, I lived in Maine in a town with 2,000 people. Like, I wasn't even an option. I didn't have anybody I could have even asked to endorse the book. So, you know, again, this was like beyond my wildest dreams to think that, because I remember writing the book thinking, I'm not sure anybody's going to read this and just wondering like what would happen. And I did. I thought it was amazing to be an author who got to write a book or a therapist who about to write a book. And it just didn't occur to me like at first like, yeah, but maybe you could be an author who happens to also be a therapist. And it took a while for my brain to make that
Starting point is 00:08:37 shift. I believe me. I totally get it. And I think that's such an incredible story. And thank you for sharing it. If you haven't listened, go back. I'll link her last episode in the show notes below. So you can hear the whole thing about how everything was. went down. But today we wanted to talk about 13 things mentally strong people don't do in the workbook. And number one, I've seen a lot of workbooks. I actually have a workbook, which is nothing like this. And so when you told me you had a workbook coming out essentially in this franchise, I was assuming it was just going to kind of be that standard add on like in case, you know, somebody wanted to do a couple of exercises afterwards. How did you end up coming up with this?
Starting point is 00:09:14 I mean, it's a really rich, hearty workbook. But, you know, there were so many things from my therapy office that I thought, if I put this in writing, like, people can learn from it. And then in the first book, there's the stories and I kind of talk about some of the exercises, but we don't really get a chance to dive into them deeper. So for the workbook, I was like, I really want a chance to do that. And the more I kept writing, the more I kept coming up with, like, oh, I could also add in this exercise and this idea. And I also wanted it to be interactive. So that's where we got the idea for quizzes. Like, let's have you figure out. Do is this something? that you struggle with. And I wanted there to be reflection questions, but I didn't want it to be like a journal that just asked you five questions and it had tons of blank pages in there. I wanted to ask questions so that people could really think about their answers and come up with something. And so as we were creating, it sort of just kept unfolding into more and more stuff of like, you know, I just, I really want to make sure that this is something that people feel like giving them enough value that it's worth buying, even if they read the first book. But also wanted it to stand alone for people that hadn't read the first book that they would still get something out of it. it too. For me, looking at this, I've read your first book, but I feel like anyone who hasn't read your first book can jump directly into this and is going to get so much value from it. That was my hope. And my hope was, too, that for people who just wanted to gain more info on mental strength, like, I get lots of people that ask me, like, can you be my therapist? Can you help me out with this? I don't have time to answer all the emails. You know what that's like. It's overwhelming to try to help
Starting point is 00:10:42 people or direct them in the right area. So I just wanted something to be able to give to people that's says, yeah, here it is. It's $20 or less, depending on where you buy it. But I really wanted people to feel like they were getting that value. We jump into some of the examples so people get an understanding one for some things and exercises they can actually do themselves right now. But what is your favorite exercise in the book? I think my favorite one is probably to figure out if your feelings are a friend or an enemy. We talk so much about emotional intelligence. And people, I hear it every day. People are talking about emotions like they're positive or they're negative. But look, that's not true. Your feelings can be a friend or an enemy and like literally every feeling's helpful sometimes and
Starting point is 00:11:21 it can be hurtful sometimes. So people will come to me and they'll say, well, my anger is really bad. Well, anger's not always bad. If it gives you courage to stand up for yourself, courage to go to your boss and ask for a raise or courage to stand up for somebody else. Like it's anger is your friend. In that moment, it's your enemy when you say mean things to someone you love or excitement. People think excitement's an amazing emotion. Well, excitement's not your friend when you fall. pray to a get rich quick scheme because you forget that there's all sorts of risks that you're taking. So I always encourage people. Number one, just name how you're feeling. And we know that putting a label to it takes a lot of the sting out of it. When you can say, yeah, I'm kind of anxious today or I'm kind of
Starting point is 00:12:00 sad today. Actually, the intensity of the emotion reduces a little bit. But then the next step is to say, is this helpful right now or hurtful or is it a friend or an enemy? When it's your friend, just embrace it for a little while, which means rather than distracting yourself with your phone or doing something else to get your mind off of it, just sit and feel it, even if it's just for 60 seconds, allow yourself to feel that emotion. And if it's your enemy in that moment, then say, okay, what can I do? And then it might be helpful to say, I'm going to shift how I'm feeling. Because if you're sad and you can't get out of bed for three days, obviously it's sadness is your enemy in that moment. You have to act contrary to it. That means push yourself to get up. But if you're sad
Starting point is 00:12:39 because maybe you miss somebody, like allow yourself to feel that for a little bit. So just asking yourself that question, I think is one of the most powerful exercises we could do. I love the concept of labeling emotion. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that and why it's so powerful? It is. So sometimes I'll speak to a group of high-level executives and I'll say, I'll give you 30 seconds to name as many feeling words as you can. And they're like, get out their pen and their paper and they're super excited for about the first 10 seconds. And then they realize that they don't have the language. Once you get beyond like happy, sad, mad, we don't talk enough about feelings to even have like a rich emotional vocabulary. So sometimes I'll encourage people like, just Google it, print out a list of feeling words, put it on your fridge, tape it's your bathroom mirror, put it on your phone. And just every once in a while, check in and be like, how am I feeling right now? And see if you can put a name to it. Because so often we don't even talk about our feelings, like, you know, in a conversation with somebody, you might be more likely to say, like, I have butterflies in my stomach rather than I was really nervous about this. And you don't necessarily have to announce it to other people, but just recognizing it in yourself. is so important because our emotions can cloud our judgment.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Like if you were nervous about something and your personal life and then you go to work and your boss says to you, hey, can you take on this project? And maybe you're really just worried about like your grandmother's help at the moment, but your anxiety spills over. So you're much more likely to be like, no, I don't want to do that right now, but thanks for asking without recognizing that you're not even anxious about work. You're anxious about grandma, but that spills over into other areas of your life. Or if you're sad, like never negotiate when you're sad because if you make an offer and somebody makes a counteroffer, chances are you'll take it because you're like, oh, I'm already really sad. My self-esteem can't
Starting point is 00:14:25 handle one more thing. So we tend to take really bad offers when we're sad. But if we at least recognize that like, gee, okay, I'm anxious today. So I'm much more likely to play it safe, then you can be reminded of that. So when you're given an opportunity, you can say, all right, is this my anxiety from something else I'm worried about that's playing into this decision or does it make sense? Or if you're negotiating and you are sad, okay, how might this be affecting my decision making right now? When we become more aware of that and you label that emotion and you recognize here's how I'm feeling today, you can make a lot better decisions. Oh my gosh, where were you a couple weeks ago? Because first of all, I think I have a strong handle on.
Starting point is 00:15:04 I'm like I'm self-aware. I do think to myself, how am I feeling? But for me, I mean, and everybody's got triggers. When I get super excited, my head goes into the clouds. And I'm like, like, oh my gosh, things are just going amazing. And right at that moment, I was introduced to somebody who presented a business opportunity to me, and I jumped right on it. I was like, this is how my luck is going. Everything is working out. And I agreed to it and cut, you know, to a week later. And I'm looking at the potential ramifications and looking at the specifics in a very calm fashion with no emotion involved. And I'm like, hmm, I wouldn't have signed this deal today. It's not like a terrible deal, but I wouldn't have signed it. I wouldn't have just agreed to
Starting point is 00:15:44 it if I hadn't been riding that high wave of emotion. Yeah, that's a great example of that. And we've all done that, right? You hear something and it sounds really cool and you think, yeah, I'm going to jump on that. And then later, when you're a little calmer and you rethink it, sometimes it's much easier to be like, well, wait a minute. There might be a downside to this. But the higher our emotions are, the more our logic goes down. And you have to balance those two things out. So sometimes it's better to figure out how am I feeling right now? How might those emotions affect my decisions? And then how can I balance it out so I can think more rationally? So the different examples in the workbook, they're not only for our personal life, but they're also to be applied in business as well,
Starting point is 00:16:23 correct? Absolutely. We talk a lot about mental strength and people will think that it's just about pushing through, bouncing back, dealing with difficulties in your personal life. But I talk about thoughts, feelings, and behavior. That's going to affect your business life too. And what are you going to do at work and your emotions in the office or how do you interact with other people? or how do you choose, you know, when to say no and when to step up and lots of things like that. That's a great point you described, when to say no and how to say no. What's some direction or exercises you can share with us on the ability to say no and setting boundaries. I know, because you see so many people who are like, this is going to be the year where I say yes to everything
Starting point is 00:17:00 because I don't want to turn down any opportunities. And then in the next breath, you'll hear somebody say, like, I'm going to say no to absolutely everything that isn't essential. Right. Which one is the right one? And in the moments we're like, wait, yeah, should I be saying yes to more things or saying no? But I think it's really important sometimes when we say yes to something to then just take a step back and say, well, what am I saying no to? So if you say yes once your friend invites you to go do something cool, well, what does that mean you're saying no to? Maybe you're saying no to time with your family or you're saying no to having some peace and quiet to yourself. But when we balance that out, our decisions get better as well.
Starting point is 00:17:35 Because sometimes people come into my therapy office and they have decided they're going to make this change in their life. Like, I'm going to say yes to going to the gym and working out every day. Well, what does that mean you're giving up? Maybe it is time with your family or delicious dinner that you make by yourself at home. Whatever it is, just recognizing saying yes means you're giving up something. But on the flip side, when you say no to stuff too, like, what does that also mean? And when we just look at both sides of the coin, it gets a little bit easier. And people will say like, you know, you really have to be careful what you accept and what you say yes to. But on the other side, As you know, when you're in a business like we are, there's a million and one opportunities
Starting point is 00:18:12 and you have to figure out, like, where is your attention going to go? You could spend all day on social media. You could spend weeks of your time just chasing down new business ideas. You could spend lots of time attending meetings. I mean, so many things. You have to figure out where do I go with that. And I'm always reminded, too, though, like, had I not published this article online for measly $15, I wouldn't be where I am right now. So sometimes taking those little opportunities means, All right, you never know where it's going to turn. But on the other hand, I've also learned, like, as a speaker when people are like, can you come speak for us? Because it's going to give you a lot of exposure.
Starting point is 00:18:44 Yeah, probably say no to that. We both learn that the hard way. If your anxiety, depression, or ADHD are more than a rough patch, you don't need just another meditation app. Takayatri makes it easy to see a psychiatrist online using your insurance in days. Takayatry is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, and more. Unlike therapy-only apps, tachyotry is psychiatry.
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Starting point is 00:21:30 Visit Northwest Red Cross. registered agent.com slash confidence-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at www. northwest registered agent.com slash confidence-free. I get messages a lot about this topic that they want to say no. Let's use the example of at work. Or it could be in personal life, too. You want to say no because something inside you saying,
Starting point is 00:21:59 I don't think I should be saying yes to this. It's not really resonating with me. I don't think this is fair. This is not, you know, I'm being taking advantage of, but I can't say no. What are some of the things people can do when they need to have some boundaries and speak up for themselves, but they're afraid to. One of the best things I think is to just get yourself a script to buy you some time. Maybe I'm going to check my schedule and get back to you on that.
Starting point is 00:22:19 Because then you can at least say, I'm not going to give you an automatic yes or an automatic no. And then that pause can give you that moment to be like, do I really want to do this or do I like the idea of doing this? And sometimes we need more information. somebody says, hey, can you do this project? You're thinking it's going to take an hour, but they're thinking it's going to take an hour a week for six months. And you need that clarity before you say yes or no. So sometimes during that pause, it will remind you, like, what other information do I need to know? What question should I ask? And what are the limits I'm going to set?
Starting point is 00:22:48 Like, yes, I will help you with that. However, I only have one hour to spare. Or like, you probably get this question just like I do. I know you do. Like, can I pick your brain from a complete stranger all the time who are like, you know, and sometimes it's a, I had to give myself permission to not answer every email or to not answer every request. It took a long time to get there because I used to think, oh, I should at least say no, but like I'd spend my whole day in my inbox just replying no, and then people are like second guessing, you know, like, well, are you sure you can't? So sometimes it's about just knowing like, how you're going to weed that out and having a plan for it. And then knowing that people are going to push back. And when they push back, just use it
Starting point is 00:23:25 is evidence that you were right when you said no and somebody's really like, no, I think you really should or can't you just probably means they're going to try to take more advantage of your time than they're promising that they need. Oh my gosh, I'm getting triggered listening to this. In a situation like this, because I like that example that you politely declined that opportunity, right? I'm not able to handle that for you. And they come back, can't you just like so now they're badgering you a bit. Where do you think the role of apologizing or being a little bit more direct comes into play? Like how would you handle something like that? So I think, well, I think one of the, sometimes the pitfalls that we have is we make an excuse, right?
Starting point is 00:24:03 Like, oh, I wish I could, but I can't because I don't have child care. And then the other person's like, oh, my nanny could babysit your kids too. And then you're like, oh, now what are we do, right? Right. And so I think you don't always have to give an excuse. Sometimes you can just say, oh, no, I'm not able to do that. And if somebody pushes back, you might point out, I noticed that when I said no to that, it frustrated you or it sounds like you really want me to do this. I understand that. However,
Starting point is 00:24:29 it's not something I can do right now. And that's okay. You don't have to offer lengthy explanations. And if you know somebody who might be interested, you can say, you know, that's not something I'm able to do, but I could check and see if so-and-so is interested or if I hear of anybody who is able to do that, I'll let you know if you think there is value in what they're offering. You just don't have the time of the ability to do it right now. Okay, to this point, there was this woman that I was working in some capacity with, not directly, but she would keep surfacing in my world. And every time she would, anything that would come up, she would give me a laundry list of reasons why she couldn't make this meeting or why she could, I did not care. And it was driving me crazy, Amy, in my eyes, for whatever reason, the more she would give me lengthy excuses, the more her credibility and value in the business exchange would diminish. In my eyes, eventually, at the end, I requested never to deal with her again solely because I was so sick of just listening to random excuses that had nothing to do with my life and were truly wasting my time. So when I hear you,
Starting point is 00:25:33 you know, highlighting that and using that example, not only do you not have to go ahead and validate everything and explain it, other people might look at you in a non-positive way if you are going to do that. That's just it. And like I learned a long time ago. I used to teach college psychology classes. And like I didn't excused absences. I would just make it really clear in the beginning, like, if you're in college, I'm not going to say whether your excuse for not being here is valid or not. Like, you know if you need to be there when your grandmother's sick. You don't need to tell me that's why you're out. Or you know what the reason is. So same thing. And when it comes to work stuff, like I'm not going to be the judge and jury on whether your excuse is valid or not valid or whatever it is. So you don't always
Starting point is 00:26:16 have to tell people, yeah, here's why I can't. And then you offer them that lengthy excuse. But I know a lot of people do that out of guilt or because they're afraid like I won't be believed if I say I can't do that. So I really want to explain why or I don't want to hurt your feelings. So I like your point that sometimes we're doing people a much bigger favor when we just say, no, I'm not able to do that right now. And I know that you're good at this. And the example I know of when the first time you were on my podcast, we had a couple guests that had switched around their schedules. And I had texted you and said, can you come earlier today on the off chance? And you were like, nope, but I'll see you at 2 o'clock.
Starting point is 00:26:51 I don't know what you were doing that day, but you just made it clear, like, that's not an option. And I so respected that you were able to do that because I think so many other people would be like, well, I can be there at 1.45, but I can't be there any, you know, with a lengthy explanation or whatever it was. You were just like, nope, but I'll see you at our scheduled time. And I super appreciated that.
Starting point is 00:27:12 Revity is a superpower in my book. I just feel like everyone's moving a million miles an hour. Nobody needs to hear the color of context of what's going on in my day. I'm just going to keep it short, keep it tight, and keep it moving. And when other people do that back, I so appreciate it. But, you know, some people think it's very, very direct. And sometimes people can get offended. So what I've learned is the older that you are, you attract the right people towards you that can actually say what you said, oh, hey, I appreciated that you were directly thanks versus someone that's crying on the other end of that text saying, you didn't
Starting point is 00:27:43 need to be so cold to me. And, you know, the other problem I'm seeing a lot of lately, too, is people are over committing, right? Because they feel bad about saying no in the beginning. So then they say yes, but then they're like, I have 17 things to do today. I can't do them all. So then they end up canceling on people at the last minute. And my other biggest one I'm hearing from people then is they're like, oh, I need to take care of myself. So I'm going to clear out my schedule for next week. Like, no, that's not good self-care. You should be taking care of yourself proactively, not feeling like you're desperate at the last second to have to cancel plans or commitments that you've already made. Well, you know my son, Dylan. He's 15.
Starting point is 00:28:19 and you're not going to believe, well, you are going to believe this. The other day, he was applying to some program. He didn't get in. He got home super late from practice. And at the end of the night, and I'll give it to him. It was really late. It was almost 10 o'clock. He has to get up at six. And he says, gosh, I'm just so tired. I think I should go ahead and take a mental health day tomorrow. And I looked at him, and I said, a what? And he said, a mental health day, mom, that's when you need to really care for yourself and you know I should just cancel on school I should sleep as much as possible and just be kind to myself because I had a tough day I said number one I don't know if you temporarily have amnesia or forgotten your mother is but there's no mental health days in this house number two I'm like this is
Starting point is 00:28:59 the best sales pitch I've ever heard in my life at 10 o'clock tighten it up and go to bed so you can get some more sleep but it's interesting because I would I was I never grew up that way and never heard as such a thing, but I think that this generation of children is being taught very, very differently in that they're having these conversations at school. Yeah, you know, and funny you say that. So we were just doing some research at Very Well, Mine, on like, which states these days have schools that encourage mental health days, some of them do. And some don't. Some are very much like, no, you have to come unless you're vomiting, you're physically ill. And I think it's important for us to know, yeah, you should be taking care of your mental health.
Starting point is 00:29:38 And then what's that balance, though, so that we aren't like, gee, I'm kind of tired today. So it's a mental health day. Or parents used to tell me that in my therapy office, like, oh, my kid has anxiety, so they're going to stay home. It's a mental health day. Or my kid has depression, so they're going to stay in bed today. Sometimes those are not good ideas. You need to push yourself when you're feeling really bad.
Starting point is 00:29:58 You need to go out and do the things that you would have done if you felt okay. And it's physically doing those things that makes you feel better. So I think there is a balance to be struck when it comes to knowing. you know, when do you step back and when do you step up? But, you know, to me, that idea that I felt badly for my son, he'd had a bad day. That's legit, right? But there's going to be more bad days as much as I know you're going to have great days ahead of you, right? And so I guess my point was, yes, today was a bad one.
Starting point is 00:30:26 But if you don't go tomorrow, you're not going to have the great one. You're not going to give yourself that potential to instead show up tomorrow because anything is possible. And tomorrow could be the greatest day of your life if you allow it to unfold that way. but I promise you this, if you keep yourself under the covers in the AC, it's not going to be the best. I just knew that much as a mother. And I thought, I don't know what instruction they're giving you at school. But for me, this is not, I don't even need to think about it more than one flat second. You're going.
Starting point is 00:30:52 And the greatest thing for him and I the next day, he had this unbelievable day at school. He was so excited that things didn't work out with transferring and what, you know, it ended up being this whole like, oh my gosh, this was such a great day. I'm so glad I went to school today. And so, I mean, hopefully those are the things that in the end, kids remember about building resilience. Absolutely, that there are so many times you have to push yourselves. And I explain this in the workbook, too. Sometimes we're like, I'm tired today. So I'm going to not go to the gym and take care of myself.
Starting point is 00:31:20 Like, no, no, no. That's like self-sabotage, not self-care. You need to sometimes just push yourself to do hard things. And that's difficult to do. But when you do it, like you train your brain to think differently and to recognize, okay, even though I didn't want to do this, I did it. and I can do it. And just like Dylan learned, like, okay, sometimes you push yourself to go to school the next day and you never know what might happen. You've pushed yourself in various ways,
Starting point is 00:31:44 but one that blows me away is the physical challenges that you've given yourself to really push yourself to expand in your mental strength. Can you share a little bit about that? Yeah. So I was an overweight kid and had always learned like, oh, you're just big bone. It kind of runs in the family. And, but, you know, I always played sports. I was kind of athletic. And, and, and, that sort of a thing. But as an adult, I was 39 or 40, I think at the time a couple years ago and decided to see if I could get six-pack abs in 30 days. And hired a trainer that is known for getting people six-pack abs. He often gets people in shape for movie parts and things like that. And said, yeah, let's see what we can do in 30 days. And he said, you know, women usually
Starting point is 00:32:26 take six weeks, men take four. And I was like, well, let's see what we can do in four. So got six-pack abs with dumbbells in a bedroom. And that was it. I didn't go to the gym. I didn't do anything else. And I ran and changed my diet and I used free weights, but made it happen. And it was one of the coolest things. I mean, I had worked out a lot in my life, but had never, like, hired a trainer to just say, what can you do when you put your mind to it? And it was a really tough 30 days. But then, like, maintaining it has been not that hard. I go to the gym a few times a week now, but hasn't been nearly as bad. So I did that. And then my other physical challenge is I run a timed mile every day as fast as I can. I try to beat the six minute mile mark. I haven't quite
Starting point is 00:33:06 done it yet. But I love to just get out there and say, you know, it's a great way to figure out, like, my brain will tell me at the three-quarter mile mark every day, like, okay, you're not going to break your records that you should give up or slow down or you can't keep going. And it's a great, like, tangible way to say, I don't have to listen to my brain or just because my brain tells me I can't do something doesn't mean I can't do the opposite. So I love it because when it comes to mental strength, there's not always that tangible way of saying, you know, like, what am I going to do that my brain tells me I can't do? For me, working out in physical activity is a great one. So even if somebody just says, I'm going to do some push-ups and pay attention to when your brain says you can't
Starting point is 00:33:43 do one more and then do a couple more just to prove that you can. That's a really great mental strength exercise. Oh, I love that you're living. Not only do you teach it, not only you're a therapist, but you live it and I've seen you do it. And let me just tell you, you got to check out Amy online, follow her on Instagram because you will lose it when you see how ripped this lady is. It's incredible. Hey, before you go anywhere, there's one last thing I have to talk to you about, and you are so going to thank me for including this. Okay, so if you're like me, which I know you are, you work out, you try to eat healthy, you do all the right things. Sadly, what we didn't know is sometimes doing all the right things is actually causing us problems.
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Starting point is 00:38:49 Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash confidence to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash confidence. All right. So let's talk a little bit more about the workbook. And you've got different things. You've got homework in the workbook. You've got checklist.
Starting point is 00:39:09 You've got a plan to stop feeling sorry for yourself. How do these different questions and journal points of entry, how do these all come together to help people make change? Well, you know, I noticed a lot of times people would say to me from my first book, like, I don't really struggle with that thing. But then they'd read the chapter and they're like, ooh, I do struggle with it a little more than I thought I did once they really dove into it. So I really wanted the workbook to then say, let's dive deeper into some of these things. Like, do you feel sorry for yourself? Here's what that might look like. And if you do,
Starting point is 00:39:40 when, like some people will say, when I get rejected by somebody socially, I start to feel sorry for myself. Somebody else will say, you know, I'm looking at Instagram and I see people who look like they're happy or wealthy or more attractive than I am. Then I start the pity party. So let's figure out when these things happen and then what kind of problems does it cause for you in your life? Another example, like, do you give up after failure? For people who do, like, why is that a problem in your life? How's that playing out? And I want people to really recognize in their specific situations, like how is this creating the snowball effect where I do these, I engage in this bad habit, it's counterproductive, here are the consequences of it. And then what can you do instead? How can you
Starting point is 00:40:19 recognize when you're starting to do these unhealthy habits, and then which exercises can you put into play right in that moment so that you'll stop doing it? And then what are the benefits of switching that around? What do you expect to see out of life? Give us an example or a story from a patient, obviously nameless or one of the ones that you use in the workbook that really resonated or landed with you that you feel proud of where somebody was able to make some positive change. Good question. So one of the cool things about this is I took readers who from my first book, who volunteered to tell me their stories of like how life was different now that they have built mental strength. Like what are they able to do that they were able to do? And I got tons of stories
Starting point is 00:40:57 from people. I think some of my favorites were people who took a leap of faith who said, you know, I always wanted to own this certain business and I was finally able to do it because I found that quitting my job wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. And if something bad happened, I could still handle it. And so like a particular one that a person I was working with worked in corporate America and became an Uber driver. And he said, you know, I've never been happier now that I'm driving Uber because I get set my own schedule. I get to talk to people all day long. And he said, but for a long time, my identity was wrapped up in the prestigious job title that I had. I didn't love it, but I felt like I had to keep being that person. Now he says, you know, I drive Uber.
Starting point is 00:41:36 I get to, I feel like I'm making a bigger difference because I get to talk to people, make their day, make them smile. I get them to the place they need to be. And he said, my life is actually way more fulfilling now than it ever was and I feel mentally stronger than ever. Because I think sometimes people get wrapped up into thinking that mental strength is all about like success and wealth and fame and having all of the stuff on the outside, but they don't feel fulfilled on the inside. But it's the opposite. It's about figuring out how do you live your best life with some inner peace no matter what it is that you decide to do. Oh my gosh. Peace and joy. That's what it's all about in my life. That's the target. How do you get people who are locked up with fear? I've been one of them to cross.
Starting point is 00:42:14 that fear chasm. So sometimes it's about saying, you know, like, what's the worst case scenario? And we play it through. So for somebody who says, I really love my job, well, what's the worst case scenario? Let's say you quit your job and you launch your own business. Like, worst case scenario, what are you going to do? Well, maybe you're going to have to find another job someday if your business doesn't work out. We figure out, like, what are you really scared of? And for a lot of people, it's not that they'll be homeless and they won't have any money. It's more the embarrassment. Like, what's my family going to think of me if I launch this business and it doesn't work out? Or like how embarrassing will it be to tell people, oh, I started
Starting point is 00:42:47 this company and it didn't work out the way I thought it would. Or I tried to be a freelancer and that didn't work and I had to go back and get a job. Like, will that make me look like a failure? So it conquered those fears. Like, okay, well, is that the worst thing in the world? And will people really judge you the way they think that you were expecting them to? The answer is usually no. Other people aren't paying nearly as much attention to you as you think that they are. And if you explain to them, yeah, I tried this thing. And if we just looked at like failure and mistakes as an opportunity rather than like the end all be all and to know if you're failing, you're getting rejected, like good for you. It means you're putting yourself out there and you're trying things. You're figuring out what your limits are as opposed to thinking like, oh, if I failed at something, it means I'm a bad person and I can't possibly succeed. You're making me think of this DM I got this morning on LinkedIn. This gentleman said, hey, I really want to go for this new thing. I'm so passionate about. I'm so excited about it. But every time I start telling people in my life, I hear all the naysayers
Starting point is 00:43:45 and it shuts me down. So I wrote back, tell no one and just move forward with your goals. So he writes back to me. And this is where I'm like, now I've got to move on with my day. He writes back to me. But then how can I also promote what I'm doing? It was interesting. The challenge he was saying, which this is like in my memory, I'd go right to the Sarah Blakely example. When she thought about Spank, she told nobody for two years. She kept it a big secret because you didn't want naysayers to come for her. But I guess to his point, how can you also promote and elevate yourself while trying to hide from people?
Starting point is 00:44:17 Yeah, that's a good point because I would say the same thing. Like, if you're telling everybody about it, like, what are you hoping to gain by telling people? And if you're hoping to get lots of praise and you're hoping that people are going to cheer you on and you're not getting that, like, well, then just don't tell people. But, you know, I think two things from that is if you're getting a lot of feedback from people, maybe they're giving you things that you need to know as well. Maybe they are giving you some free advice about why this couldn't work. So maybe there is some value in being like, all right, I'm getting feedback from people,
Starting point is 00:44:44 but it doesn't mean that you have to listen. So just because people are saying, you know, that's a bad idea. Okay. You don't have to respond to. He doesn't have to respond to all of those emails or those messages or, you know, maybe you rethink who you're going to tell and why. And if you think you're marketing your future business or your future product to people and they're giving you feedback for free, like, I don't know, maybe that's a good thing
Starting point is 00:45:06 to get somebody's feedback. And if everybody's saying this is a terrible idea, maybe you haven't found your people yet as well. So true. I always go to this. Be sure that who you're asking for directions has already been to the place that you want to go. Yes. Pretty much guarantee if you're asking a teacher how to build a billion dollar entrepreneurial business, you are asking the wrong person, the question. Like really qualify that first.
Starting point is 00:45:29 I did that wrong so many times at the beginning when I started out on my own. And that was an important lesson. Absolutely. And I always try to remember that when people are offering advice about writing a book or having a podcast or doing these things. Like, do they have something that is of value that I would think, oh, okay, I can learn from this person? Or is it just somebody who maybe wishes they had done those things or somebody that has no experience or knowledge of it? And they're just offering advice that you don't need to listen to. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:45:56 I'll never forget when I gave my TEDx talk. They had a speaker coach that you had to use. This was the way this TEDx was set up. And I said, well, let me see the person. qualifications. And so the person had been a TEDx coach forever, had never done a TEDx. And I said, I'm so appreciate you bring this person into my sphere. However, I'm going to go to my friend who has a TEDx talk with 15 million views or 30 million. I don't even know what it is now, Amy, but I'm going to call you because to me it was so clear. If you know what success looks like and you
Starting point is 00:46:28 know someone that's had that success, tap them and ask them, hey, what are the best keys you can give to me on this thing versus listening to someone who actually hasn't done? done it yet. I'm glad you said that because I had that same experience when I was getting my TEDx talk ready. I went to somebody who helped people write TED Talk specifically and had a lot of experience writing speeches, that sort of a thing and said, hey, I need some help with this. And then the people who were running the TEDx had a lot of advice about how I should change my speech. And I said, thank you very much. And I didn't take that advice. And I'm glad that I didn't. But same thing. And knowing sometimes we think like, okay, somebody who's organizing a TEDx event will
Starting point is 00:47:03 have the knowledge and the skills. But if you don't look into it, like you just said, you don't really know if they do or not. Just because they hold a specific title or they claim to have knowledge doesn't mean they actually do. Look for those examples that show that they've done something, not just because it says that they've done something. How can we take people off those proverbial pedestals that we actually put them on? Oh, that's a great question because we do that, right? I know I do. I think this person's an authority figure.
Starting point is 00:47:29 This person knows what they're doing or just because somebody says they're a publicist and they offer you advice on how to do it. like, wait, what? And if they've never, again, I think it's just asking that question or even people, when you go to your doctor and your doctor brushes you off sometimes or says, do this, if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't seem right. If it's, you have an alarm bell going off, listen to it and think, okay, well, why might I be questioning this? And do your own homework and do some research. Take a step back so that we don't just blindly follow advice from people or we don't just accept what they say at face value. Listening to your own intuition is always the answer. and it's the easiest one to forget.
Starting point is 00:48:07 There's so many interesting exercises in this book. I mean, not one page in the workbook is the same. There's so many, whether you're asking people to provide feedback, you're talking about different fear levels and estimated physical risk with different events. Can you talk us through some of these different, very unique workbook exercises you've created? Yeah, like if we took the one about risk,
Starting point is 00:48:27 so a lot of us are able to take risks in certain areas of our lives, but not others. Like somebody might be like, oh, I can do these, physical risks, no problem, but a social risk, like getting up on a stage, no way. But then when you really think, like, what's the actual level of risk? Like, we all get in the car to go somewhere, most of us too. And you don't really think of that as risky, right? But like, if you took an Uber to your TEDx event and you're about to get on stage at TEDx, like getting on stage feels really scary, but the Uber to get there doesn't. And that's because our brains just gets used to certain risks.
Starting point is 00:48:59 Well, there's a much bigger chance you're going to die of a car accident in the Uber than there is that you're going to in a drop dead on the TEDx stage. So just things like that, it become more aware of like what kind of risks do I take and not think twice about versus what kind of risks do I avoid because it feels scary. And our fear thermometers are broken. So the things that we tend to think are really risky usually aren't. And then we tend to do some risky things without even batting an eyelash because we don't think about it. So in the book, I really wanted to encourage people like to take a step back, figure out like, what are the risks that I take? What's the actual level of risk. What kinds of things do I think are scary that maybe aren't? Like, I have a terrible fear of
Starting point is 00:49:38 snakes, but, like, I rarely even see a snake. And I came from Maine where we didn't have poisonous snakes, so there was literally no reason to be afraid of them. So to figure out, like, all right, like, is this just based on rational thinking? Or do I have a fear that maybe isn't? Or what am I actually scared of? Is it something social? Like, I think people are going to make fun of me. Do I think I'm going to get laughed off the stage? I use public speaking as the example, because we know that's such a huge fear for so many people and I used to be one of those people. But then when you really do it and you start practicing it, you're like, okay, this isn't nearly as bad as my brain told me it was. But sometimes we forget to like walk it through or actually practice it or to do it
Starting point is 00:50:17 and to do it in small steps. So in the workbook, I also talk about how to face your fears one small step at a time. Because people sometimes come into my therapy office and they'll try to go for like one big giant leap. Like if you've never spoken in front of a crowd of people, like you probably we don't want to get on stage in front of a thousand people your first time. You're going to practice in front of the mirror and then you're going to practice in front of two people. And you do it in small enough increments that you get used to it. And once step two becomes not so scary, then you move on to step three. And the big thing at the end is like step 10, but you get there slowly and you can figure out how do you face your fears one small step at a time
Starting point is 00:50:53 rather than taking that giant leap. That's such great advice. When I even think back on my own career of, you know, various things. I was afraid to pitch myself for a chief revenue officer position. But that started back when I was an account executive and I pitched myself for a sales manager, a team of six, right? Like all those little tiny wins early in your career give you that courage to make that bigger leap at the end. And I think it's easy to forget those because we just remember the big win moments and think, well, I was able to do that. Why can't I do that over here? You have to really stop yourself and say, oh, no, wait, there was 20 other steps that occurred before I ever made that big jump. That's the thing. And our brains trick us because if we think, well,
Starting point is 00:51:32 I'm not good at X, Y, or Z, like your brain will just look for proof. And it will screen out all the evidence to the contrary. So if somebody will say to me, I'm not really not a good communicator, because I always mess things up, then we'll talk about that. Like, well, what's the time when you didn't mess something up? We'll ask for a raise once and it did work out. Oh, okay. Well, there's an example of that. Then they'll be really quick to say, but that was just luck or that was a fluke or my boss is going to give me a raise anyway. And we do that because our brains are like, oh, you know, any evidence to the contrary of what we already believe, we screen out, we make an excuse for. And then something that maybe is in line with what we think, we like really blow that up.
Starting point is 00:52:10 So the one time you did mess up, we're like, yep, I mess up all the time. Well, do you really mess up all the time or you just messed up that one time? And so in the workbook, I try to break those things down the way that our brains play tricks on us like that. Where does that stuff really come from. Is that all back from how we grew up and how people spoke to us, or is that more about us as adults making poor decisions and then beating ourselves up over them? I think a lot of it does come from childhood. We have these childhood insecurities of who we are and the labels that people placed on us. Like I was the one who, every report card I think I ever had said I was painfully shy. If you want somebody to not talk, why don't you just call them painfully shy or? And so I, so I became
Starting point is 00:52:52 that and I never spoke, right? Like the more people would call me out on that, the less I talked. And so I think for people to know, yeah, the labels that you had as a kid and then the labels we place on ourselves as adults, sometimes it's hard to outlive those or we just really live up to those kinds of things, even when they're self-limiting. A big breakthrough of mine, and I could use your workbook back then, was when I got fired and I decided to write my first book competence creator. And I had to make the decision. My sister was a smart one growing up. I was just social one. So I kept wrestling with this idea. Can a social one, literally I said this. Can a social one write a book? And I was, you know, really sitting down and being thoughtful about it. And I finally had to say,
Starting point is 00:53:33 maybe I could be a social one and a smart one. Maybe I can be multiple things. Maybe I can just be me and take my unique skills and talents wherever I want to go and roll the dice and see what happens, which in the end is what I did. And I'm so grateful for it. But that moment is a real moment because that sign is like a label that's imprinted on the back of your shirt. That's a great example because we do. We tend to think like, yeah, we're all one way or another, right? And those labels that we have to figure out, can I expand my horizons? Can I do things differently? And like to this day, my sister came down to visit me and we were at a restaurant and it was really sunny out. So she was going to ask the waiter for an umbrella for me because she forgets like, yes, even though I'm now old and I don't,
Starting point is 00:54:18 I'm not the shy one anymore. As a kid, she spoke for me. So it's still a habit. that she's into where she's like, oh, I was going to get that for you. And I'm like, you know, I can talk now. I'm good. For everyone listening, you have to check out Amy's TEDx talk. It literally has 50 million views. The idea that somebody ever calls you painfully shy, like, that's incredible to me. I can't even believe it. Funny now, right? Because you've known me as an adult where I can talk. But really, for like 20 years, I would talk in my house, but outside of the house, I rarely, my friends and my family's book for me. Oh my gosh. You are such living proof that the teachings within this workbook within all of your books when every single one of them can make drastic impactful change.
Starting point is 00:55:01 You're living it. Who is this book for? I think it's for anybody who wants to grow mentally younger and all of us, whether you are struggling with something like depression or anxiety or you're just like, you know, I'm doing all right in life. I just want to know how do I get to the next level? or how do I make sure that my brain isn't holding me back from even being better than I already am. I think this workbook can help. Well, we will link the workbook in the show notes below and where can everybody find you? My website is Amy Morin, LCSW, as in licensed, clinical social worker.com. And you're at Amy Moran on all social media.
Starting point is 00:55:35 Until next week, keep creating your confidence. Amy, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me, Heather.

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