High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 331: 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do with Amy Morin, Bestselling Author & TedX Speaker

Episode Date: April 25, 2020

Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and psychology lecturer at Northeastern University. She’s also an international bestselling author. Her books, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do, and 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do have been translated into 39 languages.   The Guardian dubbed her “the self-help guru of the moment” and Forbes calls her a “thought leadership star.” Her TEDx talk, The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, is one of the most popular talks of all time with more than 10 million views. She’s a regular contributor to Forbes, Inc., and Psychology Today where her articles on mental strength reach more than 2 million readers each month. Her advice for building mental strength has been featured by major media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, Inside Edition, CNBC, Today, Good Morning America, Success, Business Insider, Time, and the Hallmark Channel. In this podcast, Cindra and Amy talk: What it was like to have her Forbes article go viral The struggle that lead her to write and study mentally strong people The power of choosing gratitude over self-pity How failure is evidence of courage The power of naming your emotions Why women really need to own their success   Reach Amy at @AmyMorinLCSW on Twitter and me @Mentally_Strong.

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. You know, when all we hear about is somebody's success, we think, I can't put myself out there because I might fail. But when we realize that so many of these successful people failed a bazillion times, it then gives us the courage to say, oh, okay, it's okay to fail. And failure can sometimes be a stepping stone to success too. Welcome to episode 331 with Amy Morin. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff. And I am grateful that you are here today, more grateful than ever. And if you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place.

And with all that we are facing in the world today, it is essential that we train our minds to stay gritty, present, and purposeful. And our minds is really all that we can control. So we put this summit together for you, where you can learn from over 20 experts that include best selling authors mental performance coaches for pro teams and influencers about how you can thrive

during this time of uncertainty and change and yes i said thrive and the best part is the summit is free you'll receive an interview with me and each of the speakers which include tangible tools and actionable advice that you can use right now to make you, your team, your business, the people you care about, and your community stronger. So Jen said, the summit has been a complete blessing to me. It's completely motivated and inspired me. Thank you. Lynn says, I've been enjoying the videos from the summit. The videos have helped me maintain a positive outlook and to reframe my current situation and the issues regarding COVID-19. And Nicole said, if you want to boost your positivity and tips from the best on developing a growth mindset, check out the

High Performance Mindset Summit. Really good content for all of us. So you'll learn in the summit strategies to help you lead yourself, how to understand fear and reduce Summit, Strategies to Help You Lead Yourself, How to Understand Fear and Reduce It, How to Master Your Ability to Be in the Present, and so much more. So you can head over if you haven't already to highperformancemindsetsummit.com. It's still going on and it is free at highperformancemindsetsummit.com. Now in this interview with Amy Moren,

we talk about her book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, and I absolutely loved it. I saw Amy's Forbes article go viral many years ago and have been following Amy since then. Her book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do is one of my favorite on my bookshelf. And Amy is a licensed clinical social worker, a psychotherapist, and psychology lecturer at Northeastern University. She's also an international best-selling author. Her books, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do,

have been translated into 39 languages. The Guardian dubbed her the self-help guru of the moment, and Forbes called her a thought leader star. Her TEDx talk, The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, is one of the most popular talks of all time, with more than 10 million views. She's a regular contributor to Forbes, Inc., and Psychology Today, where her articles on mental strength reach more than 2 million readers each month. And her advice on building mental strength has been featured by major media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, CNBC, Today, Good Morning America, Business Insider, Time, and Success Magazine. In this podcast, Amy and I talk about what it was like for her to have her Forbes article go viral, the struggle that led to her writing and studying about mentally strong

people, the power of choosing gratitude over self-pity, how failure is evidence of courage, the power of naming your emotions, and why women in particular really need to own their success if you enjoyed today's episode wherever you're listening subscribe give us a five star rating and review that would be amazing because we are working to attract amazing guests for you to continue to learn about mindset and implement it into your lives. And by receiving more rating and reviews, it helps us get higher and higher on Apple podcast. And it's also the most important and meaningful way to help others find this show. So thank you so much for wherever you're listening, heading over to leave us a five-star rating and review. And we'd love to hear from you. Amy on Twitter is at Amy Morin, LCSW, and I'm at Mentally Underscore Strong on Twitter,

and we're both very highly active on LinkedIn as well. So reach out to us and let us know what you liked about this podcast. Without further ado, let's bring on for joining me today on the podcast. How is the weather over there in Florida? So it's 77 right now. I think it's supposed to be in the mid to high 80s today, so I can't complain. That sounds wonderful. And I love that you live on a boat. So tell us who are listening about that experience and what that's like. So I guess about four years ago, I started living on a boat in the Florida Keys and I've been here ever since. Life down here is pretty cool. It was never my dream to live on a boat, my husband's dream, since he was four years old. His bedroom was decorated with sailboats. So he always said, someday I want to live on a boat. And once I became an author and I could work from anywhere, we had the opportunity. So we said,

why not? And I have to say, I've fallen in love with living on a boat myself. Well, I think about the feng shui, isn't it like abundance, the idea of a sailboat? I love that. So I am really looking forward to talking to you today. I've had this on my shelf for many, many years. So, and I read the Forbes article that came out like originally that was viewed by millions of people. And so I've been following your work for a long time. And so it's an honor today to have you on the podcast. So I just want to thank you so much for your work and the great contribution that you've made. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, and we're really looking forward to just sharing it with the world here. Maybe Amy, just to start us off, tell us a little

bit about your passion and what you do now. So I'm a therapist by trade and I spent most of my early days of my career working as a therapist in Maine and seeing patients one-on-one. And writing became my side hustle. It was something I did just to earn a little bit of income. And then I wrote the article called 13 things mentally strong people don't do. And it blew up and led to an opportunity to become an author. And I've since written, I just wrote my fourth book, which will come out next year, but I've got three that are on the shelves now. And these days I spend most of my time writing and speaking. I write for places like Business Insider and Forbes and Psychology Today. And I get to speak to a lot of private companies and travel around and talk about mental strengths.

Yeah, excellent. And the three books that you have right now, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do, and then 13 things mentally strong parents don't do, right? Yes. And my next one, a forthcoming one will be a book for kids. Oh, wonderful. Okay. We'll have to get that for mine. Okay. Well, tell us a little bit about what that was like when the Forbes article went live. And I remember looking at it and it was viewed by like 10 million people at that point. There's probably more that have looked at it and it was viewed by like 10 million people at that point. There's probably more that have looked at it. So tell us what that was like just to,

you know, get people reading your work so quickly. So it was incredible. So for a long time I had written articles just as a way to earn a little bit of extra money after my husband passed away and it wasn't anything I had ever planned on making a living out of. It was just a side hustle. And when I wrote that one article, I wrote it for originally for a website called Lifehack, but it got picked up by Forbes and within a matter of days, millions of people had read it. And before I knew it, I was getting emails from people all over the world and media interview opportunities. And it was a 600 word article, but it completely changed the course of my life. And it was surreal. For a while, I would look at the Forbes article, and I would just refresh the screen. And every time I would hit click, it was 10,000 more views. And I'd click

again and 10,000 more. And I was trying to fathom how many people, you know, in those two seconds that 10,000 people just read that article. And it was it was surreal and then celebrities were sharing it on social media and you know I just kept my phone was ringing and my email my inbox was overflowing with people saying you know I just saw your article here and Fox News calls and and then CNN in Mexico called I mean it was crazy crazy time to to go from you know a few thousand people maybe reading my articles to suddenly millions and millions of people. It was really a strange, strange time in my life. Yeah, I could imagine that you look back at that time and maybe pinch yourself a little bit. Well, I think the reason it was so popular is because your list is really a phenomenal list. And obviously it hit home

with people in general about like what they need. So tell us a little bit about what struggle led you to writing and studying Mentally Strong People. I know this from reading your book, but I'd love for you to share it with everyone who's listening today. Sure. So it was one of the first articles I'd written that was really from the heart. Before that, I wrote a lot of articles that were sort of sterile or ones that were really about mental health, but they were more from a medical perspective. This one was actually personal. And, you know, so I started my career as a therapist, as I said, and I was really interested in how to help other people. But it was based on what I learned in my college textbooks, thinking,

oh, I'm going to help all these people with all this information I learned in school. But quickly, about a year into my career, my mom passed away and she passed away suddenly. She had a brain aneurysm and she and I had been really close and she was here one minute and then gone the next. Wow. And I remember thinking, okay, how do I get through this? Because I'd seen some people come into my therapy office who had gone through loss and they were doing great years later. They were still able to talk about that person in a way that it made their heart happy. But then I saw other people that would go through rough times and they were bitter, they were angry. And I thought, okay, how do I not become that bitter, angry person? I want to grieve in a way that's healthy.

And so it sort of became personal in that moment of, okay, I have these case studies of real life people in my office who have gone through tough things and I get to study how some of them thrive afterward versus how some of them stay stuck. Yes. And I realized pretty early on, it wasn't about what people did when they went through tough times. Sometimes it was more about what they didn't do. People who didn't have certain bad habits tended to go on and do quite well. They bounced back from failure. They were able to go through tough times and learn from it. So I started paying attention to them for my own personal reasons, but I also wanted to become a better therapist. And I'm glad that I did that because three years to the day that my mom passed away, my 26 year old husband died of a heart attack.

Oh my goodness. Right. At 26, you're not supposed to die and you're certainly not supposed to have a heart attack. And I wasn't supposed to be widowed at 26. It was the strangest, you know, I didn't have my mom and now I'm a widow. And it was bizarre in a time where, you know, my other friends are just starting to get married and talking about kids and putting their lives together. I find myself in this really bizarre place. We've been foster parents and planning to adopt someday. And now suddenly all of that was gone. And fortunately I had some experience with, okay,

how do you grieve in a healthy way? How do you go through tough times? And it was hard work. It was awful. I'm glad I was a therapist and I'm glad that I had been studying people because it really helped me get through it. But it still took years. It was a long time before I felt like my heart was starting to heal and I started to feel better.

And I was fortunate, found love again, got remarried a few years down the road and thought, okay, this is it. I finally get this next chance at life. I had a new job, a different house. And I thought, here we go. But pretty quickly after we got married, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I just remember thinking, this isn't fair. I can't go through this again. I can't possibly lose another loved one. My heart's been broken for so long. I don't want to do it, but it wasn't really like I had a choice. And so I remember sitting at the kitchen table and just thinking, okay, this isn't what mentally strong people do. You can't sit around and feel sorry for yourself. That's not going to be helpful.

And so I wrote a list of all of the things that mentally strong people don't do. And don't feel sorry for yourself is at the top of the list. And, and so, you know, after that, I would read that letter to myself and it was helpful. And I thought, well, if it helps me, maybe it'll help somebody else. And I published it online, just sort of on a whim thinking maybe it would resonate with somebody, but I never imagined that 50 million people would read it or that I'd go on to be writing books and still talking about it five years later. Yeah, that's wonderful. I am hearing about how you turned your mess into your message, right? I mean, it's been cool how those 13 things really helped you during that time.

And I'm going to read them to those people who are listening. Obviously, you can get it online and you can get Amy's book if you don't have it. But there's a few that I really want to dive into because I thought all of them are really powerful, particularly all together, but they don't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. They don't give away their power. They don't shy away from change. They don't focus on things they can't control. They don't give away their power. They don't shy away from change. They don't focus on things they can't control. They don't worry about pleasing anyone. They don't fear taking calculated risks. They don't dwell on the past. They don't make the same mistakes over and over. They don't resent other people's success. They don't give up after their first

failure. They don't fear alone time. They don't feel the world owes them anything, and they don't expect immediate results. So we could spend hours talking about them. But what I'd like to start with is the first one, they don't feel sorry for themselves. And when I was reading the book, that was one that really stood out to me. So tell us a bit about how that's helped you during that time and now maybe even helps you. Yeah, it was one of those things that I had learned is that there's a big difference between healthy sadness and self-pity. That when you feel sad, it can be part of the healing process. It's really about saying, okay, you know, I feel bad and it's okay to feel bad. And it helps you honor whatever it is that you've lost in your life, whether you

lost your job, you lost a spouse because of a divorce, or you lost a loved one because they passed away, whatever it is. And to know that we all go through tough times, but when you start to feel sorry for yourself, it's when you start to think, my problems are bigger than everybody else's. There's nothing I can do about this. And it causes us to become hopeless and hopeless and keeps us stuck in a dark place. And so, and it's about, you know, we dig in our heels when we're experiencing self-pity and we think, well, there's nothing I can do about this and nobody can help me. And when people start to offer you potential solutions or strategies to feel better, you just insist that's not going to work for me, or I'm the exception to the rule. And so early on, I knew, okay, as I was thinking, this isn't fair,

I shouldn't have to go through this. And the list would go on and on. And sure, it was tough times I was going through. But if I doubted my ability to cope with them, then I was just going to make things worse. Or if I exaggerated how bad everything was in my life, I wasn't going to be helpful to myself or anybody else. So it was really about putting things in proper perspective. Yes, things are bad and I definitely miss my loved ones, but I do have the tools and strategies I need to get through this.

And I have plenty of good things going on in life too, that I had loved ones and I was fortunate to have friends and family and people who cared about me and to just focus on those sorts people who cared about me and to just focus on those sorts of things too while allowing myself to be sad. And one of the big takeaways I got from my experience was, you know, people will say time heals everything. Yeah.

It doesn't. I would see people in my therapy office 20 years after they'd gone through tough times and they were still stuck in it. And they would say to me, you know, like, how much longer do I have to wait till I feel better? But that's exactly what they were doing is just waiting to feel better. Just sitting back and waiting won't make you feel any better. It's what you do with your time that matters. Time doesn't heal anything. So for those people who maybe feel that way right now, maybe they feel sorry for themselves, given what's happening with COVID-19 and just all the different changes in our world. And maybe they got laid off, you know, there's maybe there's somebody sick or they're sick. What would you, what advice would you give people to kind of get unstuck? A couple of things. One is to, you know, gratitude solves a lot of problems in life. And

when we feel sorry for ourselves, we keep thinking I deserve better. When you practice gratitude, it's about thinking, okay, I have what I deserve, or I have more than I need. And just focusing on, okay, things are bad right now. But I have clean water, I have air, I have food in the cupboards, you know, I still have friends and family, whatever it is, but to switch your focus to remind yourself that yes, I have things to be grateful for right now. And then to also think, okay, I've been through tough times before what got me through those tough times. Granted right now is weird. I mean, we've never been through anything quite like this. This is just a bizarre, strange experience. And you don't need to minimize how weird things are and how uncertain the future is. But on the other hand, to remind yourself,

I'm sure everybody has been through something tough before. What skills and tools did you use to get through that? And then remind yourself, you can use those things right now too, that you can apply those exact same things and get through this and don't underestimate your ability to get through tough times. I actually, that's one of the things that I have a little sticky note in your book, exchange self-pity for gratitude. So I love that idea of just making sure that right now we're focusing on the things that we can be grateful for because, you know, we're grateful. I'm grateful that I'm alive. I'm grateful to you, right? There's, it's easy to think about all the things that are going wrong or what you don't have. What about mentally strong people don't give up after their first failure?

Tell us a little bit about that one and how you make sense of that. So when it comes to failure, you know, nobody likes to fail. It's uncomfortable. It's embarrassing. It often can change the way we think about ourselves. And so often I'd see people come into my therapy office and they failed at something, whether they failed a class at college or they had a failed relationship or they failed at work, they didn't get the promotion they wanted. And so often people would then draw this sort of sweeping conclusion about themselves. Well, I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I can never succeed. And when we start making those sorts of generalizations about ourselves, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think I'm too stupid to pass college classes because you failed one class, then you don't try again, or you start taking another class and your grades aren't as good as you wanted. Then

you look at that as evidence of I'm not good enough. I can't succeed. I'm not smart. And you end up going down that trail. So it's really about taking failure in stride and recognizing that almost every success story starts with lots of failures. Yes. Sometimes it's about studying those failures, knowing, okay, you know, most of these people didn't succeed the first time. We just don't tell those stories. We just talk about their success. We don't focus on their failures.

In fact, there's a study that I love. They started teaching teenagers about all of these successful scientists because they thought this will help them succeed in science class when they learn about Einstein, or they start learning about Thomas Edison and all of his success stories. Well, the kids' grades actually started to decline. And so then they started talking about how Einstein failed and how Edison's had all of these other inventions that never made it. And then the students' grades started going back up again. And what they realized was, you know, when all we hear about is somebody's success, we think, I can't put myself out there because I might fail. But when we realize that so many of these successful people failed a bazillion times, it then gives us the courage to say, oh, okay, it's okay to fail. And failure can sometimes be a stepping stone to success too. And I'm thinking about how that

relates to so many of us just being vulnerable to describing our failures, I think is really important because nobody got there wherever they're at without failing. Exactly. Well, that gets me to a great question that I always usually ask everybody on the podcast. What does failure mean to you, Amy? And tell us about a time that you failed. So I think, you know, ultimate failure would be as if you, if you don't get what you want and you give up right away. But now in life, I at least know that failure is proof that I tried hard, that I put myself out there and tried to do something that was outside of my comfort zone. You know, it's tempting sometimes to say, well, I never failed at anything. Well, if you say that, that probably means you never pushed yourself

hard enough. You weren't trying to push the limit. So over the years, my view of failure has definitely changed. And I realized, okay, putting myself out there and trying to do something hard means I'll probably fail sometimes, but I can use that as evidence that I'm being courageous. And as far as it's, as far as the time that I failed, one of my favorite personal failure stories, I didn't get into my first choice for graduate school. I applied to two different schools and I had one and I just assumed I would get in. I thought this is my first choice. It was far cheaper than the one I attended, but I, and so it was my, I thought this

is going to be great. And I was completely blown away when I got the letter that said, sorry, you're not accepted. And so I went to the other school and had a wonderful experience and it turned out to be great. But, uh, you know, for a long time I thought, well, then maybe I wasn't meant to become a therapist. Maybe, maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe I'm not good enough. Yeah. But my favorite part of the story is recently I was speaking about the 13 things mentally strong people don't do at an event. And this woman came up to me and she said, I can't wait to go back to school and tell everybody that I met you. I said, what school do you go to? And she told me it was a school that once rejected me. she said my book is now on their recommended reading list. That's awesome. I love that. Amy, I have a similar story. So I did not get into a graduate school that I really wanted as well. I'm happy where I ended up, but there was this one school that

I really wanted to get into. And two years ago, the faculty member who was the person I applied to study under, I had him on my podcast and he said, I have been following your career for so long and I'm really proud of all the work that you've done. And after the podcast, I said, hey, I applied to your program, you know. I love it. He said, I didn't even look at the applications. So he hadn't even looked at him that year and he said, you should have just given me a call. You know? So what that really taught me was that I needed to make the extra effort, not just put in the application, but if I really want something like call and follow up because yeah, I didn't do that. And I think if I would have done that, obviously my chances would have been better at getting into the school I wanted, but guess what?

I'm really happy where I went. So, uh, great story. Um, so what do you think the difference is between like mental toughness and mental strength? Yeah. So we hear a lot about toughness and for me, the difference, a lot of it has to do with, when we talk about mental toughness, I see a lot of Navy SEALs or I see a lot of elite athletes. And for one, it's often men who become sort of the face of toughness. And, and I try to talk about, you know, the difference between being strong and acting tough, because what I see happen a lot is people get it confused. They think, well, if I don't cry at a funeral, if I don't ever show any emotion, then it means I'm a strong person.

But that's not true. That strength is about recognizing, acknowledging your emotions and then dealing with them in a healthy way. But I hear people get that mixed up where they think, if I act like nothing bothers me, if I push all my feelings down, then somehow that makes me a tough person. And I know that most people who talk about mental toughness aren't talking about that, but yet I think it gets confused. And so when I talk about strength, I just try to be really clear that it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to talk about your weaknesses. And when you think about it, what does it take more strength to do? Admit that you have a problem or just pretend like it doesn't exist? Well, obviously it takes more courage to acknowledge the problems that you have or ask for help. And so one of my big messages that I try to get out

there is just that the difference between actually being strong and just acting tough on the surface. And I agree with that. I think the word mental toughness, I don't think people really always understand it. And I think what, and I do a lot of work with elite athletes, right? And they probably would prefer that word mental toughness, but I think people think it means like keep grinding, even when you're tired, right? Or right now, you know, during this time of COVID-19, I think if you're being mentally tough, it would be like, yeah, don't feel the feelings, just push them down. When we, that's not the healthy way to cope. And, and, uh, you know, you want to instead really feel what you're feeling.

It's okay. Whatever you're feeling, because this is a time, like you said, of, uh, something that none of us have ever experienced before. Right. And when I hear people talk about toughness, just like you'd say, they'll think, well, if you have a broken ankle, you keep running anyway, or you keep, you know, that there's no self-care involved, that you should just be able to treat yourself like a machine. And obviously we know that's not healthy for our mental health or physical health. And if you want to be your best, you have to charge your batteries sometimes and

take care of yourself. For sure. So let's transition and talk a little bit about your book about women, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do. I'd really like to learn more about why you chose to write that about women. So just kind of start there. So I was hearing from so many women who, after they read my first book, they said, well, you know, what does it look like to be a strong woman? And it sort of goes back to that. We have all these examples of Navy SEALs, elite athletes who are the icon of mental toughness. And in looking back, my first book does have a lot more examples of men than it does of women. And it's just because historical figures, presidents, all those people in our history tend to be more men than women. And, and I was hearing from mom

saying, you know, I want to raise a strong daughter. What does that look like? How do I do it? But there were these studies that really stuck out to me, made me realize how as a society, we put different pressures on women. And for example, the studies that really sort of get me are the ones at age five, they asked kids to point out, who do you think is brilliant? And they gave them pictures of men and pictures of women. And all the little girls chose pictures of women and all the little boys chose pictures of men and said, here's the brilliant people. But then at age seven, they asked the kids again, who's brilliant? And almost all the kids,

the little girls and the little boys all pick out men. And you think, well, what happens between the ages of five and seven? This is when kids start school. And so somehow we're giving them the message. Again, our astronauts, our engineers, all the examples that we're giving them tend to be more men. And you think, well, okay, well, how does that affect girls? Well, it affects their confidence. It affects how they're raised. It affects how we parent them. And so I just wanted to write a book that said, okay, women experience different cultural pressures. That's a fact. And we have these gender norms and these things that tend to set girls up to engage in certain bad habits that have to do with confidence, self-doubt, accepting tough challenges. So I really wanted to write a book about that. How are women's experiences a little bit different?

What are the pressures that they feel that tend to set them up for bad habits so that they don't go on and apply for as many jobs or that they don't tend to ask for promotions or raises, those sorts of things. So I wanted this book to really address those issues that we're seeing. And that study is really surprising. By age seven, that we're already seeing like the socialization of girls to choose. Right. Brilliance equals men or a male.

Right. It's disturbing. It is disturbing. So what made you decide to, like your 13 things are different from your Mentally Strong book and then for women. So what was your thoughts on like, how did you make those that list for women? So I was really looking for ones. I didn't want to just make up what I thought women were experiencing, but I wanted some science behind it too, because I knew that not everybody would love the fact that I wrote a book specifically for women. And so I wanted some science that backed up every point I put in the book about those 13 things. And so, for example, if we looked at comparisons, the number one thing mentally strong women don't do is compare

themselves to other people. The reason I put that in the women's book, I know that men compare themselves in an unhealthy way sometimes too, but the reason that it's in the women's book is because men and women compare themselves a little bit differently. Studies will show, let's say a man is looking at Instagram photos of sort of the ideal looking male physique. He looks at a man and thinks, oh, I could be like that someday. Women tend to flip through, say, Instagram again, and they see all of these women who are fitness models or trainers. And we tend to think, I'll never be as good as that person someday. It affects us in really different ways. And so I just wanted a book that would really outline those differences, how our brains are wired a little bit differently,

how we're socialized differently, how it affects us and how it leads to other bad habits. And so if we went back to the Instagram example, more women than men are on Instagram, more women are flipping through Instagram. Well, how does that affect how we feel about ourselves? If we're not aware of it, it can take a huge toll on our well-being. And on our confidence and our ability to be courageous, like what you said earlier. Absolutely. And it's one of the things I see in my work too. I do a lot of coaching with executives

and elite athletes, but I see definitely the women compare themselves to other women more, or at least when they compare it, it's not like, oh, like I can do it as well. It's more like she's better than me. Exactly. Putting themselves down. Which one is your favorite thing in the, or concept in the 13 things mentally strong women don't do? I think, you know, one of my favorites is number 13, that mentally strong women don't downplay their success. Okay. And I think it's because, you know, if you just took how we respond to compliments, how men respond versus how women respond, and while compliments can be uncomfortable for anyone, if you look at the way that women respond to a compliment, we tend to downplay them. We say things like, oh, it was nothing. Or we immediately give a compliment back like, no, I love your shoes too. Or we, you know, give somebody else the credit like saying thank you is narcissistic or arrogant in some

ways. So we don't dare say it. So we just kind of play it off and rather than just owning it. And we see it too, in the way that women say use their Instagram or their LinkedIn profiles, when they have very similar careers to men, women really downplay how awesome they are on LinkedIn. We know that men boast more that if they had the same exact position as women, that they kind of exaggerate how great they are and how many achievements they had, but then women downplay it. They'll put, you know, in very small things at the bottom, like, Oh yeah, by the way, I got the sales award of the year or something like that.

Or they won't even mention it at all. And it affects how many promotions they get, how many job offers they get. And so for us to know it's okay to just own your success, say thank you when somebody gives you a compliment or acknowledge, yeah, I did a great job last year and here's some of the facts. Excellent, good suggestion. Let's go back up to,

they don't compare themselves to other people. What would you suggest if someone was listening and is listening now and saying, yeah, that's something that I do. I really do compare themselves to other people. What would you suggest if someone was listening and is listening now and saying, yeah, that's something that I do. I really do compare myself to others. What strategy or tool would you give someone to help them to stay focused more on themselves? Sort of catch it, first of all, because sometimes we do it so much we don't even notice when you meet a woman and you're thinking, oh, she's prettier than I am. Or you come across somebody and you think, oh, she must be wealthier than I am because she has nicer things. Just pay attention to that in your mind. And then research will show if you look at other people as an

opinion holder rather than your competitor, you'll learn from them and you'll actually do better. So to just notice, okay, this person maybe has knowledge that I don't have, but it's not that they're better than I am or that they have something that I can't have. It's just that they have some knowledge. I could learn from them. When you just make that little switch in your mind, it can make a huge difference because rather than thinking you have to compete against somebody or that you just can't possibly measure up, it turns your attitude into thinking, I could be friends with this person. I could learn from them. and then what could I teach this person too? And you become more like you can cooperate and work together rather than treating each

other like your mortal enemies and you have to fight and scratch your way to get to the top. I notice myself when I'm scrolling through Instagram or Twitter that once in a while I'll say, wow, you know, they have so much more likes than I do or, you know, something like that. And I have to stop, you know, kind of what you said, just notice what I'm thinking and, and just look at the post. What can I learn from them? That's what I try to think of, which is exactly what you just said is like, okay, what, what did they do that, you know, that was great. That got this engagement that I could replicate. Right.

But it's hard to notice when you're really comparing yourself to others and how it's not helpful or healthy. Right. And like you say, sometimes it's just over, you know, the three minutes you spend on Instagram thinking, oh, other people are more likable than I am. They have more friends than I do. It happens so quickly and we do it so much sometimes that we don't even notice that we're doing it. What about the second one on your list? I think it's so much sometimes that we don't even notice that we're doing it. What about the second one on your list? I think it's the second one. They don't see vulnerability as a weakness.

Tell us a bit about that and why vulnerability is really important. Right. So I think we're so conditioned to trying to act as though we don't have any problems. So we don't want to ask for help. We don't want to admit, help we don't want to admit yeah I have this issue and you know even small things like taking care of ourselves sometimes we feel bad about and how many women will say like if I was taking a nap and somebody called I'd pretend like I wasn't sleeping because somehow taking a nap would be a embarrassing thing or it would be a sign of weakness or we don't want to acknowledge that we take time out for ourselves to take care of ourselves. Or we don't want to say I have a therapist because I have problems too. So many things in life and it prevents us from making genuine connections with people. And one of the

things I noticed was as a therapist, all of these women would come into my office all day long and describe almost the exact same problems. And yet they always thought I'm the only one dealing with this. And I can't tell you how many times I would think if these women could just have conversations with each other and everybody were open and honest, they would all feel so much better because one of their big struggles was I'm different than everybody else. And if they only knew, no, you're the fifth person who came into my office saying almost the exact same struggles, but nobody talks about them. And I think one of the best ways for us to connect with other people is to just talk about some of our struggles. And, you know, you think about who do you, who are you attracted to in life? The people who claim to be perfect or the people that admit their

flaws and the people that you can relate to. We'd like human people who can say, yeah, I mess up too. Absolutely. I've noticed that as well as like, those are the people that I really feel instantly connected to when they're sharing their struggle or their story. And it's not somebody who thinks they're perfect or at least wants to appear that it's everything's perfect. Exactly. Tell us a little bit about how you apply some of this day to day. Good question. So, you know, when my article first came out, people thought, oh, this is great. You mastered all these things on the list. And then I had to come clean and say, actually, it was a letter to myself because I struggle with all 13 of these

things. And I too need the reminder. And you know, when life is good, it's easy to not do a lot of the things on the list. But then when you come into struggles like our whole country, the whole world is experiencing right now, it's much more difficult to not do to avoid these certain things. And so for me, because I talk about them, write about them and I'm always teaching people. I mean, it's always on the forefront of my mind anyway. But I still have to catch myself when I'm tempted to complain. Okay. That's not helpful right now. Or when I'm tempted to compare myself to other people and just being aware of them is really helpful. And then I have all these skills and tools to use. And I always tell people, I don't teach the things that, that I don't use personally in my life. So these strategies, exercises, all of these things,

constantly doing them all day long myself. And that's good to know and hear that you have to continue to use the strategies and tools, right? And apply the principles. It's not like once you read that list once or once you wrote about it, that you didn't have to continue to work on your mindset and making sure that it was really helping you, not hurting you. I try to make it clear. I'm a work in progress as well and definitely not perfect. And the tools that work for me, you know, one day I find, okay, this is helpful. And another day I use another skill, another strategy. And I try to write about my experiences and explain, okay, this is what works for me, but you can use, take all of this information and figure out which ones work for you. Yeah, I agree with that. Similar to, I have a similar experience that I have to continue to work on my mindset every day as well. So Amy, one of the things I'm wondering a little

bit about is like, tell us what keeps you going now. And you have a great book next coming out about kids related to, you know, how they can use these ideas. So what's your why and what keeps you going? So for me, you know, my book, my first book is now in 39 languages. Amazing. The fact that, right, the fact that there's people on the other parts of the globe sitting there reading my book in another language is just, I can't fathom it, but I get emails from people and that will say say you changed my life or I'm so happy I found your book or I randomly stumbled across your book in an airport and had never heard of mental strength but now I have this information and that's what keeps me going

is when I hear from readers who say this was helpful and people who will say keep writing we want more information so as long as people want to keep hearing more about mental strength I will keep writing and speaking about it that's's excellent. What have you been doing on the boat during this time period? Since you're not speaking, you're not traveling the world, are you writing or what are you doing? How are you spending your time? So I actually just finished the women's book a week ago. So that took a lot of my time. The kids book was so fun to write to make it a kid friendly version. So that was a lot of fun. I write articles almost daily for the websites

that I write for like Business Insider and Forbes and Psychology Today. And so that keeps me busy. And a lot of the companies have been reaching out to me just because they are looking for mental strength training for their employees right now. So I'm doing lots of virtual presentations these days because I can't travel around and speak to companies in person, but I'm able to do that. And I do a little bit of coaching as well. So I'm definitely busy these days. That's excellent. And so tell us where we can find your books. I'm sure on Amazon, but what's the best place that we can find them? So I guess the best place to get more information is my website, which is Amy Morin,

LCSW is in licensedclinicalsocialworker.com. And I have a online course and information about coaching services and speaking engagements and links to my books. And where can we find you on social? So on Instagram, I'm Amy Morin Author. And same with Facebook and on Twitter, I'm Amy Morin LCSW. Excellent. So Amy, I'm going to work. I wrote a few notes down as we were chatting. So I'm going to work to summarize what we talked about today. And then if there's any final advice you'd give to people who are listening, I think your message about mental strength and everything that you said is more relevant than ever. I just think that we need these types of

strategies to be able to really cope with what's happening in our world. And some people are losing their jobs. Some people are getting sick, right? We've been at home for several weeks and it's going to continue. So I really appreciate you being on the podcast today. So I really appreciated this idea of instead of like feeling self-pity to choose gratitude instead. I thought our conversation about mental strength versus mental toughness was hopefully eye-opening for people. And I would agree with you that mental strength is probably the better word to use just because I think there's a lot of like misconceptions about this idea of mental toughness. I appreciated the studies that you talked about related to women that already by age seven,

that girls are socialized to think that, you know, they maybe aren't as brilliant as males. And just the idea of owning your success and making sure that you're really describing what you've done and own that. So what would be the final advice that you give for people, Amy? So, you know, another really simple strategy is just name your emotions. We know that just labeling your feelings takes a lot of sting out of them. So if you're anxious, you're depressed, you're sad, you're worried about something, just take a minute throughout the day, especially right now, and just say, how am I feeling right now? And if you can put a name to it, you'll instantly start to feel a little bit better. And it will also then help you figure out, okay, if I'm really anxious right now, how might that be affecting the way that I think? And how might it affect the decisions that I make? So I just

encourage everybody, take a little time, a couple of times a day and just say, how am I feeling right now? Check in with yourself and it can make a big difference. Awesome. And definitely would recommend Amy's books. So definitely go check out 13 things mentally strong people don't do 13 things mentally strong women don't do. And 13 things mentally strong parents do. So thank you so much for being on here, Amy. It's an honor to have you.

Thanks so much for having me. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-I-C-I-N-D-R-A.com.

See you next week.