Simon SinekWhat Mentally Strong People Do on Their Worst Days | Psychotherapist Amy Morin
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
65 min read · 12,754 words- 0:00 – 2:43
The Shy Girl Who Found Her Voice Through Tragedy
- SSSimon Sinek
You do not want to relive any of the things that you have lived, those tragedies. What about you has changed because of those things that deep down inside you're glad they happened?
- AMAmy Morin
So I grew up incredibly shy, but probably as a kid could have been diagnosed with selective mutism. I didn't talk for years, and public speaking would have been my number one fear. I gave the eulogy at my husband's funeral, and in that moment I was like, "I don't care if I embarrass myself, if I stumble over my words. I don't care how I sound. It's not about me." I've been through the worst of the worst.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, a negative review just doesn't do it anymore.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah, go ahead and do that. I'm okay now.
- SSSimon Sinek
The mental health industry is booming. There's all kinds of therapists out there, some of them legitimate, some of them not. There's all kinds of advice being dispensed across social media. But here's a question. If all that mental health guidance we were getting was working, wouldn't there be a decline in our anxiety and depression? But there's not. It's going up. So maybe, just maybe, the advice that we're getting or the advice that we're following is wrong. That's why I invited Amy Morin on the show. She's a psychotherapist who wrote an amazing book called 13 Things That Mentally Strong People Don't Do, and her new book is The Mental Strength Playbook. She questions the advice that we're getting and the advice that we're following. She views mental fitness as something that we work towards, nothing that we'll ever achieve. But most importantly, there are very simple and practical steps that we can take to keep ourselves mentally strong regardless of the ups and downs that we all experience in our professional and personal lives. If you like this content and are interested in more, please remember to subscribe. This is A Bit of Optimism. This episode is proudly brought to you by SAP. Staying at one job for a whole career used to be the norm. Now, it's the exception. So when it does happen today, I want to know why. Is there something wrong with the employee or is the company doing something right? Given how rare a long tenure has become, I was excited to talk to David Robinson. He's been at SAP for over 20 years and I wanted to hear what it takes to continue staying interested and inspired at one company. To learn more about SAP, the AI Cloud ERP for businesses of all size, head to SAP.com/GROW. Amy, thanks for, for joining me and coming in. I appreciate it.
- AMAmy Morin
I'm thrilled to be here, Simon.
- 2:43 – 6:26
Mental Fitness vs Mental Health: Why Words Matter
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's talk about mental health. [laughs] I think you and I see the world very similarly. You know, I hate the term mental health.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
I use the term mental fitness. Mental health sounds like some goal you have to achieve which nobody ever will. We're always falling short, where mental fitness, like physical fitness, is something you're always working on. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, but it's a practice that you commit to your life. But you are more qualified to talk about mental health than I am. You're actually sort of trained in this stuff. It's an obsession right now. Everybody's talking about mental health. People are dispensing armchair advice all over Instagram and TikTok, which I hope is well-intended. However, there's a problem with the mental health world in America today.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah. Yeah, despite our increased conversations-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
... with mental health-
- SSSimon Sinek
It's a, it's a real topic now
- AMAmy Morin
... right, as you've noticed. We're not getting better. [laughs] That over the years it seems to be our mental health is struggling more and more.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
And despite a lot of these superficial conversations, I'm not hearing from a lot of people like, "I'm so grateful that the more we talk about it, the better I feel." In fact, sometimes it's the opposite. And something I'm seeing in my therapy office is people are now going on a quest to be like, "If I can just figure out what happened to me when I was seven, then somehow I'm gonna feel better today." Or they think that mental health is something to be achieved, or something you have or something you don't. And when you think about it, like nobody walks around and says, "Well, I'm physically healthy," right? Or like physical health is not a, a goal.
- SSSimon Sinek
Less of a conversation, yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. But when it comes to mental health, it's like people think, "Yes, I'm mentally healthy," or you're mentally ill. But the truth is if you looked at a, a scale of how people are on optimal mental health, the CDC at some point said about 17% of people are probably operating at optimal mental health at any given moment. And where we fall on that scale varies throughout the day. Depends what you ate for lunch, who you've been talking to, whether you're tired. So many of these factors, yet we think you either have mental health or you don't.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. I think we've also confused feelings, like having feelings. Like you're sad-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... you're angry, you're frustrated, you're overwhelmed is not a mental health problem. That's just life.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Is it the younger generations are just talking about it more?
- AMAmy Morin
Well, I think we're talking about feelings more, but as you say, now that we're talking about them more, people are thinking that there's a problem with their feelings. So the one I hear all the time is, "Well, I have anxiety." Well, we all have anxiety, and the problem is, is that an anxiety disorder is just called that so we name it the same thing as the feeling so then people think, "Well, if I'm anxious before I give a presentation, clearly I have social anxiety or some kind of anxiety disorder." And we don't separate those things and we don't talk about how to deal with those feelings. I'm finding a lot of people are like, "Well, what do you do when you're sad?" And I think our phones and technology could be wonderful tools, but so many people are just reaching for them to escape those emotions and we're not learning how to tolerate them and work through them.
- SSSimon Sinek
So in your practice, do you teach people how to feel? Do you teach people how to have emotions? And I think your, your, your, your insight there which is if the mental health industry was working-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... there would be less problems and less anxiety and less of everything, but the trend is going up. So either the mental health industry doesn't care to get you better because it's in, there's a profit motive to keep you sick, or there's a misunderstanding of what it is and we don't know how To ask for help or what help looks like. Probably some combination of both, I would imagine. So can you tell me a story of somebody who, from your practice, who doesn't see you anymore because they came with a problem and it's fixed, quote unquote? It's better. They're good.
- 6:26 – 9:10
The Depression Patient Who Actually Got Better
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah. So fortunately, I can think of s- many people over the years, but if I were to think of, like, a, a recent one, I had somebody that came for depression.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
And it was really clear.
- SSSimon Sinek
And they were, they were actually depressed.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. It wasn't-
- SSSimon Sinek
They weren't just sad.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. Because what happens a lot these days is people come in and they're trying to, like, optimize their mental health, right? Like, "Oh, I have an avoidant boyfriend, so I need to work on my attachment issues." Well, that's not a mental illness. If we're talking about true mental illness, like major depression or generalized anxiety, that's much different. So when somebody came in, he had definitely had major depression, and it was a matter of let's talk about what strategies work for depression. Sometimes it's exercise. It's increasing your social circle. It's about being more active and participating in daily things, managing your diet. A lot of strategies like that. Coping skills. How do you deal with a bad day when you have depression versus what does it mean to just be sad? And so I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist by trade, which means I help people shape the way that they think, which then shifts the way that you feel, and then you also change your behavior, and it creates a more positive feedback loop.
- SSSimon Sinek
So how did you help him change the way he thought about himself?
- AMAmy Morin
So a lot of what he was struggling with was the, the automatic thoughts that popped into his head. So somebody doesn't call you back. When you're battling depression, sometimes it's because I'm worthless, because people don't like me.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- AMAmy Morin
Because it's all my fault. Or if you don't get picked for a project at work, it's because I'm not good enough. And when you really peel back the layers about what kinds of things people are thinking, often boils down to that deep-rooted belief of somehow I'm flawed and not good enough and people don't like me.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- AMAmy Morin
And when his depressive episodes would get activated, he had a couple of them throughout his life, but it just got kicked into high gear-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- AMAmy Morin
... where he would assume everything was because he was a flawed human being. And the more he would think about that, the less he would participate in life, and the less he would participate in life, yeah, the worse he felt.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so how did you turn it around?
- AMAmy Morin
So we would take a look at those thoughts. Like, literally, if somebody didn't call you back, that's one option. Maybe they actually don't like you, but what are 10 more? Or what can you tell yourself when you wake up in the morning... Something he battled was on a really depressed day, he didn't wanna go to work.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- AMAmy Morin
Well, you could stay home, but what happens when you stay home? The typical, quote unquote, mental health day, staying in bed doesn't reduce your depression, right? So what can you do when you wake up and you think, "Actually, I'd like to stay home today"? What can you then tell yourself? And so for him, it was a list of the top 10 reasons why you should go to work when you don't want to.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- AMAmy Morin
And he would leave it on his nightstand. So when he would wake up in the morning and think, "Ah, if I just stayed in bed today, I'd feel better," he'd read over that list, try to talk himself into, "Yep, I don't wanna go to work, but it's good for me, and I'm gonna do it
- 9:10 – 17:17
Why Mental Health Days Can Make You Feel Worse
- AMAmy Morin
anyway."
- SSSimon Sinek
I love this because there is an irony in all of our solutions, which again, well-intended and, you know, supportive environment. I, I need a mental health day.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And I'm gonna stay home, and it'll make me feel worse.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Now, you know, if somebody's lying and they go to the beach, I mean, more power to them. That's probably really good.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
That's a real mental health day.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like, play hooky and go to the beach. That's awesome.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
But there is a great irony in this, which is I need... I'm overwhelmed at work. I need a mental health day, so I'm gonna stay home, sit in bed, eat Häagen-Dazs and watch movies and feel worse at the end of the day. Why are we choosing solutions that we think will help that actually either do nothing or make it worse?
- AMAmy Morin
A lot of it's about what's gonna make me feel better right now. So for somebody who says, "I don't wanna go to work," well, sure, at 9:00 AM when you're watching TV or you're still sleeping, maybe you feel a little better than if you're in that boring meeting in the office or you're faced with a pile of paperwork. Of course, though, that coping strategy creates longer term problems. The avoidance doesn't make it go away. So on Tuesday when you wake up in the morning, you don't suddenly feel like, "I can't wait to go to work today."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
It often becomes more difficult. But I think it's really about a lot of the coping skills we reach for sometimes make us feel better in the moment-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
... but then create bigger problems in the long term.
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's scale it back a little bit. So somebody who's clinically depressed, that's a diagnosis.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, that's a thing. But what we're talking about, I think, is a l- is the more pervasive feeling that people have that I am dealing with my mental health, or I have mental health challenges, which is there's no diagnosable issue there.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
There's, you know, the ups and downs of life. Some of the examples you were talking about, you know, you're overwhelmed, you don't feel like going to work. I'm like, wait a minute. I sometimes wake up and I don't w- go to work. Do, do I have mental health issues?
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know? And now I'm diagnosing myself because I hear that somebody else who does have mental fitness challenges... A- again, I'm so fascinated. It's like, why is your business booming? You know?
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's like, it, it shouldn't... I wouldn't want it to be, no offense. So, like, I want you to do very well. I want you to hang a sign out the door saying, "I'll help you with your mental health," and nobody knocks, you know?
- AMAmy Morin
Yes. And, and of course that would be the dream.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
And I think, say, 10, 15 years ago, it was really about if you had a mental illness, so your doctor might send you to therapy.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right.
- 17:17 – 21:37
The Two Months That Changed Everything
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's get personal, if you don't mind.
- AMAmy Morin
Sure.
- SSSimon Sinek
One of the things I think you, that makes you so qualified for this conversation is not because you're a trained clinician. What makes you so qualified is you've gone through it. You lost your mother unexpectedly, a healthy woman who... How did she die?
- AMAmy Morin
She had a brain aneurysm that ruptured.
- SSSimon Sinek
Brain aneurysm just out of the blue, right?
- AMAmy Morin
Right. Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Young, young woman, right?
- AMAmy Morin
Yep, 51.
- SSSimon Sinek
And then you lose your husband at a young age?
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah, he was 26.
- SSSimon Sinek
Just heart attack?
- AMAmy Morin
Heart attack at 26.
- SSSimon Sinek
Healthy guy?
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm. Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Well, he lost his father before that, right?
- AMAmy Morin
I got remarried a couple of years later.
- SSSimon Sinek
Oh, right. That's-
- AMAmy Morin
And as soon as I got remarried, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right. And so, like, you have every reason to be depressed and fear, have a genuine fear of falling in love-
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... or loving anyone, forget about falling, for loving anyone because everybody you love seems to fall away, seems to die.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
That there's a very good reasons to, to not wanna get out of bed in the morning.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And so I think what makes you the most credible person to have this argument is that it is not an academic argument. It's that you found a way to find happiness, to be mentally fit, and followed an, I think fair to say, an untraditional route based on the current standards. How did you do it?
- AMAmy Morin
It, it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of work.
- SSSimon Sinek
Why didn't you go the traditional route?
- AMAmy Morin
It depends what you mean by traditional route.
- SSSimon Sinek
All the things we've been discussing.
- AMAmy Morin
Okay
- 21:37 – 28:45
How to Find Hope When Life Feels Hopeless
- SSSimon Sinek
Okay. There's a lot to unpack there. How do you find hope when the, the genuine sadness and little D depression-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... are real? And I say little D meaning not a clinical diagnosis, dealing with a traumatic event.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And the stress of having to, like, g- have two jobs, which is not a, a good option. It's the lesser of two evils. It's the less bad option-
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- SSSimon Sinek
... rather than packing up a house. How did you envision, how did you imagine hope? Like, where did the hope come from?
- AMAmy Morin
I think I had a strong faith, and I believed, okay, there is a God, and some reason this happened to me, and perhaps there's a way to get through it. And I also thought, you know, maybe this is my opportunity.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- AMAmy Morin
Like, I can either rise to the occasion and do my best, or I can just stay crying on the bathroom floor, and 10 years from now be like, "Yeah, I'm not f- feeling any better." Just felt like that was a choice in life of do I wanna make the best of this terrible hand I was dealt? Not to say, "Gee, I'm grateful that this happened." I'm not. All these years later, I'm not grateful that I went through that. But on the other hand, it felt like, okay, like, for whatever reason, this is the lot you were given, and you can do this. If you're gonna try to rise to the occasion, turn this into a comeback, try to make something of your life, it's now or never. And I think not having that luxury of saying, "I'm gonna wait a while," or, "I have family that's gonna bail me out," or, "I'm gonna take a year off," really made me say, "Do it," and I did it.
- SSSimon Sinek
And let's be clear. You do need time to do nothing and to grieve.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know, we're not saying, like, on day one, this is the attitude.
- AMAmy Morin
Correct.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, there is a time period-
- AMAmy Morin
Yep
- SSSimon Sinek
... where you do grieve. You, you do stay in bed.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
You embrace sadness. You, you don't have to be functional, and I'm s- assuming it's slightly different for everyone. But at some point, not two, three, four, five years later, m- way before that, there's a choice that's made of I gotta move through this.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And it is a choice.
- AMAmy Morin
It is. And early on, there's that tendency to stay busy.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
We even, like, compliment people. When somebody's going through something tough and you say, like, "How are you doing?" They say, "Oh, I'm just staying busy." I'm like, "That's great." Right?
- SSSimon Sinek
That's avoidant. That's avoidant though, right?
- AMAmy Morin
[laughs] Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Distracting yourself.
- AMAmy Morin
And right, and that-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
... that's a skill to use sometimes. If I were going into my therapy office to be a therapist, I needed to distract myself sometimes, and I'm really sad. I have therapy clients coming in in 10 minutes. Distracting myself's a wonderful skill in that moment, but if I did that in my entire life, I'd still be stuck in that place. And so I think it was about allowing myself to be sad when I could.
- 28:45 – 35:20
The Problem We're Solving vs The Feeling We're Solving
- AMAmy Morin
those things don't go away. So a lot of times we forget to differentiate between, like, solving the problem or versus solving how we feel about the problem. So if I have a, a stack of bills on the table, maybe it makes me anxious to sit down and, and open the envelopes and pay the bills. But if I don't address them, then obviously the bills are still gonna be there tomorrow. My tendency might be, "Yeah, but I feel anxious right now, so I'm gonna address how I feel and I'm gonna solve my feeling. So then I'll just push that away. I'm gonna go watch some Netflix and pretend it doesn't exist." And I think when we tackle issues in our life from the wrong angle, we don't ask ourself often enough, "Do I need to solve how I feel or solve the problem itself?" And when we take the wrong approach, everything gets messed up, and sometimes we do it the other way around. So somebody will say, "My husband drinks too much." Well, in that case, you might wanna say, "Okay, that causes me some anxiety, but what is it I try to solve? Well, I tell him not to. I pour the alcohol out." And we're trying to solve the problem, and it's not our problem to solve. As opposed to, "I'm gonna learn how to manage my anxiety about this," or, "I'm gonna try to approach this from something I can control, which is my own behavior, instead I'm gonna focus on what I can't control, which is how somebody else behaves. Because if I can control you, then I don't have to control my feelings."
- SSSimon Sinek
Okay. I have to re... I have to highlight this and double-click this. This is so good, right? This is so good. Which is when we have feelings for things we can control, I think your bills example is a great example, we work to solve the feeling and not solve the problem. Which is... And, and I think breakups are the same and stuff. Like, we solve the feeling, "I want out," check. But we don't solve the problem of closure and narrative and clinging onto things and all you do is talk about it every time when you go out with your friends to the point they don't wanna hear it anymore. So I love this. If you can solve the problem, solve the problem, not the feelings. And if you can't solve the problem, literally it's out of your control, manage your feelings because you can't solve the problem. This is, this is huge, and that confusion, it's like light bulbs are popping up for me when people talk about their mental health challenges. So we've talked about how you found hope. We talked about confusing our feelings for solutions and how we have to solve one and, and manage the other. Narrative
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
The stories we tell ourselves, this is probably one of the biggest ones of all. And when I turn on social media, what I hear is people giving advice reinforcing that you can tell yourself these stories that actually aren't helping you. And perpetuating, to your point, what we made right at the beginning, which is with all this mental health advice we're getting, why isn't mental health getting better? Mindset is essential.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
And faith in something, belief in something, whether it's God or a positive future, or my friends or my family. Can you tell me the story you told yourself when you were in despair and you were shattered? What was the story, and then how did you change to the new story when the time was right to start leaning into healing-
- AMAmy Morin
Mm
- SSSimon Sinek
... rather than mourning?
- AMAmy Morin
Oh, good question. I think for several years the story was kind of like, "Isn't this a tragedy that you, in your 20s, lost your two favorite people, and life will probably never be good again?" And there was a time where I believed that, and I thought, "Oof, how do you make life good again?" And it felt like I was going through the motions. And at some point I thought, "Or this could be an amazing comeback story of the new life that I'm gonna create," but in order to do that, like I better get out of bed and go do those things. I better figure out what would I want the next chapter to look like, and it's not just going to land on my table. I'm gonna have to actually create a new life. And so I started to do things. I got a motorcycle license and a motorcycle, and I thought, "Ooh, [laughs] this is different." And Lincoln and I have been foster parents, so it was a question of do I still wanna be a foster mom if I'm by myself? Like, which things do I wanna continue in my life, and what things do I wanna give up? And ultimately decided I'll be a single foster parent at some point, and I did that. And I wanted my story, the next chapter of my story, to be of somebody who had been through tough things, yet created this beautiful life and was able to go out and, and do incredible things that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. And while it wasn't the life I chose, it was like a new life that I created despite what I'd been through.
- SSSimon Sinek
Why? I mean, I don't mean to be flippant about it.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
But like, why did you want that to be your story?
- AMAmy Morin
Because I think the alternative felt like, I'm 26. Am I gonna just sit around till I'm 86 and think, "Oof, [laughs] that's a long life to live"? And I just felt like I had two choices. I can either create something completely different from what I had, what I had hoped for, or I could just keep clinging to, "Isn't it sad I didn't get the life I wanted?"
- SSSimon Sinek
I love this idea of I'm gonna make the best comeback story ever, which is different from I'm going to sabotage my work, my ex-boyfriend, my ex-girlfriend's life so I can feel better.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
There's an accountability, which is it's gonna be my comeback story about how I choose to live my life, as opposed to ruining their lives so I can feel better. That's not the comeback story.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
The problem is the mindset of I'm gonna make this the greatest comeback ever could, could go in slightly different directions. [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
You're absolutely right.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
And, and I think the comeback story sometimes isn't about you get rejected for something. Well, maybe, maybe you're never going to be a famous actor, or never you're gonna do the thing that you wanted, but your comeback story could still be, "I did this other thing and still created a wonderful life for myself in a different way."
- SSSimon Sinek
I love this, which is, um, if you're writing your own movie, like if you're just unhappy the whole time, it's a boring movie.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right? Like all judgment aside, that's a boring movie, right?
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
But what we wanna watch a movie about is somebody who's gone through it and takes it upon themself and inspires us, the viewers, and makes us sort of find a way through the difficulty. And again, yours is an extreme example, but you lose a job, you lose a relationship, something just doesn't go the way you want it to. The project doesn't hit the numbers that you were hoping for. I mean, there's a million things that we can beat ourselves up about, but I'm gonna make this the greatest comeback story, which goes... Then
- 35:20 – 39:42
The Comeback Story: Choosing How Tragedy Shapes You
- SSSimon Sinek
I want to ask you a, a... It's an uncomfortable question, and I a- I apologize for that. However, you do not want to relive any of the things that you have lived, those tragedies.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Clearly. You wish they'd never happened, and you definitely do not want any of them to happen again.
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Nor do you wish them upon anyone else.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
However, what about you has changed because of those things that deep down inside, even though the words are uncomfortable, you're glad they happened?
- AMAmy Morin
Ooh, good question, too. So I grew up incredibly shy, and I mean socially anxious for sure, but probably as a kid could've been diagnosed with selective mutism. I didn't talk for years, and I really had no desire. College, grad school even, I really didn't talk much at all, and I surrounded myself with people who loved to talk, and that made it really easy to be the quiet person in the room. And I think I would've-
- SSSimon Sinek
Good strategy. [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
And I think I would have stayed that way. I had friends who talked for me. To this day, if we go to a restaurant, they will still ask like for something for me, my childhood friends, my sister, and that worked really well. And public speaking would've been my number one fear. I gave the eulogy at my husband's funeral, and in that moment I was like, "I don't care if I embarrass myself, if I stumble over my words. Like I don't care how I sound. It's not about me. It's about a couple of stories about him that I wanted people to hear." And let me tell you, now I'm like, oh, public speaking, not the biggest fear in the world anymore. And I can do it without being so concerned about how I look, how I sound. Like, so many of my insecurities are no longer there. I think, "Well, I've been through the most painful things I would've ever imagined, losing two of my favorite people. Go ahead, insult me." [laughs] Like, it's not going to sting. I've been through the worst of the worst, so-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, a negative review just doesn't do it anymore.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Go ahead and do that. I'm okay now. But years ago, those little things would've been something I dwelled on, and I would've thought about, and I would've rehashed and ruminated on. Even as a therapist, it would've really bothered me. But I can say now I don't really sweat those small things anymore.
- SSSimon Sinek
Again, I'll ask the question, sort of, I never want those things to happen again, but I'm glad they happened because...
- AMAmy Morin
Because I am now a much more brave and confident person who was able to say, "I'm not going to let life be passive, but I'm gonna create the very best life that I can for myself." And I take more risks. I'm the kind of person who says, "If it doesn't work out, that's okay." Like, I don't need to have all the answers because I'll figure it out along the way, and I wasn't like that before.
- SSSimon Sinek
This is one of the things I think leaning into hardship is, I think, the greatest gift, which is life is balanced always. Nature abhors a vacuum and seeks equilibrium whenever possible. And so all good things have some sort of cost associated with them.
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know? Congratulations, you're fabulously wealthy, and you have no relationship with your children, right?
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like, whatever the cost is. And for some people, those costs are worth it. It's not for me to judge, right? But there is a cost for the things we get, but there's also benefits to the things we lose. My practice is to always... I always play the equation. So when something great happens to me and I'm like, "I'm the best. I'm amazing. Look how awesome I am," I always remind myself, "Okay, what was the cost for this?" It keeps me humble, but also just reminds me, don't take it for granted. And if you want this again, then you're gonna have to pay that. You know? There's no entitlement here. So I always remind myself that. And when bad things happen, even though it sucks in the moment and I can't play this game right after it happens-
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- SSSimon Sinek
... it's too soon. I have to allow s- for anger or frustration or sadness or whatever the feeling I have towards the thing is, and at some reasonable period of time say, "Okay, what am I grateful for here?"
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
To me, my mental fitness is good because I keep that, that equation balanced at all times.
- 39:42 – 45:55
Playing the Victim Feels Good, and That's the Problem
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's talk about victim. I'd love you to wax philosophical based on the clients you see, but also just you're a consumer of, of the world and social media. I see it more, and maybe I'm just more sensitive to it because mental health is such a, a topic and, and everybody, they confuse mental health problems with having feelings. But this idea of being the victim, playing the victim, I spoke to a th- a s- a social worker recently, and they said something that really surprised me. I wrote about this. They, they said something that really surprised me. They said, "Playing the victim is very powerful and feels great." Let's not confuse playing the victim and being a victim.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Being a victim is when you are targeted by someone, they do something to you, abuse, a crime, something like that, or you are the victim of some hurricane. You are a victim. Then there's, that's being a victim. Then you are playing the victim. "The world is doing this to me. That person is doing this to me when..." You know, "My boss is out to get me," which it does exist, but I wouldn't say it's the majority of the time that somebody's targeting somebody. Wax philosophical if I'm overreacting or there seems to be a correlation with the mental health challenges that so many people are facing today with the... Is it insensitive to call it a trend? Of playing the victim.
- AMAmy Morin
You're absolutely right. We see it more on social media than ever in terms of relationship ends. "Well, it's 'cause my ex was a narcissist," right?
- SSSimon Sinek
It's amazing how many exes are narcissists, by the way.
- AMAmy Morin
Suddenly, right? [laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
Just, like, I know narcissism is a diagnosable thing.
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
And what percentage of the population are narcissists, do we know? It's probably pretty small.
- AMAmy Morin
It is tiny. But-
- SSSimon Sinek
You know, 5% maybe-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... that are diagnosable narcissists, but my goodness, there's an explosion of narcissism. [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Exactly, because it feels better to say it's somebody else's fault, right? "I was a victim of somebody who took advantage." And whenever we get into this victimhood, it correlates with self-pity and just thinking, "I don't have the skills, tools, and resources to get through something." We underestimate ourselves. We overestimate a challenge. We overestimate how difficult things were. We tell ourselves that story of, "Well, I didn't have a choice. I couldn't make things better then, and I still don't have a choice now." And the more that we get stuck in that cycle, the more we find excuses to say, "And so I don't have to change." So whether it's I call a friend and I just complain about my boss all day long to my friend, so they're like, "Wow, you shouldn't be treated like this. This must be awful to be you." Like, "Yeah. That, that's right. It does feel awful to be me." And pow-
- SSSimon Sinek
Feels awesome.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. It's empowering for a moment to think-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
... "And I'm justified to stay stuck." And that's what we see then, people just stay stuck. And I'll see it in my therapy office. People come in and they say, you know, "This is awful. Here's my situation." And they don't really wanna solve any of the problems in their life.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- AMAmy Morin
They wanna come back next week and tell me again, and see how awful it is. And there's definitely value in talking about your feelings, being heard to say, "Yes, that is awful. It's unfair that you're in this situation," but some people just wanna stay stuck there.
- SSSimon Sinek
Why do people wanna stay stuck? We're not seeking help. We're seeking validation for our narrative.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And if my narrative is validated, then I must be right.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
So I'm gonna stay here because it helps me feel better, kinda.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. And it's uncomfortable
- SSSimon Sinek
I don't have a problem with people being the victim in the short term
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
Because it's like mourning, it's like anger. It's a feeling, it's a venting. I don't have a pr- problem with people venting. You wanna call somebody, "I hate my boss, I hate work." Healthy venting is a good thing. We're not talking about that.
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- 45:55 – 50:30
Breaking Patterns: From Narcissistic Exes to Self-Accountability
- SSSimon Sinek
How do we do that, though? I mean, it's, it's all fine and good for you and me to sit in an armchair and talk about all these, but, like, how do we break our pr- patterns? Like, what practical steps can we take to learn how to be accountable, to learn how to stop playing the victim when it feels so good?
- AMAmy Morin
So it starts with first recognizing the patterns. Sometimes people are like, "You know what? My life isn't going very well, and I'm struggling to really figure that out," or, "I've had some bad relationships." I'd sit down, and I'd write it down. Like, what are we looking at? Maybe you've had five relationships that ended abruptly. The other person ghosted you five times. Well, let's take a look. Maybe might there be something else that's going on. Are you attracted to a certain kind of person? Anything we can get out of our heads and put on a piece of paper helps us see things differently. We see it more clearly. So if you can get out a journal and do some writing, and I'm talking about writing by hand, that affects our brain differently than when we're typing, causes us to slow things down and really look at it. And to just identify, like, what are some patterns in my life? And then you might go back, too, and think, "Well, when did this start?" Right? I don't think we have to necessarily dissect our childhoods and go through everything moment by moment, but you might find, when did I feel that before? So maybe I'm attracted to people's lifestyles. So I find these people with really exciting lifestyles, and then I overlook all the red flags. So you might think, "Well, when I was a kid, was there something that maybe I was attracted to the excitement back then? Was there, uh, something in my life? Maybe I had a mom who used to date men who also had exciting lives, too." And sometimes just connecting those dots is helpful to say, okay, this is maybe a, an emotional wound that I'm-
- SSSimon Sinek
And it's not blaming the mother
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- SSSimon Sinek
It's simply recognizing it has an origin.
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- SSSimon Sinek
That's it. It's just an origin story.
- AMAmy Morin
Exactly
- SSSimon Sinek
Not a blame story
- AMAmy Morin
And then to figure out, is there an emotional wound from my childhood? Just keep revisiting. Am I trying to heal something that I haven't healed yet, and I try to heal it by reliving it over and over? Like, if this next relationship can work out, then I'll be good, or I will have figured it out. And when people can connect some of those dots, and we can do this on our own, you don't nece- necessarily have to be in therapy, just opens your eyes. So then when you meet the next person, you might think, "Oh, am I doing it again?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- AMAmy Morin
Or is it, or is this somebody I'm really attracted to? And then to be cautious of those labels. If we just label ourselves something like, "Oh, I'm always attracted to assholes," or, "I'm the asshole who's always attracting people."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
Like, it's the label that then makes it true.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
If I label myself as something, I'm gonna live up to that label, chances are. So if I say, "I'm the, the kind of person who sometimes does X, Y, or Z," rather than, "I am-"
- SSSimon Sinek
I have a habit, or I have a... Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
Then to just recognize, all right, this is my tendency, but it's not who I am. And so how might I change that next time? And if I'm somebody who ignores red flags in a relationship, well, what will I do differently next time? To just be more aware and start thinking about that. Like, what's a red flag I've ignored before? And if I spot that red flag again, how will I know that I'm trying to push it under the table, or how will I know that I'm trying to convince myself that, that I don't need to pay attention to those red flags? And it is helpful sometimes when we have a, a trusted friend in our life who can say You're doing it again, Simon, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- AMAmy Morin
The person who can say-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- AMAmy Morin
... "Have you thought about this?" The person that can ask you that question of-
- SSSimon Sinek
Shut up, you don't know me.
- AMAmy Morin
Right. Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
And that's why it's important to make sure it is somebody that, that you trust.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
Somebody who has that.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
'Cause when the emotion isn't attached to it, they can sometimes see things that we can't.
- 50:30 – 53:07
I Am vs I Have: The Language That Changes Everything
- SSSimon Sinek
hope. It allows for bright future simply by the sentence we construct. So clever. It's, it's so funny how when we talk about these things, none of these are very complicated.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like, these are relatively simple things to do. I wanna write down all our little lessons that we've, that we've gotten here because it's a good checklist if you're in a bad place or feel like you're stuck, like, you know, go through something, go through the, the emotions, and at some point you pull the little checklist out and like, "Okay, can I say sometimes? Am I using being verbs? You know, what's my narrative? Can I compromise with myself and stay in bed a little longer, but not all day?" Like, I, I loved it that mental health or let's call it mental fitness... Actually, the minute you call it mental fitness-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... the whole thing I... We talk about checklists. I mean, it's like having a workout. First I'm gonna do arms, then I'm gonna do legs. Ugh, I don't feel like doing core today. I'll do it tomorrow. You know? It's a checklist. And you go through the checklist, and what happens is you get fit.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
There's no magic to it, you know?
- AMAmy Morin
Right, and when people talk about mental health, it's often about what they feel-
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- AMAmy Morin
... versus mental strength or mental fitness is about what you do.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right.
- AMAmy Morin
So if I wake up sad, I could be like, "Well, I have poor mental health today," versus, "I woke up sad. What am I gonna do about that? Maybe it's stay in bed a little longer, but maybe I'm gonna get up and go do something differently," and that's about a choice that you have.
- SSSimon Sinek
And recognizing, like our regular physical fitness or our diets, it's not good or bad or right or wrong, it's ahead or behind.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like, I'm on it. I'm doing the things. I'm checking off the things. I'm eating the right things. I'm doing... You know what? I have not been doing it. I'm off the wagon right now, which is okay.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
It's so funny talking at lengths. The minute we call it fitness or strength, it em- it instantly becomes something I can work on, where the minute we call it health, it's actually kind of like, "You know what? I think I'm just gonna stay in bed." [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
That seems like the right strategy. [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Right. And to, when we feel like we're taking action, it automatically starts to make us feel better.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
So if I say, "All right. I'm kind of going through a rough patch in my life. Maybe I've been feeling kind of discouraged, down lately. But you know what? Reading a book for 15 minutes a day kind of helps pull me out of it."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
So I put that on my agenda.
- SSSimon Sinek
Put that on the to-do list.
- AMAmy Morin
And then I think, "Okay, well, I'm gonna do this, and maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but at least I'm doing something as opposed to thinking I'm gonna wait for this to pass."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. What is one of your bad habits that therapist you, if you were your own patient, uh, would be like, "You should do this"? Like, where are your bad habits that you, you sort of don't follow your own advice?
- 53:07 – 54:37
The Therapist's Bad Habit: Why Even Experts Struggle
- AMAmy Morin
Oh, yeah. Well, we could certainly do a whole episode on [laughs] on things that, uh-
- SSSimon Sinek
And we're out of time.
- AMAmy Morin
Right.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Exactly, the things I struggle with. And, you know, I'm scrolling at night. That's one of those things. I know that people feel better when they don't sleep with their phone in their room.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
When you put your phone in another room, your anxiety goes down. I know that.
- SSSimon Sinek
So good though, right?
- AMAmy Morin
It is. So then when I go to bed at night, I think, "Oh, let me just check something real quick," and then I can easily go down the rabbit hole. Simple, tiny thing I could easily fix in my life, but I often don't.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, it's like I know that being on my phone at night is bad. Do I do it? Yes. Do I know that it'll keep me up later than I want to go to bed? Yes. Will I get less sleep because of it? Yes. Will I wake up in the morning fully aware? Yes. Will I regret it? Yes.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
And will I do it again? Yes.
- AMAmy Morin
Yes. [laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
And that's why, you know, when we look at other people's habits, we think, "Oh, it's so easy to change," and then when you really dive deep into your own life of the things that we do and the things that we know is bad, like insight doesn't change behavior, right? Like we think, "Oh, if something's bad for me, I won't do it anymore." Obviously, that's not the case.
- SSSimon Sinek
I think this is very funny, which is sometimes something bad has to happen for us to actually... Like, we have to lose the relationship.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
We, we have to go through the d- the depression because we are becoming antisocial because of the addiction.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
And this is what addiction does. You know better than I do. You know, addiction, it causes social problems. It causes problems in your career and your social life. That's why we know it's a problem-
- AMAmy Morin
Right
- SSSimon Sinek
... as opposed to just something you enjoy doing.
- 54:37 – 59:09
Schedule Your Worry: The 15-Minute Exercise That Lifts Weight Off Your Shoulders
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah, the pain of staying the same has to start to outweigh-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- AMAmy Morin
... the fear of change.
- SSSimon Sinek
We've talked about a lot of things. We've given a lot of really practical advice. Any other, like, top tips that you would offer for how to help somebody stay mentally fit, mentally strong in this crazy, insane world that literally every pressure on us is trying to keep us mentally unfit?
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question, and I think one of the things we touched on earlier was like, can you schedule feelings?
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
Well, there is actually research that you could schedule time to worry, and that's one of my favorite exercises, and I'll do it with my therapy clients and The ones who do it will sometimes look like the weight of the world has literally been lifted off of their shoulders in a matter of a couple of weeks.
- SSSimon Sinek
Wow.
- AMAmy Morin
There's so much to worry about that a lot of people don't even really realize how much they're worrying. I'm worrying about the weather. I'm worrying about what is gonna happen after work, what's gonna happen in the next meeting. People's heads are just so filled with worry all the time, not to mention that we consume so much media that we're off in this heightened state of alert, and then our anxiety's high. So then we're looking for danger all the time. But research will show when you set aside just 15 minutes a day-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- AMAmy Morin
... to worry, that you sit down, and you gotta put it in your calendar. You gotta actually schedule it.
- SSSimon Sinek
Set an alarm.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep. And you sit down and maybe just sit at your kitchen table at 7:00 at night. Write down whatever you're worried about. Maybe you just sit and think. You don't even have to write it down necessarily. When your 15 minutes is up, you say, "Okay."
- SSSimon Sinek
As you're saying that, it reminds me of a story of a guy I know who was in a... He was riding his bicycle, was hit by a car, and, like, bad news, right? Very badly mangled and in hospital, and was in excruciating pain, and, "I hate my life. I hate this. Why does this have to happen to me?" All of this stuff. And it got to the point where it became so overwhelming, like he was doing it too much, that he f- I don't know how he came up with it, but he had the wherewithal to be like, "This is not healthy, like, for me doing this. I'm gonna schedule the time to feel sorry for myself and-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... be in pain." And whatever time it was, 20 minutes, he set a timer, and, like, he was allowed to be a victim and hate life and, "Why does it have to happen to me?" And, "I'm in pain." And then after the alarm went off, he's like, "Okay, now I have to go do the therapy," you know?
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
He's like, "Now I have to go do physical therapy. Like, uh, that's it." And I, I found that fascinating, and he credits that with having, helping him have the right mental attitude towards recovery 'cause... And I think this is really important, and I think we've confused being mentally strong and mentally fit with denying or suppressing bad feelings.
- AMAmy Morin
Yes.
- SSSimon Sinek
We've confused those two. And what I love about your strategy is we're not denying or suppressing anything. We're allocating time for all of that nonsense, very healthy nonsense I might add.
- AMAmy Morin
Mm-hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know, be the victim. Go ahead. It feels good. So have... It's like eating ice cream. Go ahead, and for 20 minutes you get to be the victim, you know? He's an asshole, you know? [laughs]
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
And then after 20 minutes, you have to go back to accountability, focusing forwards, and moving through it.
- AMAmy Morin
And this whole idea of mental toughness I think has convinced people you just shove it all down.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- AMAmy Morin
You suppress everything. I'll have a lot of people that come into my therapy office thinking they're gonna shove it down forever, and I'll convince them-
- SSSimon Sinek
For now
- AMAmy Morin
... it's gonna, it's gonna come up.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- 59:09 – 1:01:27
No Crying Alone: The Honor of Sitting in the Mud With Someone
- SSSimon Sinek
And the reason I say invite them, it's because having been on the receiving end, either offering to sit in mud with somebody or been invited to sit in mud with somebody, as a friend who loves somebody, it's an honor-
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... to get down and climb into the mud with someone, not to fix them, but just to make them feel not alone when they're going through whatever they're going through. It is such an honor to be invited to sit in mud with someone and to be there with them. The whole idea is, "I didn't wanna bother you." You know, I have a friend who did that to me. Like, they were going through something and they said, "I didn't wanna bother you. You're so busy," all this nonsense. I wasn't like, "No, no." I got angry.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
I'm like, "How dare you? How dare you deny me the honor to be your friend? How dare you deny me the honor to, like, sit in the mud with you when you're going through it? Like, how dare you, you selfish bastard?" You know?
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
So yeah, I've learned that I too have the feelings of I don't wanna bother people, and it's I'm just feeling sorry for myself, and you know? But I've learned my friends wanna be there for me.
- AMAmy Morin
You're absolutely right, and we know from the research social support, one of the biggest indicators of how we emerge from tough times, difficult to do, especially when you're not used to it, to call somebody and say, "Having a bad day, going through-
- SSSimon Sinek
And like all these-
- AMAmy Morin
... a tough time."
- SSSimon Sinek
... like all these things, I think it's a muscle.
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Really hard to do. Start with something small.
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Whining about something. "Can I just whine to you for five minutes?" "Sure." And if you work that muscle, you can get to the point where, "Can I just call you up and cry?"
- AMAmy Morin
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know?
- AMAmy Morin
Yep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. Amy, you're the best.
- AMAmy Morin
Oh, thank you.
- SSSimon Sinek
Thanks for coming on. It's been absolutely insightful, and I really, really do believe that the work you're doing and the message you're spreading and the books you're writing are genuinely, genuinely helping people navigate this stuff properly, healthily, and I have to believe that the people who consume your work actually don't need your work as much because of your work.
- AMAmy Morin
Thank you so much.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs] Working yourself out of a job. Isn't that the best?
- AMAmy Morin
I hope so. I hope so.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah. Thanks for coming. So good.
- AMAmy Morin
Thanks for having me. [gentle music]
- SSSimon Sinek
As always, thank you for watching. If you liked this episode, please subscribe to A Bit of Optimism for more interesting guests and even more interesting conversations. New episodes drop every Tuesday. But if you'd like more optimism right now, click here to watch another episode. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other.
Episode duration: 1:01:27
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Transcript of episode TNdrIk18pio
