Amy Morin | Author and Keynote Speaker | "Mental strength is not about acting tough."

Amy Morin is a licensed psychotherapist, keynote speaker, award-winning host of the Mentally Stronger podcast, and an international bestselling author of six books on mental strength, including the globally acclaimed 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do.

Her work has been featured by major outlets including Good Morning America, Today, Oprah, Tamron Hall, and the BBC. Her TEDx Talk, The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, has been viewed more than 24 million times, and her writing and speaking have helped millions of people rethink what it means to build resilience, manage adversity, and grow mentally stronger.

Amy’s passion for teaching mental strength comes from both her clinical expertise and her personal experience. After losing her mother and husband by the age of 26, she began exploring mental strength not just as a therapist, but as someone trying to navigate grief, uncertainty, and life’s most difficult moments herself.

Here's some notable highlights from our conversation:
[7:18] — From Grief to Mental Strength

[10:50] — The Power of What Not to Do

[13:18] — The Myth of Mental Toughness

[16:32] — Building Discomfort Tolerance

[19:33] — Helping Athletes With Anxiety Before Performance 

[22:38] — The 3 Components of Mental Strength

[26:11] — Stop Giving Away Your Power

[28:16] — Controlling What You Can Control

[31:45] — The Mental Strength Playbook

[34:37] — Emotion Regulation for Coaches

[37:24] — Mental Strength Takes Reps

[40:05] — Confidence Isn't a Feeling

[44:13] — Helping Resistant Athletes

[47:41] — Learning to Ask for Help

[50:03] — Life on a Sailboat

Learn More About Amy:

• Learn more about Amy's coaching, speaking, and books here

Learn More About Zach:

• Register for the upcoming free webinar on Monday, May 11th at 4pm (PST) -- Register Here
• Explore 1:1 coaching with Zach -- Schedule a free call here
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• You can watch the video recordings of the podcast on YouTube here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Another one of my favorite strategies is for people to create a victory vault. Because we know that our brains are hardwired for negativity. We remember the mistake, that really embarrassing thing that happened, and we forget the good things that we've done. And so create a list of those amazing victories you've had in life. And it doesn't have to be huge. It might be that you were in the spelling bee in the fourth grade and you found the courage to stand up in front of your whole class and spell something. Or maybe it's something in your personal life, like you went with your mom to a doctor's appointment, advocated for her, and got her the treatment that she needed. Like that's a huge victory. But write down some of your victories in life and keep adding to the list. But when you have a day where you think, I can't do this, you just read over that list and you have the evidence right in front of you, and it's in your own words.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Welcome back to the Win More Live Better Podcast. Today I'm gonna be joined by a woman who's become one of the premier thought leaders in the realm of helping people develop mental strength. But before we get into that conversation here, I have a special announcement. This one's gonna be for all the coaches and leaders listening. If you want to truly build an elite team, there's one thing that you absolutely cannot ignore. That's culture. That's why I'm gonna invite you to a special live webinar training that I'm hosting next week on Monday, May 11th at 4 p.m. Pacific Time, and it's gonna be titled The Three Culture Killers: Mistakes That Every Coach Must Avoid to Build Elite Teams. What I've seen over the years is that most teams, they're not undone by major blow-ups, but rather by small, consistent mistakes that can slowly sabotage your culture from the inside out. Many coaches, they work tirelessly on strategy and skill development for their players, but sometimes they miss the cultural consistency required for sustainable results. So if you've ever noticed your team just going through the motions, maybe you feel like buy-in is slipping, maybe you feel like accountability is fading, or you're just wondering why your group just isn't as unified as you know it could be, then you probably know how draining it can feel to be giving it your all and still see and produce average results. I've worked with countless coaches and leaders that are passionate driven, they're committed to their team's success, and yet even they hit Roblox when it comes to building a truly lasting culture. So in this upcoming free webinar, I'm gonna walk you through what I think are some of the top three culture killers that I see over and over again, plus the simple shifts that you can make right away to maybe turn things around. So imagine leading a group where the energy, the engagement amongst the group is high, everybody is stepping up and embracing their role, and your culture is something that others want to emulate and copy. With this webinar, we're gonna walk away with things that you can do to foster buy-in at no matter what level you're coaching, things that you can do to help sustain momentum, especially amidst difficult seasons, and then also how to turn your vision for an elite culture into something that's an everyday reality. So if you're ready to stop the culture drift in your organization or with your team and start building a program where excellence is rooted in the DNA of it, then don't miss this free live event. Go to the link in the show notes and register now for three culture killers, mistakes that every coach must avoid to build elite teams. I can't wait to help you take your team's culture to the next level. Alright, now let's get back into the interview today. Again, I'm really excited to share this one because my guest is Amy Marin. Amy is a licensed psychotherapist, keynote speaker, and award-winning host of the Mentally Stronger podcast. She's also an international best-selling author of six books now on mental strength, including her globally acclaimed book, 13 Things That Mentally Strong People Don't Do. Her work has been featured by major media outlets like Good Morning America, The Today Show, Oprah, and The BBC. Her TED Talk, The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, has now been viewed more than 24 million times. But I think what makes Amy's work so powerful is not just her professional background and expertise, it's also the deeply personal place that it comes from. After losing both her mother and her husband in a short amount of time by the age of 26, Amy began studying mental strength through the lens not only of somebody that was helping others as a therapist, but also somebody that was trying to navigate her own grief and loss. And this conversation I think is a really practical and refreshing look at what mental strength actually means. We talk about why mental strength is not the same as mental toughness. We talk about why suppressing emotions is not a long-term strategy, and while real strength often looks like naming what you feel, asking for help, taking responsibility for your response, and continuing to live according to your values. Amy also shares how to help performers build a greater tolerance for discomfort and what coaches can say or ask when an athlete's anxious, discouraged, or struggling. So if you're a coach or leader trying to help people navigate pressure, maybe you're just interested in mental strength but want something more useful than just, hey, go be tougher, or if you're just trying to better understand how your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors might influence the way that you show up for yourself and the people you lead, then I think this conversation could be for you. And finally, before we jump in, thank you to everybody that continues to listen to and support these guest conversations. If the show has been valuable for you, I'd be grateful if you rate, review, and or subscribe. It's going to help more people find the show, and it's also going to help us continue to bring more experts, coaches, and thought leaders who can help us all win more and live better. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Amy Morton. Welcome back to the Win More, Live Better podcast. And today's guest is someone whose uh first book I read uh about seven years ago, actually. And from the moment that I picked it up, I like it was one of those books where I felt like I couldn't kind of put it down. I like just dove into it. And I think I read the whole thing within a matter of a few days. Um and it was just such a refreshing perspective on this idea of mental strength. And so uh she may not have realized this, but this is probably a conversation that I've had in the back of my mind for years now and somebody that I really wanted to share with you all because I think she's got some amazing insights and work that she's done, uh, particularly within some of the main themes of what our show is all about. And so, more than anything, I'm just excited to welcome uh Amy Morin to the conversation today. So, Amy, thanks so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Thank you so much for having me, Zach. I'm excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah. I think within your book, um, there's a few things that I think I, at least with your first book, and I know you've had several since, and you got another one upcoming that we'll talk about a little bit. But where I actually thought could be a helpful place to start is maybe the genesis for the book itself. And I think one of the things that you're really open about in it as well as some of the kind of the personal adversity and challenges and hardships that you kind of uh dealt with over a couple of decades ago now. And so I was kind of just curious how maybe those experiences started to shape how you thought about mental strength in a new way, um, not just for those that you serve and that those that you work with, but also for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, I was a therapist and I thought, great, I learned all this stuff in college. I'm gonna teach people what I learned in my textbooks, no problem. And early on in my career, my mom passed away uh within about the first couple years, I guess, of being a practicing therapist. My mom died. And it was sudden and unexpected. And I realized like in that moment, a lot of the tools and skills I'd been teaching people like really fall short. When your life falls apart, it's really hard to stay on course. And that led me on a new path to study mental strength with my own interest in mind, really, and figuring out like, well, yes, it's easy to feel like you're mentally strong when everything's going well, but what about when your world is crumbling? And I was glad that I did because three years to the day that my mom died, my 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack. And very much like when I lost my mom, it was unexpected, it was sudden, and my brain just couldn't process it. Like, how did the two people I care about most on the planet literally just disappear from my life within a matter of seconds? And and it really made me say, all right, well, what is it about mental strength? It's not about acting tough, it's not about pretending like you have it all together. And as a therapist, I would see this people in my office who I would see people in my office who had been through really tough times, yet they were still full of hope. But then I'd see other people who'd gone through something and they just felt like their life got stuck there and I didn't want to stay stuck. So studying people in my office too to figure out what makes some of these people still have optimism and hope. Then I realized it wasn't always about what they did, sometimes it was about what they didn't do. And people who didn't have certain bad habits, and these are the things I talk about in the 13 things mentally strong people don't do, are the ones who are able to get through the tough times. Like, don't feel sorry for yourself, don't give away your power. And I started applying those things to my own life. Took years really to rebuild and figure out what do I want this next chapter of my life to look like. And it was when my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer that I thought, oh, here we go again. And I wrote myself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do. I didn't need a to-do list that day. I just needed a what not to do list. And I would read that list over and over again, and I'd think, okay, Amy, if you just don't do these things, you'll get through today. I still had to show up at work as a therapist, right? Like nobody talks about how do you go to work and do your job when your personal life's falling apart, but I found it helpful. I thought maybe it would help someone else. I put it on the internet, and I thought like five people would read it, but fifty million people read it, and that led to my first book, because clearly there was an interest in mental strength, and I've been writing and speaking about it ever since. And so it's really a combination of the things that I learned from my personal life, certainly the things that I learned in my education, but also the things I witnessed as a therapist about how do you get through those tough times and how do you do your best, even when it feels like the world's crumbling around you.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

One of the things that I appreciate that you just hit on was I think a lot of the advice that you see within this industry andor parallel industries, there's obviously a lot of different terms and things that get thrown around. It's oftentimes like here's what to do. It's very additive. Like here's what you like, here's your tips, here's your recommendations. But you took kind of a different angle. And I think it's actually one of the angles that I made it me appreciate your book so much is like you went what not to do. What do you feel like kind of led to you taking more of that inverse approach to exploring it?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

I know when I was like felt like I was at the bottom of the barrel, the last thing I wanted was somebody to give me a to-do list. And I got lots of advice from people, like take care of your body, make sure you're drinking enough water, and all of those things are great. But there were days where I just thought, I don't have it in me to really do anything, and then I'd feel bad if I didn't do the 25 things on the list that I was supposed to do to feel better. And I thought, well, again, I can't necessarily do everything right now, but I tell you what, I can do is not do these certain things. If I don't sit around and throw myself a pity party, it's okay, I'll get through the day. It doesn't mean I had to spend it 30 minutes writing in a gratitude journal, but maybe I just don't indulge in letting myself think my life is horrible and awful. Because I'd really see people in my therapy office and they come in and they're like, you know, Amy, I don't understand why any of this stuff isn't working. I I meditate every day and I do a gratitude practice and I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to do, but I don't feel better. And it was sometimes just because they had these bad habits, and then I I would go to the gym and I'd work out and I would think, well, if I had a physical trainer and they told me to run on the treadmill, great. But if they didn't tell me that the Starbucks latte I'm drinking on the way there has more calories than the running on the treadmills burning off, like I'd be really mad. I don't want to do more work just to erase a couple of things. It's much easier just to get rid of the latte and say, great, I won't do that. And when it comes to mental health, as a therapist, I was trained to recognize people's strengths, keep building on that. And at some point I thought, well, I'm doing them a disservice. If they're sitting on the couch feeling sorry for themselves for five hours, 10 minutes of gratitude journaling isn't gonna undo it. Let's just get rid of the five hours on the couch rather than add another 30 minutes of gratitude. And in my own life, I felt like, yep, that's doable. I can get rid of one or two things, and then we all have good habits. Let's make them more effective. I'm a big fan of saying let's work smarter and not just harder.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

When you one of the things that I think makes your story so powerful is like you combine your training, your education, you combine your personal experiences with this, but then also now, so much of this work that you've done working with individuals, working with organizations, working with a lot of different people. So you're kind of blending all of these together to really have a really comprehensive understanding of mental strength, what it is, what it's not, and so forth. What do you feel like people often get wrong about mental strengths?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Oh, one of the biggest, I think, is they equate mental toughness with mental strength. And we see so many people talking about mental toughness, and it's usually a Navy SEAL or uh Olympic athlete. And there are cases where we have to push our feelings aside and you just push through, but in real life, that's not actually what you want to do. And if you have two soldiers on the battlefield in the moment, it's not really helpful to be like, hey, I feel kind of anxious right now. But in real life, like suppressing your emotions, doing that for the long term is really bad for you. And I see a lot of people that think that mental strength is about the stereotypical things you'll see on social media, like never quit, never give up, push through all the pain. It's gonna be worth it. Keep grinding, hustle all the time. But in reality, it takes more strength to realize, like, how am I feeling right now? Or to ask for help. Like it takes an incredible amount of mental strength to say to somebody, you know, I'm struggling and I need some help. Um, or can you give me some advice on this or some feedback? It takes a ton of strength too to just acknowledge to yourself sometimes. You know, I'm kind of in a rough spot, I'm feeling kind of down today, what am I gonna do about it? As opposed to thinking I'm just gonna push through my day, pretend I don't feel anything, pretend like nobody's ever gonna hurt me, or act like my emotions are just gonna be checked at the door. That's not realistic. We know from the research, you could be anxious about something in your personal life, your grandmother just told you something about her health and it's really scary. You go into work and your boss says, Hey, do you want to try this new project? You're much more likely to say no, even though the anxiety has nothing to do with it. So we like to think that we're able to separate and compartmentalize our emotions, but we're not as good at it as we think we are. And we also know, too, when you try to suppress emotions over the long term, when you pretend like nothing bothers you, you pretend it comes out in other ways. The more that we try to shove those things down, the more likely they are to keep cropping back up, whether you develop a health issue or you just one day say, Hey, I can't do this anymore. A lot of people will say I was felt like I was doing fine for so long, and then I hit this brick wall. What's going on? And it's often just because they shoved everything down as long as they could, but it creeps back up on you and it's gonna come out.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Anyone listening to this is uh a card-carrying member of the human race, right? And if it's like I see like those emotion wheels, right, online. And if you like kind of look at them, a lot of those emotions that are at the core for us, and even as you build out and are more nuanced, like are uncomfortable. Like there's a lot of like discomfort and a lot of those kind of day-to-day emotions that I think we all encounter. And I think this is something I appreciate you saying that, because I think this is something that shows up all the time in sports. I think sometimes there might be this perception that an athlete is andor they should be bulletproof and that they should be confident all the time and that they can't feel these quote unquote anxious uh feelings and thoughts and so forth. What have you seen work well for helping people kind of build that tolerance for discomfort? Like one to like to acknowledge and to feel those emotions, but then also to actually build their tolerance uh to handle them instead of try to remove them.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah. So I mean, the first step is sometimes to just name what you're feeling. And like you say, we have these feeling wheels online. You can find a list of feeling words. It's really helpful. Because if I were to ask you to name feelings, you'd probably come up with a handful, mad, sad, scared. But beyond that, we really don't talk about feelings that much. And so it's really hard sometimes just to name how do I feel. So sometimes I'll tell people tape a list on your bathroom mirror when you're brushing your teeth, hopefully twice a day. Look it over and just be like, How do I feel today? I'm a little anxious, I'm a little sad, I'm kind of discouraged. And that helps us to just notice that. And then you take it to the next step, like, how might this emotion affect me today? Maybe I'm nervous about something. Well, then just knowing walking into this next meeting, if I'm a little nervous about something, what might happen? Well, I might be less likely to take on a new challenge. Okay. And how do what do I want to do about that? But also when we're naming our emotions too, is to recognize what our first tendency is. If I am really stressed out, I come home from work, my anxiety is high, what is it I reach for? Do I try to binge watch some Netflix to uh numb myself to it? Do I reach for a drink to say I'm gonna get rid of the pain? We all have these strategies that we use sometimes to get rid of the feeling. Maybe it's just scrolling through social media or texting somebody and just recognizing those things. And what is it that we do to escape from emotions and to try to numb ourselves? Sometimes just sitting with it, like, okay, I feel really anxious, and I'm just gonna sit on the couch and let myself feel anxious for the next few minutes and watch what happens. And emotions don't last forever, they're kind of like a wave, you gotta ride them out. And then when you do though, then you realize, okay, anxiety is not something I need to avoid, I can stand it. And when you build that tolerance and you start to build confidence that you can tolerate something like anxiety or sadness, it makes it so that you don't then run from it. So if I know, oh, I'm kind of anxious about that thing coming up tomorrow, like that's okay. I can handle anxiety as opposed to avoiding it, dodging it, being like, I know I'm gonna back out at the last second. Um, those are all us our strategies that we used to feel good right now, but it doesn't help us build that tolerance so that we know emotions are uncomfortable, but I can stand it.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

There's a lot of people listening who they might find themselves in a position working with an athlete or working with a performer who is experiencing a lot of the things that you just described. Are there things that either you use andor that you would invite and encourage coaches, leaders to use, whether it's language, whether it's questions, whether it's perspective that they can provide for individuals in these particular moments to kind of help them? Like I'm just picturing somebody getting ready to go perform and they're experiencing a lot of those feelings and thoughts and things that you just described. What are the things that you think are actually the most helpful that we as coaches or leaders can share with them in those moments?

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So sometimes it's helpful just to point out what you notice with somebody. So if you say, you know, I notice you look really jittery right now, you're having trouble sitting still, like what's the emotion? Help other people name what that feeling is. And just by them saying, you know, I feel really anxious right now, their anxiety goes down just a bit. Research will show when you name something and you can put a label on an emotion, your brain and your body make more sense of it. And then you ask another question, like, what is it you think that you should do? Like, is this the best emotional state for you? So if it's somebody who's about to go perform, some people do well when they're pumped up and they're uh really excited about it. So they listen to rock music before they uh step foot out there. Somebody else is gonna meditate because that gets them in the best state. But we often don't know. We tend to get tips from people like, oh, you need to meditate for 20 minutes. And then we think, oh, should I be doing that? And I I gave a TEDx years ago and I remember in the and behind the scenes, so many people were like meditating, listening to quiet music. That does not help me because the minute I step out on stage, my anxiety is gonna go through the roof, and then suddenly I'm gonna be like, well, the 10 minutes of meditation I did did nothing. So much better to pump myself up. I have to listen to music that would get me in the mood to think I'm excited, not necessarily that I'm nervous. So I think asking those open-ended questions, helping people identify like what's your pre-performance routine that's gonna get you in the right state of mind, but like what emotion are you in right now? What emotion do you perform best? And if those two things don't match, that's okay. Sometimes we're really sad and we perform best when we're in a good mood. And you can't always make those things match, but there's skills and strategies we can use right before we step out there that would say, all right, if I know what state I perform best in, here are three things that get me in that place. And just helping people uncover those things. But I think it starts with just pointing out what you notice, asking them how they feel, and knowing that people have a lot more trouble identifying the emotion than you expect. In the therapy office, I'll ask people like, you know, what was the feeling that came up? And they'll say, Well, I thought he was a jerk. We'll say, Well, that's a thought. Like, what's a feeling? And it's really tough to then say, Well, I was really sad or I was really embarrassed. Um, so sometimes it takes a little bit of uh help to get people to that point where they will actually name a feeling. It's much more difficult than you might expect.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Kind of expand a little bit off of that. Like I think you do a really great job and not just your book. But all the things that you you put out there, whether it's on social and and and when all the previous uh interviews that you've had, you talk a lot about, you know, mental strength really is this kind of relationship and this interaction, not just with our emotions, but our thoughts and also our behaviors. And I'm just kind of interested. Do you feel like there are spaces or between those? Are there spaces where you feel like people don't spend enough time focusing on, or are there spaces where you feel like um can you maybe just talk through kind of that in those interacting kind of components and how you kind of define mental strength?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, so there's three parts to it the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you behave. And sometimes people will be like, oh, you just need to think positively. Well, that's ridiculous, right? If I go for a job interview and I I know it didn't go well, thinking, oh, I'll probably get the job isn't helpful. In fact, that might backfire because I'm not prepared for it, or thinking a test is gonna be easy or the game is gonna be a slam dunk, then I don't prepare or practice for it. So you want to think realistically, recognize that not all your thoughts are true, but when they are rational and they are accurate, like what are you gonna do about them? So sometimes it's about just asking, do I need to solve the problem or solve how I feel about the problem? And then the emotional one is knowing, yep, I can't always control how I feel when I wake up in the morning, but I have complete control over how I respond to that emotion. And I can choose to stay in a bad mood, or I could do some things that make me feel a little bit better, or which emotion is is serving me well right now, and what might not be. Like we tend to talk about emotions like they're positive or negative, but they're really not. If I'm angry and it gives me courage to speak up, well, that's anger's helpful. But if I'm really angry and I say hurtful things to somebody, well, then maybe it's not helpful. So just recognizing when are my emotions helpful, when aren't they? And then what do I want to do about it? And then that takes us to the third part, which is about our actions and knowing that, okay, thinking positive is great, feeling good is great, but it's really about what you do. Like we don't earn a paycheck for having a positive attitude, we earn a paycheck for our behavior, the actions that we take. How do you be productive? How do you make sure that you're uh making some sort of a mark in the world and that your life has meaning and you're living according to your values? It's the action that you take. And so even if I don't feel like doing something, I can push myself to do it. Or if I am struggling, I still have the choice to say, I'm gonna act like I feel confident today, and that boosts my confidence, maybe. And all three of those things interact, and we have choice and in what we do. So if you don't like how you're feeling, maybe you just change how you're thinking, but maybe you change what you do. Or if you're predicting something awful, if I say, oh, today's gonna go horrible, guess what? I'll probably make it so, right? If I said, if I signed into this call and I was like, you know, Zach, I think this conversation is gonna be awful, I guarantee we would not have nearly as good of a conversation as if I walked in expecting it to go well. So mental strength is about knowing that all three of those things are related and that I can shift any one of those things at any given time. And then the ultimate goal isn't to just pretend like I'm getting through life unscathed and nothing bothers me. It's about knowing life's gonna throw you some incredible curveballs, but you can live according to your values despite that.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

We obviously don't have quite enough time for you to like go through your your first book and kind of all 13 different lessons and principles and the 13 things that mentally tough people don't do. But I but I am interested, you know, now that there's been, you know, just over a decade since that book was published, and you've had more and more conversations, and maybe people have come up to you and shared, you know, their their insights, their takeaways from it, are there particular lessons that you're noticing that people are struggling with the most, or you feel as though that they, for whatever reason, um are yeah, are just defaulting maybe back to old habits or old patterns that are not actually helpful and and what kind of also then helps them kind of break through with that?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

The out of the 13 things, the number one thing people want to talk about the most is not giving away their power. And that one is really about not letting other people be in control of how you think, feel, or behave. Because how often do we say that, like, my boss ruined my day, my coworker wasted my time, my friend takes advantage of me? And like, no, all of those things are things I can control, and that's really scary because it means, all right, things aren't going well, it's my fault. I can take responsibility for change. But on the other hand, it also says, hey, I'm in control. I don't have to let you make me feel bad about myself, even if you say something rude to me, I don't have to let it affect my self-esteem or my self-worth. And uh a big part of that can just be changing our language and catching ourselves when I'm like, oh, that person makes me so mad. Nope, it they didn't make me feel mad. Uh I struggle to manage my anger in that moment, is a is a more realistic statement. And just changing our language and then asking ourselves throughout the day, like, if things aren't going well, what am I gonna do about it? It's not your fault, but I can take responsibility, whether I'm in a meeting, whether I am uh coming home from work, like what kind of day do I want to have and how do I create that? And it's not about blaming yourself for everything. There are plenty of things you can't control, which I also talk about in the book. You can't control the weather, you can't control how other people behave, but what can you control? And it's always your response to those things.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Could I actually have you maybe expand just a little bit, like what can help people control what they can control in a more consistent way? Because I think that's a, you know, if we were to kind of have a list of the quote unquote mental game buzz phrases of all time within the realm of sport, I would say control the controllables is definitely one that so many prescribe to, and rightfully so. Like it, but I'm interested for you if you could maybe expand a little bit like uh either a perspective or what helps you feel like actually do that on a more consistent basis.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, one thing is to just notice like where's your mind right now? Sometimes we're rehashing the thing that didn't go well five minutes ago, the uh conversation that you just had, the pitch you just swung at. We're thinking, oh, you know, I'm so stupid. I just messed that up. Well, you can't control that now. It's already happened. And you also can't control the future. We think, well, what's gonna happen next? This is gonna be horrible, it's gonna be awful. The only thing you can control is your behavior right now. So to bring it back to the moment, like, okay, what am I going to do right now? What's the next step? What am I how do I want to show up in this moment? That's something you can always control. And no matter what situation you're in, like I guarantee there's something that you can always control. And the study that stands out to me the most is one that it's sad to think about. Uh kids who are diagnosed with cancer often have to go through tons of horrible treatments and they don't understand why. Why do I have to sit in this machine? Why are nurses trying to hold me down and and give me a shot or draw my blood? And they found that kids would rate their pain terrible because they couldn't control anything. So they taught them breathing exercises. That was it, because it can always control their breath. And they found that when kids concentrated on these breathing exercises, their pain levels went way down. They reported that they felt so much better. And so you think, if this kid can figure find something that they can control in a situation that's wildly out of their control, well, certainly I can control something in any situation I'm in, too. And it might be as small as that, like, how am I gonna behave in this very moment? And it might just be I'm gonna focus on the breathing that I do. And when you do focus on that, it gives us agency. It empowers us, it helps remind us that, yep, I do have control over something. And the more that we focus on the things we can control, the less anxious we are, the less upset we are. The research will show on the other end, the more I focus on things I can't control, the more anxious I get, and the more anxious I get, the more I keep trying to control something, whether I'm researching endlessly because I have a health diagnosis and I'm nervous about it. And that gives me a sense of control to research on one hand, but on the other hand, nothing I can do about it. But we get caught up in these things that are really outside of our control, perseverate on those things, and our anxiety ultimately goes up. It makes us feel better for a second, but as soon as we realize I still can't control it, we get more anxious. So I think bringing it back to the moment, what is it I can control right in this moment, and you can always control how you behave and only how you behave right now, not how you behaved yesterday or how you're gonna behave tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Love that. I love the idea of again, we talk about in sport, like your mind can time travel, and there are instances where that can be helpful going to the future and or reflecting on the past. And yet we also know that to give your best self in the moment or to like peak performance, it only lives in the present. And so it's a great tie-in with control to controllables, but I also love that you added, I think, something that is often maybe a forgotten or um secondary aspect to it, where it's like control what you can control and also let go or accept what you can't control too, which needs to kind of be part of that relationship. Um, this I think brings me to like I know you have this new book coming out, the mental strength playbook. And I'm interested, maybe as a starting point, like what led you to write this one and maybe how it's different from your other books that you've you've written over the last decade or so.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

My other books are all about what not to do, right? And there was a spinoff. Once the people book came out, and then people, women were like, How do we, as women, how do we be mentally strong? So I wrote 13 things and it's like women don't do, and then parents wanted to know, how do we teach this to kids? So I have a parenting book. This is my first like to-do book. And I initially I had kind of resisted like giving little life hacks for in the moment because I didn't want somebody to think, well, I've done this breathing exercise 12 times and I'm not mentally strong. So clearly that doesn't work. But at the same time, I realized that we do need these little strategies that help us because sometimes you have to show up when life is hard. You have to go to work and your anxiety is through the roof, or your boss is giving you tasks to do that are ridiculous, right? There's a lot of red tape sometimes. There's things that uh that we're struggling with, things that don't make sense. So how do you get through that? How do you get through the meeting when it just could have been an email? How do you make sure that that you show up at work as your best self, even when you're struggling with something at home? So the playbook is just filled with 50 little strategies that can improve your mood. It can help you deal with things like dread and anxiety, but they also improve your performance. I wanted people to know if you have to get up and give a speech in front of a hundred people in 10 minutes and your anxiety's through the roof, like what's a little strategy you can put into play right now that will give you some relief so that you can perform at your best. And I also talk about how do you interact with other people in a way, even when those people are not people that you perhaps choose to hang out with. And this one is geared toward the workplace too, because I think our mental strength is often tested the most at work. We spend a ton of time at work, and yet we don't get to pick our colleagues, or we don't get to pick the deadlines, or you don't get to say, you know what, I don't feel like doing that today, so I'm not going to. In your personal life, you get to choose a lot of things. At work, you don't. So I wanted to write a book about okay, when there are those things you can't control, how do you still manage uh your behavior? How do you still show up as your best? How do you still deal with those emotions that are going to get stirred up? So that's what this book's all about. Those little things you can do, put into practice, and they can change your life.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And I mentioned earlier, you know, I know that there's a lot of coaches that listen to the show. And I'm interested, I love that idea that this is um, again, maybe kind of the inverse now of your original book, which was again the inverse of what people don't do, but but also that point of emphasis on the workplace. And I'm interested, like if we were to transport you for a moment into uh a staff coaching locker room uh for or you know, a coach's meeting, what are a few things that you would want them to know about how they could use not just the book, but some of the core principles and the plays from the book to kind of strengthen their own mindset and performance?

SPEAKER_00 34:37

One would be about uh regulating your own emotions, right? We know from the research, say uh a coach who's really angry, their team's gonna perform a lot worse. So if your locker room halftime speech at a basketball game is about yelling at the players for not giving it their all, your players aren't gonna come out motivated and play better. They're gonna do a lot worse. So it's about knowing, okay, what emotional state am I in? And how do I manage that? Or if I'm talking to somebody whose anxiety is really high and my anxiety skyrockets, well, then I've just doubled their anxiety too. So how do I make sure that I have good control over my emotions? And then in terms of our own behavior, yeah. So I'm frustrated about something. What am I gonna do? Am I gonna yell or am I gonna take that moment, work on myself, and then say, all right, I'm gonna give you the talk that you need right now, whether it's an instructional talk of how to change your uh swing or it's an instructional talk about how to be more inspirational and motivational. And I'm gonna give you strategies for going out there and doing your best. And I think it's that self-awareness, that insight about ourselves is where it really starts. And then how do you start to teach these things to other people in a way that they can hear? And I go over things in the book, like helping people develop their pre-performance rituals or helping people know what they're thinking about when they miss the basket or when they have a strike. What are they going to think next? And just knowing when to put those things into play. Do I need to give you instruction or do I need to give you some motivation and inspiration? And then when do you accept things? And knowing that uh our goal sometimes is to always change everything, to always make everybody better. But there's research that'll show, like, let's take a baseball player. Everybody gets in a batting slump sometimes. And the people that tend to get out of the batting slump the fastest are the ones who just accept that slumps are normal and that they will come and they'll go, as opposed to the person who panics and thinks this is horrible, it's awful. And as a coach, we have the ability to influence how people respond to a slump or a setback. And if we give them the motivation, the wisdom, the instruction that they need, and we deliver it in the way that they need it, everything changes.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

To kind of build off of that, what I was interested in is, you know, within this book, but also I think it touches on in your first book is that idea of like really building mental strength and how that is something that can be trained, that can be cultivated, that can be practiced. And I think as I kind of flip through this upcoming book that you have, that's one of the things that I appreciated the most is not only are these very practical strategies, tools, and things like that that people can use, but there's also an emphasis on, okay, how do you cultivate these things into a practice? Could you talk a little bit more about how important that is when it comes to developing mental strength?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah, same thing. Like if we were to talk about physical strength. Sometimes people are like, well, I'm strong enough when it comes to mental strength, but it doesn't really make sense. If I said, Well, I went to the gym twice last week, I don't ever need to work out again. Doesn't work like that. It's something that we can always build, we can always practice, we can always improve upon. And as our life changes, the people we work with changes. We need to figure out like what skills work the best in this moment. And and I think this is where self-help sometimes falls short, or people will learn a skill, like we'll say meditation. Meditation is great, and it works for a lot of people in a lot of situations. It doesn't work all the time. And part of being mentally strong is about knowing which strategy to apply at which time. And sometimes we don't get it right, so it's trial and error. And that's why I put 50 plays in the book, because I wanted people to know, I don't know you, I don't know what's going to work for you in this moment, I don't know your boss, I don't know the situation that you're in, but you do. And if you apply some of these things, then we become more mentally agile. And we say, all right, I know that if I meditate 10 minutes in the morning before work, that's great. But while I'm dirt during my workday, when I get to be in a bad mood, I need to do something else. Maybe I need to go for a walk outside for a few minutes at lunch, and that's what really helps recharge me for the afternoon. Or when I get really anxious and later in the day, I need to do something else, like manage these negative thoughts. And here are five strategies that can do that. But just knowing that there's always skills that we can pull from, strategies we can apply. And the more that we practice, the more we put them into play in different situations, the better we get at figuring out which skill works the best for the moment that I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I can picture a lot of coaches, you know, flipping through this book and there being there's a lot of great threads because you have these plays for like strategic thinking, you have these plays for emotional strength, but also then taking more productive action. Like there's there's some wonderful elements that tie into kind of that that triangle that we talked about earlier between your thoughts, your emotions, and your and your behaviors. One in particular that I know will be of interest is you talk about like confidence catalyst. I can pretty much guarantee we could have any coach sitting here with us in this conversation and we ask them, do you value confidence? Do you want your athletes to be confident confident? Everybody's hand is going to go up. And I also know that sometimes there can be some misconceptions around it too. So I'm I'm interested actually, if you if you're open uh to maybe talk through a little bit how you look at confidence and what are some of the plays that you talk about in the book that maybe a coach could use uh for their athletes uh as it relates to it.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah, I think sometimes people think confidence is a feeling, like, oh, I feel confident all the time. But it's not. It's really uh about your belief system. Like, do you believe that you have the skills to handle something? But it's also not about thinking, well, I'm gonna uh knock this out of the park every single time. The overconfidence can be just as dangerous as underconfidence, but it's about knowing even if things don't go as planned, I have confidence that I can handle it. I can recover from a mistake, I can come back from failure. And it's all about the conversations that we have with ourselves. And so one of my favorite plays from the book is to teach people how to give themselves their own pep talk, right? As a coach, people are well versed in knowing, all right, I'm gonna give you this pep talk in between innings or at halftime. But how do you teach people to do that themselves? So when they're standing in the batter's box and they they have a strike, how do you give yourself a pep talk right before that next speech? The conversation you have with yourself matters. And we can teach people to do that on their own. Like, and sometimes they just envision themselves giving a pep talk to their best friend, but you give it to yourself. And when you talk to yourself that way of like, all right, the chips are down, but you've been there before, you're really good at comebacks, let's do this again. Like a little motivational speech to yourself can do wonders. And we need to teach people to become more reliant on being able to do that themselves so that when their coach, their family member, their best friend isn't right in their ear, that they can still recover. Another one of my favorite strategies is for people to create a victory vault. Because we know that our brains are hardwired for negativity. We remember the mistake, that really embarrassing thing that happened, and we forget the good things that we've done. And so create a list of those amazing victories you've had in life. And it doesn't have to be huge. It might be that you were in the spelling bee in the fourth grade and you found the courage to stand up in front of your whole class and spell something. Or maybe it's something in your personal life, like you went with your mom to a doctor's appointment, advocated for her, and got her the treatment that she needed. Like that's a huge victory. But write down some of your victories in life and keep adding to the list. But when you have a day where you think, I can't do this, you just read over that list and you have the evidence right in front of you, and it's in your own words. And that's incredibly powerful because when we get rejected for something or we're in a slump, things aren't going well, all of those memories in your brain are stored in the same spot. So if I get rejected, that hurts, but it also opens up this file in my brain that reminds me of every other time I've been rejected in life. And suddenly I start thinking, well, I'm a total loser. And you need the evidence to the contrary, where you can say, I'm going to open up this other file in my brain, but I'm going to physically open it up, whether I have a list in a notebook or I keep it on a screenshot on my phone, and you just read. Actually, here's some things you've done that were pretty incredible. And as soon as you start to read those things, it reminds you, okay, yeah, I've failed before, but I've also done some things that maybe nobody thought I could do, or I've beaten the odds. And that will give you a sudden boost in confidence right when you need it the most.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

So when I listen, when like in this conversation, this is a great example where like everything that you're sharing, I'm like, yes, love this. Like this, this shows up. I I can't tell you how many times things, these types of concepts have showed up in my own work with athletes and coaches. And one thing that I know is always a challenge, and I'm curious, maybe what your experience is here. Is like you're gonna have the people that read this book or hear these principles, and they're like, Yes, like I'm gonna buy into like they believe in it. And then you're also gonna have the people that are either resistant to it andor they're like, Oh, that's not for me, that's for someone else over here. What have you found useful? Like, I'm thinking if there's a coach and they're gonna have a group of players and you're gonna to have some players again bought in and some that are maybe hesitant, reluctant. What advice would you give them and or what are some things that you think can help those individuals maybe start to slowly shift their perspective towards these things?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Ooh, I'm glad you asked that because I actually love like resistant people when people are like that doesn't work. And I actually talk about this in the book. There's a play called Motivational Interviewing. And this is what we use as therapists. So when somebody say is mandated to treatment, they have to go to anger management because uh somebody else said they did, that the judge or a family member really convinced them I'm going to divorce you if you don't go to this. They walk into my office, they're like, I don't need to be here, but I have to be. And so you think well if I just suddenly start saying well great welcome here are the 10 things you need to do, they're not going to do that. But if I start asking them questions, open-ended questions like, well, why would somebody else think you need to be here? Or what would happen if you tried these things? What would happen if it didn't? Is there anything in your life you want to change? And somebody might say well I want my wife to get off my back. Oh okay so how might we be able to to make that happen for you? And even if they're not invested in in therapy or treatment, they're invested in making that change. And so often we think people want to change for the same reasons that we want to change. But the research is pretty clear. Like if you took smoking for example they think that people want to stop smoking because it's bad for their lungs. Well everybody who smokes cigarettes knows it's bad for your lungs, right? So when we tell them like hey you shouldn't smoke it might get cause lung cancer. Nobody's like you know what I'll quit today. Some people quit because of the money. Some people quit because of other reasons. They found a lot of women who quit smoking it's because it causes wrinkles. It has nothing to do with with their lungs. They just don't want to look old. And so we need to stop assuming I guess why people want to change or what bothers them and just ask questions. So if somebody says you know those strategies aren't for me you might ask them questions about well what would happen if you tried these strategies? That'd be a waste of time. Okay, well are there anything that wouldn't be a waste of time. And you just get people to answer their own questions and come to their own conclusions in a way that's helpful. If I lecture you about something it's probably not going to change your behavior. If I said that's really bad for you, Zach, you should quit doing that. But if I asked you, hey are there any things you've thought about that maybe would make you want to change that behavior you might say well it's kind of expensive. Oh, so it's a money issue. And we can have that conversation because you'll believe the words coming out of your own mouth much more than you'll believe whatever it is I tell you. In fact if I lecture you hey you shouldn't do that and you say well here's why I do it it helps my stress it does this it does that I've actually just made it more likely you're going to engage in that bad habit because you've convinced yourself of all the positive things that go with it. So I love the idea of asking open-ended questions and helping people come to their own conclusions about what's going to work for them.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

I want to kind of zoom out for just a moment and and again going back to if we go back to I think it was you said 2003 when when your mom passed so okay so we zoom out and then in 2014 you write the book um after sharing the the the list online and now here we are in 2026. I'm interested going back to when you wrote that list and that first book about just over a decade ago how if at all has your own maybe understanding or beliefs around mental strength evolved? Like are there things that you believed 10 years ago that now you're like I have less conviction in or I'm not so sure about this or maybe I've kind of created a more nuanced perspective around I think even though I said a lot of the words back then like you know you don't have to pretend to be fine or it's okay to struggle I think it really took like years for that message to even shift in my behavior and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

I mean it's hard when you're at the bottom of the barrel and you feel like you're lost everything in life it's really hard to say and I'm going to get up and I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. And I think it taught me a lot too about about that balance of how do I cope with my emotions, how do I make sure I'm working through them, not just avoiding them. But at the same time, how am I gonna how am I going to make sure that I don't stay stuck there? I spent a lot of years, I think feeling quite stuck. I didn't know which way was up and which way was down but something I needed to do was to keep moving forward for several reasons. I was the only breadwinner I didn't want to become homeless if I my husband and I had already purchased a house. I had to figure out how to pay the mortgage on just my salary. That wasn't a plan and so I had to figure out some pretty creative things to do. And while at the time I didn't appreciate having to have a side hustle in addition to being a therapist like I'm glad that I did now because I think that just reminded me you know when the chips are down and you're at your worst you can still rise to the occasion and so I would say it just my beliefs about mental strength have shifted in terms of knowing yep it it is about asking for help, admitting that you're not okay. But it really took a long time to internalize that. In fact when the article came out it was just the article about the 13 things and people knew I was a therapist. So they media from all over the world started calling CNN in Mexico and MTV in Finland and they wanted to interview me because they're like this therapist has mastered this list and nobody knew that I had written it from a personal place and I wasn't going to even tell the story. And then when the book came out I finally said actually I struggle with all 13 of these things.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

It's not that I've mastered mastered them but that was a real like a real life lesson in that moment of I don't have to admit I've mastered these things either I want to be um mindful of your time and then also give you a chance if there's anything else besides the the upcoming book that you want to plug but I I I end every interview kind of with generally the same question. And so I'd love to ask you as well Amy what's something that you're proud of that maybe you don't always get an excuse to talk about question.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Well I would say you know a lot of my life as a therapist I had the nine to five job I had a house I had a lots of great things going on. I really like structure and I don't like change. And um 11 years ago I moved onto a sailboat and uh without really knowing that much about boats or sailing or anything. But at the time I just trusted I could figure it out. And and I'm remarried now and my husband loves sailboats, thank goodness, but I just thought well like let's do this. And it was one of the first times in life I didn't have a huge plan for what was going to happen next. I just trusted I would figure it out along the way and it's worked out. I thought I'd probably be here six months but 11 years later I'm still here living on a sailboat and I get to write more books and I get to do amazing things like be on your podcast. And and so I think for me it's just a reminder too that I don't need all the answers and that life's gonna throw me some incredible curveballs and throw me some that I really don't appreciate in the moment either but I'll figure it out. And I think just knowing that and living according to my values has been um one of the most powerful things that's let me still be where I am today. When I wrote the first book I thought well I'm a therapist I got to write a book that's great. Never imagined I'd be able to go on and and write more books and that my first book is in like 50 something languages now. And to imagine that is just so overwhelming. I thought initially I just got lucky I wrote an article that went viral and um like wonderful somebody invited me to write a book but I think I'm just really proud that I've been able to turn that into an ongoing conversation where I get to speak to so many more people about mental strength over the years.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah I love that idea of uh again I don't know if there's a a term for figure it out like the skill of figuring out I don't know if it's resourcefulness it's probably more expanded than that. But I also think um we didn't maybe get enough time in this conversation to dive in but I know you've also talked about when you mentioned your values like faith too and how I can certainly see and hearing you describe that how that's probably um helped uh as well continue uh in your own journey and your own impact. So I want to again first just say thank you for taking some time out of a busy schedule to to kind of share with the audience today. But also tell them a little bit like where can they find the book? Is there anything else that maybe resources or things that would be helpful that you'd like to to share with those listening I want to make sure I give you some space to to share.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Sure thing so my newest book is called the Mental Strength Playbook and the best way to learn more about my books or uh to watch my TED TEDx talk or anything like that is to go to my website which is Amy Morin LCSW as in licensed clinical social worker dot com and I have a podcast called Mentally Stronger with therapist Amy Morin and you can also sign up for my newsletter where I send out weekly tips on how to grow mentally stronger.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Awesome well again thank you Amy I'll make sure I include those in the show notes for anybody listening and again thank you for taking some time this this conversation selfishly I I was like loving it the whole time just because I was like oh I could spend so much more time just sharing different stories and different experiences that I've had with that pertain to these types of topics and things like that. So anyway it was great to have you come on and and share your perspective so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Oh thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

As we wrap up today's episode I just want to extend a big thank you again to Amy Morin for joining me on the show and sharing so much wisdom around mental strength, confidence and what it actually looks like to respond well when life and performance gets hard. As a quick reminder if you're a coach or leader that you want to build a stronger more consistent and more sustainable culture I'd love to invite you to join me for a free live webinar training that I'm hosting next Monday May 11th at 4 p.m Pacific time it's going to be titled The Three Culture Killers Mistakes that every coach must avoid to build an elite team we're gonna break down the common mistakes that I think sabotage culture from the inside out. I'll give you some practical shifts that you can make right away to shrink them buy-in, build better accountability amongst your team and also ensure that there's alignment where everybody's moving in the same direction. The link to register is in the show notes. And finally thank you for continuing to listen to and support the Win More Live Better podcast. If this episode was valuable for you it would mean a lot if you take a moment to rate review and subscribe to the show and then most importantly if you think this episode could benefit somebody else that you care about I'd encourage you to share it with them. It's gonna help bring more coaches and leaders to find these conversations and it's gonna help us continue to bring in more experts and thought leaders who can help us all win more and live better. So without further ado again thank you for again for listening and I'll see you next time on Win More Live Better