Mark: Most self-help books give you a to-do list. Add meditation, add journaling, add gratitude. But what if the secret to mental strength isn't about what you add, but what you subtract? Michelle: Oh, I like that. A "don't-do" list. Because let's be honest, sometimes it feels like you can add all the good habits in the world, but one bad one can torpedo the whole ship. Mark: Exactly. What if you're only as good as your worst habits? That's the provocative idea at the heart of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do by Amy Morin. Michelle: And Amy Morin isn't just an academic. Her story is... intense. She's a psychotherapist who faced unimaginable tragedy, losing her mother and her husband within just a few years, all by the age of 26. Mark: It's an almost unbelievable amount of loss. This book was born from that grief. It's not a theoretical exercise; it's a survival guide she wrote for herself first, which is why it has resonated with millions. Her TEDx talk on this is one of the most-viewed of all time. Michelle: That makes sense. It’s not advice from an ivory tower; it’s wisdom forged in fire. It gives it so much more weight. Mark: It really does. And her core argument is that building mental muscle is a lot like building physical muscle. You don't just lift weights; you also have to stop eating junk food that sabotages your progress. Michelle: The classic example of the person who goes to the gym for two hours and then eats a dozen donuts on the way home. Mark: Precisely. That's the "Gym-Goer and the Donuts" story she uses. All the positive effort is canceled out by one destructive habit. Morin argues that for our minds, these "donuts" are the mental habits we cling to, often without even realizing it.

Michelle: So this whole approach is about 'via negativa'—the path of subtraction. Getting stronger by removing the things that make you weak. Mark: Exactly. And for Morin, this became terrifyingly real. She describes attending a basketball game with her mother, laughing and talking one night. The very next day, her mother died suddenly from a brain aneurysm. She was just twenty-three. Michelle: Oh my gosh. That's devastating. Mark: As a young therapist, she knew the theory of grief. She quotes, "Time doesn’t heal anything; it’s how we deal with that time that determines the speed at which we heal." She allowed herself to feel the anger and sadness, to actively process it. But then, the universe dealt her another blow. Michelle: It gets worse? Mark: Three years later, on the anniversary of her mother's death, she and her new husband, Lincoln, went to that same basketball auditorium to honor her mother's memory. That night, Lincoln, only 26 years old, collapsed and died of a heart attack. Michelle: I... I have no words. That's just an incomprehensible amount of loss for one person to endure. Mark: And this is where the book's central idea was truly born. A few years later, she remarried, and her new father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Facing a third major loss, she felt herself slipping. She knew she had to be strong, not just for herself, but for her new husband, Steve. Michelle: So how did she turn that pain into this list? It seems like a moment where most people would just break. Mark: She sat down and, as a form of self-coaching, wrote a list. Not of things to do, but of things to avoid. She wrote down the mental traps she saw her therapy clients fall into, the very things she was tempted by in her own grief. That list was titled, "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do." It was her personal manifesto for survival. Michelle: Wow. So the list wasn't an abstract concept. It was a lifeline. It reframes the whole book. It’s not about achieving some perfect state of mind; it’s about having the tools to not fall apart when life is trying to break you. Mark: That's the essence of it. Mental strength isn't about never feeling pain. It's about what you do with it. It’s a practice, not a permanent state. And that brings us to the very first, and perhaps most important, thing on her list.

Mark: The first thing mentally strong people don't do is waste time feeling sorry for themselves. Morin calls self-pity "the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics." It's addictive, it gives you a moment of pleasure, but it separates you from reality. Michelle: Okay, but let's be real. Isn't a little self-pity normal, even healthy, when something terrible happens? Where's the line between processing pain and destructive wallowing? Mark: That's the crucial question. Processing pain is active. It's feeling the sadness, the anger, the loss. Self-pity is passive. It's a state of victimhood where you magnify your misfortune and start to believe you deserve better, which paralyzes you. The best illustration of this is a story she tells about a young boy named Jack. Michelle: I'm listening. Mark: Jack was hit by a school bus and broke both his legs. A horrific accident. His mother, understandably, was consumed with worry and pity. She constantly referred to it as the "horrible incident," homeschooled him, and warned him about all the things he might never do again. Jack became withdrawn and depressed. Michelle: That sounds well-intentioned but completely suffocating. She was defining him by his tragedy. Mark: Exactly. So his parents took him to a therapist. But instead of joining the pity party, the therapist looked at Jack in his wheelchair and said with huge enthusiasm, "So, I heard you got in a fight with a school bus! And you WON!" Michelle: Whoa! What a reframe! Mark: It changed everything. The therapist helped Jack create a book, not about the accident, but about his victory. It was called, "How I Beat the School Bus," filled with his drawings. He wasn't a victim anymore; he was a survivor, a hero. When he returned to school, he shared his book. The other kids didn't see him as the poor boy who got hit; they saw him as the tough kid who beat a bus. Michelle: That therapist is a genius. She didn't deny his pain, but she changed the story he was telling himself about it. She replaced pity with power. Mark: And that's the antidote Morin proposes: actively exchanging self-pity for something else. Often, that something else is gratitude. She tells her own story of facing what would have been her late husband Lincoln's 27th birthday. She was dreading a day of sorrow. Michelle: Of course. A total pity party waiting to happen. Mark: But Lincoln's mother suggested something radical. Lincoln was adventurous, so to honor him, they should go skydiving. And they did. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and it turned a day of potential sorrow into a celebration of his life. It became an annual tradition—they've gone swimming with sharks, ridden mules into the Grand Canyon. They chose to be grateful for the life he lived, not pitiful for the life they lost. Michelle: That's so powerful. It’s an active choice. You can't feel sorry for yourself while you're jumping out of a plane. It’s behaviorally incompatible. Okay, so reframing your own mindset is one thing. But what happens when the source of your pain isn't a bus or a tragedy, but another person? It's so easy to let someone else control how you feel.

Mark: You've just set up the perfect transition to the second thing on the list: They don’t give away their power. This is about refusing to let other people control your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It’s about taking back the remote control to your own emotional state. Michelle: And I think we all do this in small ways without even realizing it. A critical comment from a boss ruins your whole day. A passive-aggressive text from a friend sends you into a spiral. Mark: Exactly. Morin tells this painfully relatable story about a client named Lauren. Her mother-in-law, Jackie, was a classic boundary-crosser. She'd visit unannounced, criticize Lauren's parenting in front of the kids, and generally undermine her at every turn. Lauren would just politely smile and then spend hours complaining to her husband and friends, growing more and more resentful. Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. The complaining becomes a pressure-release valve, but it doesn't actually solve anything. You're just marinating in the injustice. Mark: You're marinating in it, and you're giving Jackie all the power. Lauren's mood, her happiness, her sense of peace in her own home—it was all dependent on Jackie's behavior. The breaking point came when Jackie made a snide comment about Lauren's weight. Lauren finally realized she had given this woman complete control over her self-worth. Michelle: So what did she do? Mark: Through therapy, she learned to set boundaries. She and her husband established rules for visits. When Jackie started to undermine her, Lauren calmly said, "We're the parents, and we'll handle this." She stopped complaining and started acting. She took her power back. But there's an even more profound example of this principle. Michelle: I'm ready. Mark: In 1986, a New York City police officer named Steven McDonald was questioning some teenagers in Central Park when one of them shot him three times, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. Michelle: That's horrific. The kind of event that would fill anyone with a lifetime of rage and hatred. Mark: You would think so. But shortly after the incident, while he was still fighting for his life, he made a public statement. He said he forgave the teenager who shot him. He later said, and this is a direct quote, "The only thing worse than a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart." Michelle: Wow. That's... a level of forgiveness that's almost superhuman. Mark: He understood that holding onto that hatred would mean giving his assailant power over his sleep, his health, his happiness—power over the rest of his life. By forgiving, he wasn't excusing the act; he was freeing himself. He was refusing to give away his power. He went on to have an incredible life as a speaker, spreading a message of peace and forgiveness. Michelle: That story puts everything in perspective. My frustration with a rude email seems pretty small now. But for most of us, who aren't facing that kind of extreme, what does 'reclaiming power' actually look like? Is it just about setting boundaries like Lauren did? Mark: That's a huge part of it. But it's also about your internal monologue. It's about not letting criticism define you. It's about understanding that you are the only one who can decide your self-worth. And it's about making the conscious choice, like Steven McDonald did, to forgive. Not for the other person, but for yourself. It's the ultimate act of taking your power back.

Mark: When you look at these ideas together—avoiding self-sabotage, refusing to wallow in self-pity, and not giving away your power—you start to see the architecture of mental strength. It's not one single action. It's a series of conscious decisions to avoid the easy, destructive paths our brains are often wired to take. Michelle: It really comes down to a choice, doesn't it? In any situation, you can focus on what's been taken from you, or you can focus on what you still have the power to do. The bus took Jack's ability to walk for a time, but it couldn't take his power to define his own story. The shooter took Steven McDonald's mobility, but he couldn't take his soul. Mark: That's a beautiful way to put it. Mental strength isn't about being invincible or emotionless. It's about being the conscious director of your inner life. It's knowing that circumstances don't have the final say. You do. Michelle: It makes me think about my own life. What's one small way I've been giving my power away this week, and what's one thing I could do to take it back? I think that's a really powerful question for all of us to sit with. Mark: An excellent question. And we'd love to hear what our listeners think. Share your reflections with the Aibrary community. What's one mental habit you're trying to subtract from your life? Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.