What if the thing standing between you and a better day at work isn't a new habit—but just knowing which play to run?

Amy Morin is the psychotherapist behind the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do series, which has sold over a million copies and sparked one of the most-watched TEDx talks of all time. Her new book, The Mental Strength Playbook, takes a different tack. Where her earlier work was preventative, this one is urgent care. Fifty plays you can run in the moment you need them: before the presentation, during the spiral, in the middle of a task that feels completely pointless.

Caitlin and Amy get into why positive thinking can actually leave you less prepared, what happens in your brain when you step away from a problem and the answer shows up in the shower, and a surprisingly simple vagus nerve trick that can drop your anxiety in thirty seconds. You'll also hear how Amy arrived at this work through personal loss that reshaped everything she thought she knew about helping people.

Mental strength isn't about pushing through pain at all costs. It's about having enough clarity on your own values to know which battles are yours—and enough flexibility to let the rest go.

Resources

Amy's new book: The Mental Strength Playbook by Amy Morin

Amy's rec: How to Not Know—launching May 2025

Caitlin's rec: Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis

Ben's rec: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal

Also mentioned: Amy's podcast Mentally Stronger, the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do series (6 books), Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

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This episode of Simplify was produced by Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler, Molly Rose Hart, and mixed & mastered by João Lucas in Berlin, Germany, for Kollo Media.

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