Amy Morin is a licensed psychotherapist, a mental strength trainer, keynote speaker, award-winning host of the Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin podcast, and an international bestselling author of six books on mental strength, including the globally acclaimed 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do. These books have sold over one million copies and have been translated into more than fifty languages. Her 7th book, The Mental Strength Playbook, just released in April of 2026.

Her expertise has been featured by major outlets such as Good Morning America, Today, Oprah, Tamron Hall, and BBC and her TEDx Talk, The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong, has been viewed over 24 million times.

Amy's passion for teaching mental strength stems from a personal place. After enduring almost unimaginable loss of three loved ones in her twenties, she realized the traditional tools of therapy weren't enough to manage her grief. She's practiced therapy for over twenty years, and she's a sought-after speaker whose Ted Talk, "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong" is one of the most viewed talks of all time, with more than 25 million views. Amy lives on a sailboat in the Florida Keys.

Books:

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do.
13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don't Do.
13 Things Mentally Stron Parents Don't Do.
13 Things Strong Kids Do.
13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do Workbook.
13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don't Do.
The Mental Strength Playbook.

Takeaways:

Keep. Moving. Forward.: One of my favorite movie lines is from the last Rocky movie where the aging boxer tells his son about how life isn't about how hard you can hit – it's about how hard you can GET HIT and keep moving forward. Amy's hits were about has hard as life can punch. Losing a loved one is difficult. Losing THREE in a relatively short period of time, at a relatively young age, is almost unimaginable. Not only did she keep moving forward, but Amy also made a CHOICE to be mentally strong about it – and now she's as good a model of that as there is – and millions have benefitted from it.
Life hits everybody. As Amy tells us, she seemingly had it all figured out and was set up for a great life path. Great parents. Solid faith. Solid education and training. Her own family off to a great start. Life would be "easy" right? The problem is – we are ALL susceptible to life's hits. Life doesn't discriminate when it takes its swings at people with adversity. What we CAN control is the extent to which the adversity affects us – and how long those effects stay with us. If we are ANCHORED to the right things, we will have the ability to handle the adversity and keep moving forward. When asked what made her sit down and write that list of 13 things mentally strong people DON'T do, Amy pointed to her parents and her faith – two very strong anchoring elements. When life punched – and kept punching Amy, "why me" was an option. This is an always-available option for all of us. However, if we want to keep moving forward – that's not going to help us. As we just discussed, it's a choice – and if we have the right anchor inside us, that choice will be easier to make.
Mental strength. Amy explains mental strength as how we think, feel, and behave. She then went on to share that we have control over all of these. As Amy said, we can REFRAME our negative thoughts, we have WAY MORE control over our emotions than we think, and we can ALWAYS take ACTION – even when we don't feel like it. Amy also says this is a life-long thing – it's a PURSUIT. So, we have to be consistent with this choice. Finally, I love how Amy tells us to coach ourselves which is very empowering for ALL of us. One of the main aspects of this self-coaching is being intentional about assessing ourselves – how are we doing? How did I do today? You might even ask – did I win this day with class? Or did this day strengthen or weaken my ANCHOR? So, mental strength is within our control – and every day matters.
Know your values and priorities. I liked how Amy challenges herself by asking – if people saw a snapshot of my life, would they know what my priorities are? This is a great takeaway for all of us. If people look at our lives will they know our values and priorities? Our standards? So, the first step is to explore and define your standards and priorities. Then, the second step is to LIVE according to your standards and priorities. As Amy showed us, as long as we're living our lives according to a strong set of standards and priorities – and we become anchored to them - we can live and even thrive no matter what life throws at us.
The 13. You need to go get Amy's book so you can really dive into the full list of the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do and we hit on them briefly in our discussion. Some of my favorites: Mentally strong people don't get stuck in self-pity. We all get in ruts – the secret is to not STAY there. Also, mentally strong people don't live in the past and related to that, they don't repeat mistakes. We are all human and we all screw up and have bad patches in our lives. However, as Amy says, there is really very little in life we can't UNDO. We just need to learn from our experiences and then choose, as Amy did, to be strong and move forward. Lastly, a theme that covers a couple on the list – mentally strong people aren't afraid to take the time to be intentional about building and preserving their inner peace. This is what we're all chasing and we can all get there – but, we have to be intentional with our time and attention to ourselves – putting the phone and other distractions to the side and checking in with ourselves, figuring out what that inner peace looks like based on our values and priorities, and then pursuing that on a consistent basis.
The choice is clear: To sum it all up, as Amy says in her book, "When you become mentally strong, you will be your best self, have the courage to do what's right, and develop a true comfort with who you are and what you're capable of achieving." Sounds like a pretty good way to live an anchored, winning with class life. So, let's coach ourselves every day to be mentally strong. It worked for Amy despite severe and very real, life adversity. And it will work for us too.

Links:

Website: amymorinlcsw.com

Instagram: @amymorinauthor

X: @AmyMorinLCSW

Podcast: Mentally Stronger, with Therapist Amy Morin