Ben Michaelis, YOUR NEXT BIG THING
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast.
[0:12]Moms don't have time to read books.
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[0:31]I'm really excited to be here today with Ben Michaelis, PhD, who's a clinical psychologist,
[0:36]elite performance coach, and the author of your next big thing.
[0:40]Ten small steps to get moving and get happy.
[0:43]He has been featured on HuffPost, The New York Times, Psychology Today,
[0:46]Parents, Glamour, and many other publications.
[0:49]And as a frequent guest expert about mental health on TV and radio,
[0:52]he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University and earned his PhD from NYU.
[0:57]He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
[0:58]So welcome to Ben.
[1:00]Thanks so much.
[1:01]Glad to be here, Zibi.
[1:02]Thanks for coming on.
[1:03]So can you please tell listeners what your next big thing is about
[1:07]and how you came up with the idea to write it?
[1:10]Sure.
[1:10]So your next big thing was actually really about one woman who I worked with,
[1:15]who I can say we mutually changed each other's lives.
[1:19]She was to be perfectly frank.
[1:21]It was one of the most difficult kind of clients I had originally.
[1:26]And I was relatively early in my experience as a clinician,
[1:30]and nothing that I did, nothing in my training was helping this woman.
[1:35]And she was, you know, in her early 40s, single mother with a job that was,
[1:40]she described it as soul sucking, I think, with the words that she used.
[1:44]And she was clearly depressed, but in caught an early bad place,
[1:48]and nothing that I'd been trained for helped her.
[1:52]And I felt pretty, pretty bad and honestly pretty frustrated.
[1:56]And at some point during the work with her,
[1:59]I just kind of threw everything out the window.
[2:01]And I said, I want to try something with you.
[2:03]I want to try a thought experiment with you.
[2:05]And I asked her to close her eyes and to imagine her great, great, great granddaughter.
[2:13]And I took her through something that literally I just came up with on the spot,
[2:17]this exercise where I tried to get her into the mind of her great, great, great granddaughter.
[2:22]Because the one thing in this woman's life that she really,
[2:24]that the only sort of the joy was her daughter.
[2:28]So I tried to get her to picture what this girl's life was going to be like in the distant future.
[2:34]And then after I got her really steeped in this girl's life,
[2:37]I had her trying to camera back on herself to say, okay, what is this girl know about you?
[2:43]How did your life besides the fact that you were her, you know,
[2:47]poor bear? How did you contribute to her life?
[2:50]And she opened her eyes and she said, I want to make her a piece of jewelry to go to her
[2:56]senior prom for high school prom. It was like Zibi, when I tell you that it was like one of
[3:01]these moments that like you just never forget, like it was so powerful, like it was so specific
[3:08]and so powerful. And I'm telling you from that moment on something happened in this woman
[3:14]that changed her and ultimately changed me because this is someone that like at that point,
[3:20]she wasn't jeweler or anything like that. She had really liked making jewelry when she was a kid
[3:27]with beads, but like she hadn't thought about that in like 30 some odd years. And then quickly
[3:33]actually became a jeweler. Like she would come in to the office and like I don't know anything
[3:39]about jewelry, but like I know things that are cool looking to come in with these like really cool
[3:44]pieces. And then she like took a metal smithing class and had to work with silver and like
[3:49]and then she began selling her work pretty, like so this was this was a long time ago now like
[3:55]when eBay, Etsy rather was really relatively early and she was one of the first people that like
[4:01]really made that into a career through Etsy. This which was it wasn't common back then.
[4:08]And so the work kind of proceeded from there where I would try things with her, someone works,
[4:14]someone wouldn't and I would just like taking notes about things that were working and some
[4:18]that weren't working. And then at some point, I was like, wow, you know, if you actually put
[4:24]these things together, it could be a book. And I'd never written a book or anything like it at
[4:29]that point and that became the basis of the book. Well, that's such an inspiring story. And I
[4:35]love how at other times when you got out all the crayons to really break through to another
[4:39]patient and your creative ways of really connecting with your patients and then being able to
[4:44]include those in the book. That was really awesome. Thanks. Yeah, it's been I can say like
[4:49]originally was going to be only about her, but as you know, like editors wanted to be more diverse
[4:55]and other people. So I did bring in work for other people, but a lot of the book was really
[5:00]about her fundamentally. So tell me how the order of things went when you are working on this book
[5:05]because the book is filled with fantastic devices to help anybody who sort of stuck in their life
[5:11]figure out their next step. So all these great quizzes and takeaways and lessons. When you first
[5:17]thought about the book where you're like, I'm going to put in quizzes and make it so that everybody
[5:21]is like using it really like a manual or like how did that whole thing come about? So I tend to
[5:29]favor things that are very practical or just a very practical person. And I actually think I
[5:35]like quizzes personally. I like written some quizzes for Oprah like in the past. And I actually
[5:41]really like them. And I've gotten really good feedback about the quizzes themselves that they're
[5:45]pretty engaging. And so the idea that they would help people to sort of get engaged and think
[5:52]about where they are in their own journey is something that I personally like. And so I thought
[5:56]that having them in the book would be really useful for people. It was also good because as I went
[6:00]through it, I was like, okay good, I'm good here. I'm good here. And then I'm like, oh dear, like
[6:05]this is where I need to focus. It's always good to have it really quantified and like thrown back
[6:10]in your face like that without having to be like, well how do I really feel about this? So that was
[6:15]good. You know, it's interesting because as a therapist, there's so much talk about like finding joy
[6:20]and you talk about this in your book too, finding happiness and all this stuff. But from the
[6:25]basic theory of your book is sometimes you are literally just stuck in a place in your life and that
[6:30]in and of itself is making you miserable. Maybe it's nothing other than you can't get out of your
[6:35]circumstance. And then once you shift that, like, was your patient then really happy afterwards?
[6:41]Like did she just need the, do you know what I'm trying to say? Like is it sometimes you just
[6:45]have to change things? So it's a great question. And I don't know if you saw this later in the book,
[6:52]but this patient had, by the way, I don't love the term patient. I don't love the term client.
[6:57]I think they're both flawed. And so I use them, but I don't like either term just because I think
[7:01]that patient implies illness and client is more businessy. And I just need her of them work for me.
[7:05]What should we call? I need to come up with a new term, but a human being, she's lovely human being,
[7:10]but this person who I was working with, which is a lot longer. So she started to make a lot of
[7:15]changes in her life, especially when when the jewelry was starting to sell, I think she'd also lost
[7:20]a bunch of weight at one point. And which is something she's wanted to do for a long time. But it
[7:27]actually once she started, honestly, she started to get more attention from men, she kind of panicked
[7:35]and disappeared from therapy for a while and gained back some weight and got back into some old
[7:40]patterns, which so, you know, I think that it's challenging to just have, I mean, for her,
[7:47]she was a pretty extreme example of someone that like literally this conversation changed the
[7:51]trajectory of her life. And I think that we need to having some guidance during those moments
[7:58]can be really useful, but also kind of allowing things to evolve because I think that there were
[8:05]so many changes in her life in a very short period of time that it was a little bit overwhelming.
[8:09]And there's something to be said for just letting things develop a pace. It's like it's
[8:14]if you think about it, like a diet, like I saw a patient yesterday, we looked great.
[8:18]You can't call her a patient. I'm really sorry. Someone told me that it's not nice to call
[8:22]them patients. So if you could just call her a human being, that would be the camera.
[8:26]All right. Thank you. It's a guy actually. And I worked with him for many years and he struggled
[8:32]with weight loss, with losing weight. And he's gone up and down. But like, this was the first time
[8:38]that like, he's like, just been losing like a little bit. And he looks really good. And I'm
[8:44]like, oh, this is a sustainable change now. This isn't before he had to go to this one wedding.
[8:49]He lost a lot of weight and like gained it all back. But this I feel like he's on a path now
[8:54]because it's going slowly and smoothly. So anyway, long answer.
[8:58]No, that's I mean, that's okay. That's interesting and nearing. So you recommend that people
[9:06]add some things in their life or really sort of fine tune play and purpose and work and that
[9:11]these are some big buckets to focus on. So I wanted to hear a little more about play because
[9:16]theoretically that sounds like, okay, sure, I'll try to put more play in my life. But what does that
[9:20]mean? Does that mean like every so often I have to drag myself to like listen to live music or
[9:23]something crazy or like what does that look like? And what constitutes play versus just leisure?
[9:29]It's a great question. And it's something that I've been asked about a lot. And I don't
[9:34]really mean play in the sort of like let's play ping pong. Let's play football. That's great too.
[9:39]I really think that I don't think I maybe I need to explain this a little bit more like
[9:43]engaging the imagination and thinking about what you're doing a little bit differently.
[9:49]And it's almost like it's something about the attitude to it. So like my son and I went to a
[9:54]on July 4th weekend. And like he really wanted to like climb
[10:00]up the creek which was a little bit dangerous but like I was like yeah like let's do it and like
[10:05]it felt very playful to me even though like you can say like all you're doing is climbing up a creek
[10:10]but like you had to like climb over rocks and like I don't know it's something about that it's
[10:16]it's almost like the spirit behind it which I know is maybe hard to explain but like you sort of
[10:21]know what when you're doing it the other day I was with the kids at the beach club at this little
[10:25]beach club we belong to out here and there were only kids and me and this pool because every
[10:30]other mom I think is not as manipulated by their children and was able to sort of like stay in
[10:34]their cute little cover-ups and I was not anyway they were all diving off this diving board which was
[10:39]grandfathered in and because it's been around for so long and I was like you know what I'm just
[10:42]gonna do a dive off the diving board in front of all these moms and everyone else because like
[10:47]that sounds like fun and let me try it so that was like I think my attempt at play but then
[10:52]I quickly realized once I hit the water and my neck hurt and I was like oh my gosh I'm too old
[10:56]for this. So maybe play within reason or you know play within balance but I do like the spirit
[11:04]that you have. Thank you. Thanks. Talk to me more about defeating your inner critic because that was
[11:11]a big section for me that I feel like you know let's make this about me. Tell me to feed my inner
[11:17]critic. What would you tell other people about when your your your self-talk is a little too negative
[11:22]at times? You know I think that the inner critic often comes from it actually comes from usually
[11:30]usually it comes from a good place which is an instinct for self-preservation and that our parents
[11:38]and grandparents want to keep us safe and that's good that's that's really useful. The problem is
[11:45]is that you can't be safe your whole life or else you don't have any life and so there is this
[11:50]sort of sense of no you can't do that or no you shouldn't do that and I think that part of the
[11:56]process of maturation is figuring out which which of those things is right for you and which of
[12:02]those is wrong for you because there are some things that maybe are kind of dangerous but I tend to
[12:10]I don't think the world is as dangerous a place as many people think it is and because when you
[12:17]think of the world as dangerous then you can't be creative you can't play you can't explore and so
[12:24]realizing that the world is just like I can go into a whole thing about statistics now but like
[12:29]I don't watch the local news I think that there's a lot of these things that make us feel
[12:33]afraid whereas and that sort of feed into the inner critic and feed into that sense of no you
[12:40]can't do that but like most doors are two way doors you can walk in and walk out the exception to
[12:46]that rule is having kids like there's only one way through that door and so if you walk through
[12:52]that door you better be damn sure you want to be on the other side of that because there are very
[12:56]few other things that you can't walk back in this life. I just started reading a book called
[13:01]Don't wait up something like Confessions of a State Work mom by an author named Liz Austroff who I'm
[13:06]interviewing soon and she said that in the delivery room when her son was bored she was like don't
[13:13]take the tags off yet I'm not sure we want to keep it it's true you like can't go back it's like
[13:20]the only time you can't go back but so tell me a little also about the coaching that you do
[13:26]so have you turned this way of getting people to sort of find their next big thing into
[13:31]you know one-on-one service separate from your clinical work. So interestingly enough so the
[13:37]answer is yes but one of the things that I've actually been finding a lot of joy in in the last
[13:43]I would say eight years but it's really taken off I would say the last two so I'd actually
[13:49]started working and I think this was in the book I started working with a couple of brothers
[13:53]who have a company together and working on the challenges of their relationship
[14:00]as being brothers and being business owners and did that with actually a couple of different
[14:06]family businesses and then I started to work with these two women and this is public record
[14:11]the women that run of a kind so on their business and really you know admire them they're
[14:19]wonderful human beings and from there has started to work with a lot of business partners
[14:25]on their relationship and the challenges of being friends or being family members and running a
[14:31]business together so I've been doing a lot of that lately with different businesses
[14:36]it just just so happens that from because the these the women that run over kind
[14:40]wrote a book and I was in their book and so I actually have a fair number of female founders
[14:45]in my practice right now that are friends or related and have businesses together so very cool
[14:52]do you have any other stories aside from your first client who you know like when you go to sleep
[14:56]night you feel so proud of the influence you've had in their life you know I do and like that was a
[15:02]pretty dramatic one but like even you know honestly one from yesterday with these two different
[15:09]women that run a company together where it was the right decision to try to kind of separate them
[15:16]just for the purposes of their own emotional well-being and their business and this week they are
[15:23]going to kind of go their separate ways and they were both incredibly grateful for the process
[15:29]that we've gone through together to get them there because it's been so conscious and lovely
[15:35]and it could be very much the opposite and so when I was you know finishing my day yesterday I
[15:42]was feeling really happy about that like to be able to hopefully be a force for good for people
[15:47]you're like a marriage counselor for business owners yeah total yes counseling that's awesome
[15:52]tell me more a little bit about this one minute diagnosis on youtube are you still doing these
[15:56]I found all these great videos and I was like oh gosh what do I have I have all of these things like
[16:02]so that really was honestly a public service that I decided to do so you know I do a fair amount
[16:08]of media and when Donald Trump was a candidate I was interviewed by Vanity Fair about him
[16:16]this was in 2005 early in 2015 I guess and so I talked about personality disorders and it's part
[16:25]of this article and then began to do a lot of media on that and realized like the public doesn't
[16:31]know about personality disorders and so I decided I was like look this is easy enough to do
[16:36]to like make it digestible for people and so I just decided to do these videos like on my own
[16:42]and they've actually been used by all kinds of agencies and the New York police department now
[16:47]uses them to train their force on these sorts of things because it's easily digestible information
[16:53]that people should know because I think that when people think about mental illness they tend to
[16:57]think about depression and anxiety schizophrenia things of that nature and they don't think about
[17:03]this whole other category and that's where the videos really came from that's awesome so I have a
[17:09]question about you're being a dad and having all this information right so you have a son who you're
[17:15]out camping or doing whatever you see all these patients who end up at a place in their lives where
[17:20]they need to pivot in some way what can you teach kids or what can you teach someone just starting
[17:25]out to make sure they start off on the right path versus going somewhere negative and then having
[17:31]to regroup is there anything you can do or is it just life that has to happen so just to be
[17:38]like the question so I think that as a parent I think it's very dangerous if you work from theory
[17:43]I think it's really not a good practice I think that my job is to love my kids and like that's my
[17:49]job and like figure out how to you know let them develop in the ways that they want and the ways
[17:55]that they have talents and what have you and so I want to be that's like one category but then like
[18:00]for people that are not my kids which is separate I do think that there is a combination of
[18:07]loosening and it's like it's almost tried at this point but like you kind of have to listen to
[18:12]and watch what feels right for you I know that sounds again it sounds trite but and it takes a while
[18:18]so like look obviously I'm you know a very hopeful and sensitive human being very emotional
[18:25]being like the world doesn't have a lot of tolerance for that or historically like for boys
[18:31]like to be like a really sensitive boy and so it's not like obvious when you're a teenager like
[18:38]oh you should be a therapist but like listening to that and leaning into it as opposed to being
[18:43]like well because the world doesn't like that I'm not gonna do that but that's so so kind of listening
[18:50]to what sorry what feels right yeah did you have doubts about becoming a therapist or what
[18:56]it like what else did you consider doing I'm very seriously considered becoming a journalist my
[19:00]started my undergraduate at Northwestern and in journalism and it just didn't ultimately didn't
[19:08]feel right although interestingly enough like all of my best friends are journalists I think it
[19:13]was a very similar there's a question about human motivation that comes with being a journalist so
[19:19]literally like all my closest friends are either our writers so but it just wasn't the right
[19:24]particular angle for me interesting but now you kind of have done it all right you know you have
[19:30]the book and I mean you know I don't know I feel like everything kind of comes together I mean
[19:36]that's I don't know not always but so what advice would you give someone if they were trying to
[19:42]write a book like yours a sort of practical and amazing useful book to help other people what would
[19:48]you say so this is going to be the part of the interview where I become less popular but like it's
[19:54]like honestly it's discipline it is a daily practice of writing there's a website called
[20:00]150 words which like I know a lot of folks that I work with have used and I think that literally
[20:07]the daily practice of writing you know whatever time you're freshest in the day you do that
[20:14]every day because writing is something you can get better at your practice and consistency is
[20:21]absolutely critical in some days what you write is absolute trash and some days what you write is
[20:26]brilliant but it is the practice of doing it absolutely the way to go about it. And do you
[20:33]enjoy writing when you're not working on a book for publication like do you write just for yourself?
[20:38]I do so I'm working on this new endeavor right now that I'm very I feel very passionately about
[20:44]which has to do with like building community and so I've been leading these retreats that are
[20:51]it's just very close to my heart so I've to do them the right way I've basically shut off the
[20:58]writing for now I'm hoping that six months through a year I can get back to it but so the answer is
[21:03]usually I am I'm not it's certainly not every day consistent but I do write frequently but I do want
[21:09]to get back into it in about six months to a year as my client. Can you tell me anymore about their
[21:14]exciting retreats community is this a secret? No it's it's just they're not talking about them that
[21:19]much because the idea behind them is to create emotional safety for people that work you know
[21:25]working the fair number of public facing folks and to be able to create an environment for these
[21:30]people to have conversations of death and meaning and so in order to do that I interview everyone
[21:37]that wants to come and really think about it so that you can create an environment that is
[21:43]actually emotionally safe and it's working quite beautifully it just takes a lot of thought and
[21:48]effort because if I say to you or you can come to this retreat it's going to be safe you're putting
[21:54]an unbelievable amount of trust in me which means I need to make sure that every single person
[21:58]that comes is like going to be respectful of that and wants to do this and it requires a lot of time.
[22:04]I hope you didn't think I was trying to invite myself you're like you can't come don't come to
[22:12]I was not trying to get into it just curious about what you were doing. No it's been it's been going
[22:19]incredibly well and we're actually launching the west coast next week so yeah but it's it's been
[22:26]I've actually really been enjoying the process even though it's a lot of work. That's awesome so you
[22:30]found your next big thing. Perfect. Well thank you so much for coming on momstone of time to read
[22:37]books and for being so patient with all our scheduling and everything so. No worries it was
[22:41]absolutely a pleasure and I look forward to you know us getting to spend some time together in
[22:45]person soon. Me too. Take care have a great day. Good to see you. Bye bye. Thanks again to today's sponsor
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