July 16, 2026 • 16 mins
BONUS content with Dr Paul Conti, author of "What's Going Right" on how to choose what you can control in a life of ups and downs.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
back to I Choose Me. I am back with doctor
Paul Conti, author of What's Going Right, diving a little
deeper into these internal drives we all have because I
feel like there's so much more to uncover. So let's
(00:21):
get into it. Let's jump right back into the deep end.
In a minute, we're going to sort of break down
your concept of our inner drives. But first let's start
out with this big question right now, in this world,
in this moment, what do you think people should be
most aware of when it comes to taking care of
our mental health.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, I think everyone should be aware that there is
a way to understand ourselves and we can bring that
understanding to creating change that we don't have to be
afraid of our mental health. If a person says physical health,
often others respond in a way that's interested, Oh, what
are you doing to take care of yourself? Here's what
(01:03):
I'm doing, and there's an exchange. But mental health creates
a reflux of stigma, and I'm often trying to get
away from that. And that comes because we don't anticipate
understanding or helpful change or I think knowing that we
can understand ourselves, we can bring change, just as we
can in our physical health.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
There's hope. There's hope in that, and I like that. Okay,
let's make the drives that you talk about even easier
to understand. So if you could please summarize the assertion drive,
the pleasure drive, and the generative drive.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So classically, it has been thought in the field that
we have two drives that each human has borne into
that person, an assertion drive, which was often called aggression,
and a pleasure drive. And these drives sometimes get a
little bit stereotype, like a caveman wants to club someone
and drag them back to the cave, or drag the
(01:57):
food back to the cave, or you know, people who
are doing things that are not healthy and that are
not right in the world. And often it's not that.
It's not that, it's that we all want to be
a presence in the world and have our and have
our presence felt in the world. We want to be
able to change the world around us, We want to
be able to make our way in it by asserting ourselves,
(02:17):
and we want pleasure, which isn't always things that we
classically associate with pleasure. It can be the pleasure of safety,
of having a roof over our heads, having enough food.
These these are the ways that we gain pleasure in life.
And the thought has been, okay, we have this assertion
and aggression and pleasure drive, and again that's often led
us to places that become that sort of look at
the worst in humans. It's not really what it's saying,
(02:40):
but it doesn't. It's a surprising that it ends up
there because it's missing the point that we can't just
have those two drives. It would not explain the survival
of the species. It doesn't explain altruism. It doesn't explain
doing anything that's not directly about the self. It doesn't
explain creating art, or creating beauty, or enjoying someone else's
(03:01):
enjoyment of something. That there's a generative drive in all
of us that is there in us to create and
to grow and to make the world better. It's not
just asserting ourselves in the world. It's wanting things to
be better, wanting there to be beauty where there wasn't before,
Wanting someone who's sad and down on the ground metaphorically
(03:22):
to be able to stand back up and be back
on their feet. When we see through that lens, which
I think are literature and philosophy across hundreds of years
of human experience across thousands, I think it bears out
that we can't just be aggression and pleasure, that there's
something else going on inside of us. And I think
(03:43):
it's so clear that that something else is this generative
drive to create and to make the world a better place.
It's why we build, it's why we know. It's why
people go into labs and discover cures for illnesses. It's
why people want other people to learn about things good
help them. There's so much that's good in us, and
when that's governing us, we're healthy. And it's not a
(04:06):
Pollyannic concept. It's what we do when we ourselves are
healthy and the groups that we live in, be they
family units all the way up to states to nations,
and states are healthy.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It seems like the generative drive is the most important
one for me. I just feel it feels like it's
the most important one. But yes, sometimes the other two
can kind of take over. So where do we find
the balance.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yes, the generative drive governs the other two, so it
is the most important drive. So for assertion and pleasure,
there are ranges that are ideal for each of us
based upon very complicated factors genes, early life experiences, adult experiences.
So we have different optimal ranges, but those drives can
be out of balance. So, for example, think about assertion.
(04:53):
We can become too assertive now we're trying to over
control things, or where we act in a way in
the world that's putting other people down so that we
can make ourselves feel better. Like there can be just
too much assertion, which can turn into aggression right, or
there can be too little assertion where if I want
something better to happen in my life, but I can't
(05:15):
get myself up off the couch to do it, there's
not enough assertion and I'm not going to have the
outcomes that I want. So there's an optimal range for assertiveness.
The same way with pleasure, people who are seeking pleasure
at a very very high level start to seek it
at the expense of other things that it may be
easier to eat the thing that's really unhealthy because it
(05:36):
feels good in the moment, for example. So we can't
focus too much on pleasure or too little if we
don't think we're going to get pleasure from anything, we
don't do it. So so someone who thinks, oh, nothing
will go I never have a fun when I go out,
or when I do this or that. Why do it?
Why buy it? Then there's such a low pleasure drive
that that's out of balance. So we want assertion and
(05:59):
pleasure to be in balance, and for them to be
in balance the aspects of self underneath the structure of
self and the function of self, those things that are
analogous to the physical structures in us, they have to
be in healthy places. Then the assertion drive and the
(06:20):
pleasure drive can be in healthy places where they're governed
by the generative drive. The more of the generative drive,
the better, right, the more the better it keeps those
assertion and pleasure drives in good places, and it helps
our structure and function of self stay in healthy places.
So this is how we can see, Oh, I can
understand how to be mentally healthy, how to build good
(06:42):
mental health, just as we can understand how to build
good physical health. And the generative drive is governing all
and you can see that born out. When people have
healthy aging, for example, they governed by the generative drive.
There's a lot of different words we could put to it,
but they're they're still learning. They feel a sense of
value of themselves in the world, and they're creating, and
(07:05):
they have relationships with others. And we know that when
people are generative, they're happy, and they're they killed they
instead of destroying.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Right. So I talk to a lot of women about
finding their voice, getting comfortable expressing themselves, asserting themselves. I
guess this would be under the assertion drive. And sometimes,
(07:34):
like you said, it can get out of balance and
it becomes too assertive. How do you recommend women in
general find their voice and how do you recommend that
we keep it in balance? And do we need to
think about keeping it in balance?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think the first point, I think is to be
aware of one's right to strive for health and happiness.
Any demographic that historically has been put by the society
around us at a disadvantage, or who has been told, oh,
you know, you're not supposed to do that, you don't
get to do that, has to be extra careful. Right
(08:13):
to ground, to the right within each of us, within
every person, to assert themselves in a good, healthy way,
to find the pleasures that we want in life, so
starting from our right, and very often people have had
put into them that they don't have a right to
assert themselves in the world. And you see this more
commonly in women than in men, who often are raised
(08:34):
in ways not always, of course, but the society around
us or the unit of people around can lead a
person to think that as they come to adulthood that
they don't have quite the rights that others do, and
they're supposed to do more for others than for self.
For example, things that can be very very good if
it's in a certain way, if it's through the generative drive,
(08:55):
but if it's in a way that says, well, you
don't get to have as much or you don't get
to have as much happiness, that's not okay. And we
have to be aware and ground to the right to
have a good life, to seek health and happiness. Once
a person is there, then we're on. Then we become
kind of on the same footing. Then we're looking at
(09:16):
ourselves and saying, okay, if a person is, oh, it
is too much or too little assertive, how might I
change that? And how did I get there? So, for example,
some people who are more assertive than is healthy. How
they get there is because they were told so much
to not be assertive that they have a reaction against it. Right,
and people can be too assertive, So we see that.
(09:38):
So if a person is being more assertive, we look
at okay, is it a reaction to something? Or if
a person is being more assertive, right, are they finding that? Hey?
As I became more assertive, things got better in life. Right,
I was able to say no to people. Are I'm
choosing this not that? And then we learn to be
more assertive and too much of a good thing isn't
(09:58):
a good thing anymore? Like, we're all so complicated, But
we can understand ourselves and figure ourselves out. So if
we start from the right to understand ourselves and to
build good mental health and to build a good life,
and then we approach ourselves with compassion and curiosity, then
we'll figure out what is going on in us and why. Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yes, So anybody out there who's listening who doesn't recognize
that right to happiness and joy and a good life
should really take that to heart, because we all do
deserve that.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
We all have that right. Yes, And I would add
that doing for others, which is a wonderful thing for
us to do in life, does not have to mean
that the person themselves is deprived, right, And oftentimes that
is the messaging that a person or a woman is
supposed to create goodness for others, but it's okay for
(10:51):
that to be at the expense of the self, And
of course that's not okay at all. It's not okay
for that person, and it doesn't actually help the person
help others. Right, there are ways we have to start
with ourselves and say, okay, I get to take care
of myself. I have a right and even a responsibility
to myself to take care of myself. And if I
do that, then what we see is we become healthier
(11:14):
and stronger, and we're better for ourselves and for others.
So the idea that a person is built or a
person's role is to sacrifice for others is is not okay.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
No, it's just an outdated view. And I think that's
why I loved so much talking and encouraging people to
remember to choose themselves and in doing so, that is
when we are more effective in a positive way in
our world and in other people's lives. Yes, it's so
beautiful what you're saying, and I fully appreciate all of this.
(11:47):
Your book is dedicated to your daughters and everything that
makes them smile. That's what it says. Why did you
choose to include smiling in that dedication? And what does
it have to do with what's going right?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Often, if we're able to smile, if we're able to
just feel good about something, that's a good symptom that
things are really going right inside of us and we
are all seeking we say happiness, because what does that mean?
What does it mean to be governed by the generative drive?
It means that we are finding peace, contentment, and delight
in our lives. We can just be peaceful. We don't
(12:26):
have to always be be thinking, doing, We can just
be right. And contentment is being aware of ourselves, of
our life stories, including the things that we are not
happy about or the things that may even be tragic,
but feeling okay about it. It's my life. I'm leading
it as best I can. That I feel a sense
of contentment with who I am in my life. And
(12:47):
we all want to keep the capacity for delight. You know,
we see delight in children where things can just light
their faces up. We need to be that way as adults.
So when I think I want to see them just
anything that makes them smile makes me happy. That's what
I feel inside of me is Okay, they're in healthy places.
You know, they understand all the world that can tell
(13:10):
us why we're bad or wrong or what's wrong with us,
why we're not good enough. I think that hasn't gotten
to them. They're they're healthy, they're balanced, and when something
comes up to smile about, they can.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Smile about it, celebrate it, celebrate that smile. So true,
I can very much relate to that as a mom,
as a parent, and I think that a lot of
people will be able to understand that because that is
like the ultimate food for our generative drive.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yes, it's both the ultimate food for it, and it's
also the ultimate outcome of it, which is why when
things are going right, and we really kind of double
down on that. Right, if things are going right, let
me figure out the things that aren't the way that
I want them to be. Let's move those into the
going right category too, And then we find that we
can have an upcycle of goodness where we're finding more
(13:59):
empower and agency and humility and gratitude, and the generative
drive is governing us more and there's more piece contentment
and delight, which helps us stay in balance and helps
the generative drive, you know, be fueled. So you can
see how we can end up at very good places,
just as we can spiral downward. I mean, we know that,
but we don't have to focus on that in a
(14:20):
way that is so cynical or do oriented or fearful.
We know that can happen to us. But we can
also spiral upward up, and it's bad that we can control.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I love that spiral upward. I never thought of that.
I always, you know, my mind goes to, oh, I'm
in a downward spiral, or yeah, it's catching you know,
it's taking hold of me. But instead turn it into
an upward spiral somehow. That's really important. Your your book
offers at the at the end a lot of practices
and questions. Why why do you think practicing is important?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, I think that the practicing is really the doing
of it. That with physical health we want to understand.
But then if we want more muscle mass, we have
to go and work out, right, if we want more
cardiovascular health, we have to you know, we have to
do something that gets so hard pumping. So there is
a doing of it, and the book is meant to
(15:16):
be very practical that there may be people who seek
outside of the book, you know, the help of others
or the help of professionals. But the idea is that
you can at least get a start, and maybe that
start is what you need. Maybe it gets you there,
right if you understand, and then you have a way
of applying that understanding. So that's why it's designed to
be very practical. And then, of course there are people
(15:36):
who don't have access to mental health resources. So to
have something that can both can both create understanding and
then also say here are practical tools for making change.
I hope, well, I believe in hope will be of
help to people who then just don't have access to
mental health resources and they're just going to be working
from that. Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
No, there's nothing worse than walking around life with an
empty tool. It's so important to gain those tools, to
find them, understand them, and then put them in your
belt for later use, because we're definitely going to need
them at some point, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And to be using them. See I imagine some of
the tools were in the belt, but the person's got
a tool in each hand. And you know, that's how
we want to be living, is have a lot of
tools in that belt and use them, and then we'll
see that upcycle of goodness in us.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
We'll see that upward spiral. Doctor Conti's book, What's Going Right,
a powerful new method for optimizing your mental health, is
available right now wherever you guys get your books. I
highly recommend it. It's very interesting. Thank you so much,
doctor Conti for spending this time with us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on. I
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
It's been my pleasure.
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
back to I Choose Me. I am back with doctor
Paul Conti, author of What's Going Right, diving a little
deeper into these internal drives we all have because I
feel like there's so much more to uncover. So let's
(00:21):
get into it. Let's jump right back into the deep end.
In a minute, we're going to sort of break down
your concept of our inner drives. But first let's start
out with this big question right now, in this world,
in this moment, what do you think people should be
most aware of when it comes to taking care of
our mental health.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, I think everyone should be aware that there is
a way to understand ourselves and we can bring that
understanding to creating change that we don't have to be
afraid of our mental health. If a person says physical health,
often others respond in a way that's interested, Oh, what
are you doing to take care of yourself? Here's what
(01:03):
I'm doing, and there's an exchange. But mental health creates
a reflux of stigma, and I'm often trying to get
away from that. And that comes because we don't anticipate
understanding or helpful change or I think knowing that we
can understand ourselves, we can bring change, just as we
can in our physical health.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
There's hope. There's hope in that, and I like that. Okay,
let's make the drives that you talk about even easier
to understand. So if you could please summarize the assertion drive,
the pleasure drive, and the generative drive.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So classically, it has been thought in the field that
we have two drives that each human has borne into
that person, an assertion drive, which was often called aggression,
and a pleasure drive. And these drives sometimes get a
little bit stereotype, like a caveman wants to club someone
and drag them back to the cave, or drag the
(01:57):
food back to the cave, or you know, people who
are doing things that are not healthy and that are
not right in the world. And often it's not that.
It's not that, it's that we all want to be
a presence in the world and have our and have
our presence felt in the world. We want to be
able to change the world around us, We want to
be able to make our way in it by asserting ourselves,
(02:17):
and we want pleasure, which isn't always things that we
classically associate with pleasure. It can be the pleasure of safety,
of having a roof over our heads, having enough food.
These these are the ways that we gain pleasure in life.
And the thought has been, okay, we have this assertion
and aggression and pleasure drive, and again that's often led
us to places that become that sort of look at
the worst in humans. It's not really what it's saying,
(02:40):
but it doesn't. It's a surprising that it ends up
there because it's missing the point that we can't just
have those two drives. It would not explain the survival
of the species. It doesn't explain altruism. It doesn't explain
doing anything that's not directly about the self. It doesn't
explain creating art, or creating beauty, or enjoying someone else's
(03:01):
enjoyment of something. That there's a generative drive in all
of us that is there in us to create and
to grow and to make the world better. It's not
just asserting ourselves in the world. It's wanting things to
be better, wanting there to be beauty where there wasn't before,
Wanting someone who's sad and down on the ground metaphorically
(03:22):
to be able to stand back up and be back
on their feet. When we see through that lens, which
I think are literature and philosophy across hundreds of years
of human experience across thousands, I think it bears out
that we can't just be aggression and pleasure, that there's
something else going on inside of us. And I think
(03:43):
it's so clear that that something else is this generative
drive to create and to make the world a better place.
It's why we build, it's why we know. It's why
people go into labs and discover cures for illnesses. It's
why people want other people to learn about things good
help them. There's so much that's good in us, and
when that's governing us, we're healthy. And it's not a
(04:06):
Pollyannic concept. It's what we do when we ourselves are
healthy and the groups that we live in, be they
family units all the way up to states to nations,
and states are healthy.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It seems like the generative drive is the most important
one for me. I just feel it feels like it's
the most important one. But yes, sometimes the other two
can kind of take over. So where do we find
the balance.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yes, the generative drive governs the other two, so it
is the most important drive. So for assertion and pleasure,
there are ranges that are ideal for each of us
based upon very complicated factors genes, early life experiences, adult experiences.
So we have different optimal ranges, but those drives can
be out of balance. So, for example, think about assertion.
(04:53):
We can become too assertive now we're trying to over
control things, or where we act in a way in
the world that's putting other people down so that we
can make ourselves feel better. Like there can be just
too much assertion, which can turn into aggression right, or
there can be too little assertion where if I want
something better to happen in my life, but I can't
(05:15):
get myself up off the couch to do it, there's
not enough assertion and I'm not going to have the
outcomes that I want. So there's an optimal range for assertiveness.
The same way with pleasure, people who are seeking pleasure
at a very very high level start to seek it
at the expense of other things that it may be
easier to eat the thing that's really unhealthy because it
(05:36):
feels good in the moment, for example. So we can't
focus too much on pleasure or too little if we
don't think we're going to get pleasure from anything, we
don't do it. So so someone who thinks, oh, nothing
will go I never have a fun when I go out,
or when I do this or that. Why do it?
Why buy it? Then there's such a low pleasure drive
that that's out of balance. So we want assertion and
(05:59):
pleasure to be in balance, and for them to be
in balance the aspects of self underneath the structure of
self and the function of self, those things that are
analogous to the physical structures in us, they have to
be in healthy places. Then the assertion drive and the
(06:20):
pleasure drive can be in healthy places where they're governed
by the generative drive. The more of the generative drive,
the better, right, the more the better it keeps those
assertion and pleasure drives in good places, and it helps
our structure and function of self stay in healthy places.
So this is how we can see, Oh, I can
understand how to be mentally healthy, how to build good
(06:42):
mental health, just as we can understand how to build
good physical health. And the generative drive is governing all
and you can see that born out. When people have
healthy aging, for example, they governed by the generative drive.
There's a lot of different words we could put to it,
but they're they're still learning. They feel a sense of
value of themselves in the world, and they're creating, and
(07:05):
they have relationships with others. And we know that when
people are generative, they're happy, and they're they killed they
instead of destroying.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Right. So I talk to a lot of women about
finding their voice, getting comfortable expressing themselves, asserting themselves. I
guess this would be under the assertion drive. And sometimes,
(07:34):
like you said, it can get out of balance and
it becomes too assertive. How do you recommend women in
general find their voice and how do you recommend that
we keep it in balance? And do we need to
think about keeping it in balance?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think the first point, I think is to be
aware of one's right to strive for health and happiness.
Any demographic that historically has been put by the society
around us at a disadvantage, or who has been told, oh,
you know, you're not supposed to do that, you don't
get to do that, has to be extra careful. Right
(08:13):
to ground, to the right within each of us, within
every person, to assert themselves in a good, healthy way,
to find the pleasures that we want in life, so
starting from our right, and very often people have had
put into them that they don't have a right to
assert themselves in the world. And you see this more
commonly in women than in men, who often are raised
(08:34):
in ways not always, of course, but the society around
us or the unit of people around can lead a
person to think that as they come to adulthood that
they don't have quite the rights that others do, and
they're supposed to do more for others than for self.
For example, things that can be very very good if
it's in a certain way, if it's through the generative drive,
(08:55):
but if it's in a way that says, well, you
don't get to have as much or you don't get
to have as much happiness, that's not okay. And we
have to be aware and ground to the right to
have a good life, to seek health and happiness. Once
a person is there, then we're on. Then we become
kind of on the same footing. Then we're looking at
(09:16):
ourselves and saying, okay, if a person is, oh, it
is too much or too little assertive, how might I
change that? And how did I get there? So, for example,
some people who are more assertive than is healthy. How
they get there is because they were told so much
to not be assertive that they have a reaction against it. Right,
and people can be too assertive, So we see that.
(09:38):
So if a person is being more assertive, we look
at okay, is it a reaction to something? Or if
a person is being more assertive, right, are they finding that? Hey?
As I became more assertive, things got better in life. Right,
I was able to say no to people. Are I'm
choosing this not that? And then we learn to be
more assertive and too much of a good thing isn't
(09:58):
a good thing anymore? Like, we're all so complicated, But
we can understand ourselves and figure ourselves out. So if
we start from the right to understand ourselves and to
build good mental health and to build a good life,
and then we approach ourselves with compassion and curiosity, then
we'll figure out what is going on in us and why. Yes.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yes, So anybody out there who's listening who doesn't recognize
that right to happiness and joy and a good life
should really take that to heart, because we all do
deserve that.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
We all have that right. Yes, And I would add
that doing for others, which is a wonderful thing for
us to do in life, does not have to mean
that the person themselves is deprived, right, And oftentimes that
is the messaging that a person or a woman is
supposed to create goodness for others, but it's okay for
(10:51):
that to be at the expense of the self, And
of course that's not okay at all. It's not okay
for that person, and it doesn't actually help the person
help others. Right, there are ways we have to start
with ourselves and say, okay, I get to take care
of myself. I have a right and even a responsibility
to myself to take care of myself. And if I
do that, then what we see is we become healthier
(11:14):
and stronger, and we're better for ourselves and for others.
So the idea that a person is built or a
person's role is to sacrifice for others is is not okay.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
No, it's just an outdated view. And I think that's
why I loved so much talking and encouraging people to
remember to choose themselves and in doing so, that is
when we are more effective in a positive way in
our world and in other people's lives. Yes, it's so
beautiful what you're saying, and I fully appreciate all of this.
(11:47):
Your book is dedicated to your daughters and everything that
makes them smile. That's what it says. Why did you
choose to include smiling in that dedication? And what does
it have to do with what's going right?
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Often, if we're able to smile, if we're able to
just feel good about something, that's a good symptom that
things are really going right inside of us and we
are all seeking we say happiness, because what does that mean?
What does it mean to be governed by the generative drive?
It means that we are finding peace, contentment, and delight
in our lives. We can just be peaceful. We don't
(12:26):
have to always be be thinking, doing, We can just
be right. And contentment is being aware of ourselves, of
our life stories, including the things that we are not
happy about or the things that may even be tragic,
but feeling okay about it. It's my life. I'm leading
it as best I can. That I feel a sense
of contentment with who I am in my life. And
(12:47):
we all want to keep the capacity for delight. You know,
we see delight in children where things can just light
their faces up. We need to be that way as adults.
So when I think I want to see them just
anything that makes them smile makes me happy. That's what
I feel inside of me is Okay, they're in healthy places.
You know, they understand all the world that can tell
(13:10):
us why we're bad or wrong or what's wrong with us,
why we're not good enough. I think that hasn't gotten
to them. They're they're healthy, they're balanced, and when something
comes up to smile about, they can.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Smile about it, celebrate it, celebrate that smile. So true,
I can very much relate to that as a mom,
as a parent, and I think that a lot of
people will be able to understand that because that is
like the ultimate food for our generative drive.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yes, it's both the ultimate food for it, and it's
also the ultimate outcome of it, which is why when
things are going right, and we really kind of double
down on that. Right, if things are going right, let
me figure out the things that aren't the way that
I want them to be. Let's move those into the
going right category too, And then we find that we
can have an upcycle of goodness where we're finding more
(13:59):
empower and agency and humility and gratitude, and the generative
drive is governing us more and there's more piece contentment
and delight, which helps us stay in balance and helps
the generative drive, you know, be fueled. So you can
see how we can end up at very good places,
just as we can spiral downward. I mean, we know that,
but we don't have to focus on that in a
(14:20):
way that is so cynical or do oriented or fearful.
We know that can happen to us. But we can
also spiral upward up, and it's bad that we can control.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I love that spiral upward. I never thought of that.
I always, you know, my mind goes to, oh, I'm
in a downward spiral, or yeah, it's catching you know,
it's taking hold of me. But instead turn it into
an upward spiral somehow. That's really important. Your your book
offers at the at the end a lot of practices
and questions. Why why do you think practicing is important?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, I think that the practicing is really the doing
of it. That with physical health we want to understand.
But then if we want more muscle mass, we have
to go and work out, right, if we want more
cardiovascular health, we have to you know, we have to
do something that gets so hard pumping. So there is
a doing of it, and the book is meant to
(15:16):
be very practical that there may be people who seek
outside of the book, you know, the help of others
or the help of professionals. But the idea is that
you can at least get a start, and maybe that
start is what you need. Maybe it gets you there,
right if you understand, and then you have a way
of applying that understanding. So that's why it's designed to
be very practical. And then, of course there are people
(15:36):
who don't have access to mental health resources. So to
have something that can both can both create understanding and
then also say here are practical tools for making change.
I hope, well, I believe in hope will be of
help to people who then just don't have access to
mental health resources and they're just going to be working
from that. Yes.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
No, there's nothing worse than walking around life with an
empty tool. It's so important to gain those tools, to
find them, understand them, and then put them in your
belt for later use, because we're definitely going to need
them at some point, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
And to be using them. See I imagine some of
the tools were in the belt, but the person's got
a tool in each hand. And you know, that's how
we want to be living, is have a lot of
tools in that belt and use them, and then we'll
see that upcycle of goodness in us.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
We'll see that upward spiral. Doctor Conti's book, What's Going Right,
a powerful new method for optimizing your mental health, is
available right now wherever you guys get your books. I
highly recommend it. It's very interesting. Thank you so much,
doctor Conti for spending this time with us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on. I
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
It's been my pleasure.
Host
Jennie Garth
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