How CBT changed my life

Hey Greenblasters! (Still rolling with the name. Any suggestions for a better one desperately needed).

This week, we’re talking about mental health for founders.

If you run a startup or your own business, you know the mental and emotional toll it takes:

• Burnout from constant overwork

• Pressure to be hyperproductive

• Guilt whenever you rest

• Anxiety about cashflow

• Massive mood swings

• Daily rollercoaster

• Fear of failure

It’s completely unsurprising that 72% of founders say entrepreneurship has affected their mental health.

And it’s a constant struggle for me personally.

I was diagnosed with depression many years ago, and I still take medication and see a therapist.

But one of the best tools I’ve found to manage my mental health on my own is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

You might have heard of it. Here’s a brief history:

In the 20th century, psychologists like BF Skinner began to think of human behaviours as being heavily influenced by our environment, rather than just our nature.

Building on this work, in the 1960’s Dr Aaron Beck - the godfather of CBT -noticed that all his patients with anxiety and depression had the same pattern of similar negative thoughts, and that challenging the thoughts changed their behaviours, which changed their moods.

CBT works to notice, understand, and counter those negative thoughts, so we can feel better by thinking better.

This was a life-saver for me. Maybe literally.

So I want to share the top 5 lessons from CBT that changed my life, and hope they help you:

1. You are NOT your thoughts

One of the most painful things about being human can be INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS. You’re standing on the subway platform, see some innocent person standing close to the edge and think, “what if I just…?”

Then you go: “What the fuck is wrong with me?!” 😰

Those kinds of thoughts, CBT teaches, are not revealing of how horrible you are as a person, but are extremely common, and come from all sorts of places: culture, previous experiences, trauma, etc.

Stop punishing yourself for your thoughts (saying this to myself).

2. Just because you feel it strongly, doesn’t make it true

CBT calls this mistake we all make “emotional reasoning”:

When a thought or fact makes you very happy or upset, it must be true.

Despite tons of messages in our society like “trust your instincts”, I actually have found a lot of comfort in NOT blindly trusting my instincts, because I know that they can be wrong.

This allows me to let go of strongly felt beliefs like “You’re stupid, lazy, worthless” etc.

Just because I feel it, doesn’t make it true 🙂 

3. EVERYONE suffers from negative biases about themselves and others

This I learned from CBT, which gives you worksheets filled with negative thoughts from past patients that make you feel like they’re reading your mind…

AND from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, authors of Thinking, Fast & Slow (what a book).

Related to the last point, we all have blind spots and commit logical fallacies, and those are often negative because the “negativity bias” helped us survive as human beings.

You are not alone. ❤️

4. Instead of waiting to feel better to get started, get started to feel better.

This may seem obvious, but I still use this principle to get out of mental slumps.

I don’t wait to have enough energy to go to the gym; I go to the gym, and poof, I feel energized. 🏋🏻‍♂️

I don’t wait to feel “up to it” to go outside in the morning. I go outside in the morning automatically, to walk the dog and the baby, and man does it help.

And I don’t to wait feel confident in sending you this newsletter;

I send it to you - not knowing if you’ll like it or even read it (thanks btw!) -because checking that off my to-do list gives me confidence.

5. CBT by itself is not enough

CBT is an amazing start for things like:

• social anxiety

• stage fright

• impostor syndrome

• fear of failure

• & lack of motivation

… but it also must be used with:

• a meditation practice (I do mindfulness)

• a movement practice (I do yoga, boxing, calisthenics and HIIT)

• a public speaking practice (I do 1:1 coaching, speaking gigs, and post content on social media

Only when you have all these things in place will you REALLY start to feel secure and confident about who you are when telling your story.

That’s it for this week! PLEASE share this with someone who could benefit, and check my book Transform Your Speaking Skills if you haven’t yet!

Cheers