Episode #45 If Only… Finding Freedom From Regret with Dr Robert L Leahy
This transcript is computer generated and may contain errors and not be an exact representation of the audio
Hi This is Welcome to Self® and I’m your host Dr Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, business owner, and coach for women like you who want to increase your own self-care and self-compassion, change the relationship you have with yourselves and your business and elevate your business to a new level so you can live the full and meaningful life you desire.
Welcome to Self® is a podcast for women business owners. It is a place where you can come and learn about the practices that will assist you as a business owner, get tips on how to engage in your business in a way that is sustainable for you, realise that you’re not alone in the ways that you struggle, and have your curiosity piqued on various topics as I chat to wonderful guests and bring you solo episodes.
This is a place to remember that you are human first and have different tasks in your business and different roles in your life that need your attention and for that you need to take care of yourself in the best way you can. This is a place of nourishment, growth and helpful information. A place where you can learn ways to assist you and your business to thrive.
So let me introduce you to my next guest, Dr. Robert L. Leahy, Dr. Leahy he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, under the direction of Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy.
Among his many, many accomplishments, Dr. Leahy he is the past president of the Association for behavioural and cognitive therapies. Past President of the International Association of cognitive psychotherapy, past president of the Academy of cognitive therapy, the director of the American Institute for cognitive therapy in New York, and Clinical Professor of Psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell University Medical School in New York.
Dr. Lahey is the honorary lifetime President New York City Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Association, and a distinguished founding fellow diplomat of the Academy of cognitive therapy. He has received the Errante back Award for Outstanding Contributions in cognitive therapy. And in 2023, he was named the Global Ambassador by the Association of cognitive and behavioural therapies. And he also received the Outstanding clinician award from ABC T.
As well as being an editor on journals, serving on scientific advisory committees. And being a frequent keynote speaker throughout the world. Dr. Leahy is author and editor have 29 books, including his latest book, if only finding freedom from regret. And the word cure, which receives critical praise from the New York Times and has been selected by Self Magazine as one of the top eight self help books of all time.
It’s safe to say he knows his stuff. And on top of all these accomplishments, he’s a really lovely person. And it’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Dr. Robert Leahy to the podcast.
Robert L Leahy 3:56
So Hi, Bob, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to meet you.
It’s a pleasure to meet you. And I hope I can understand your Australian accent.
Hayley Quinn 4:09
I’ve kind of got a blend of an English Australian accent. So hopefully it’s okay for you. Let me start with you find that a bit about yourself and your work.
Robert L Leahy 4:19
Yeah, so as you may have written a lot of books, for clinicians, and for the intelligent layperson and what I’ve been interested in the past, I’d say 15 years is how we deal with our emotions. So, you know, I was trained in cognitive therapy by Beck. But I’ve sort of moved to a view that there are certain emotions that are universal, that we really need to have a more integrative approach to for example: emotions like jealousy like my wife for or partners interest in somebody else, envy somebody’s getting ahead of me ambivalence I can’t stand having mixed feelings, boredom, I should never be bored. Regret. These are these are lived emotions, I think all of us can identify with them at some point. And they’re complicated. And so when I kind of looked at the literature and cognitive behaviour therapy, it really didn’t seem to be any integrated, sophisticated approach that made sense to me. So I just, I just got interested in emotions, because I see patients and I’m a human being and- and I think that there’s a, there’s a tendency that some people have things like cognitive behavioural therapies against emotion, which I can understand that it can sometimes seem overly rational, somewhat invalidating. But I think we can expand our approach to have a humanistic cognitive therapy. Yeah. So like you say, you’ve written many books, and I was looking on my bookshelf the other day, and one of my first early books was actually one of yours when I first qualified as a psychologist, so this feels really nice actually interviewing.
Hayley Quinn 6:19
But your latest book is if only finding freedom from regret. So can you start by defining for the audience what you mean by regret? And what could be some of the impacts of this?
Robert L Leahy 6:30
Sure. Yeah. So regret isn’t a feeling of discouragement or sadness, or, or even remorse in some cases, over something I did, or did not do. Or anticipating having regret about something I might do or not do. So the impact of regret, which is quite quite interesting, just to say it’s a sideline that in a study of recording conversations among college students, the most commonly mentioned emotion with love, or emotions about love, the second was regret. And so it’s a very, very common emotions of people, oh, I, I regret that or I shouldn’t have done it, it was it was so foolish. And, you know, we’re constantly clearing ourselves or others talking about regret. So it’s a very common emotion. The impact of it is, as I said, there are two ways of having regret about things like in the past, or things in the future, things I did or did not do.
So for example, people who have a lot of regret about the past tend to ruminate, criticise themselves, label themselves, you know, to become depressed, not really be in the present moment. Because if you’re ruminating about the past, you’re not in the present moment. And in terms of anticipating regret, you know, people who are anxious or depressed, might anticipate if I do this, I’ll regret that. So if I have social anxiety, if I go to the party and introduce myself to Haley, I might regret it because she might think I’m boring, or you know, or obnoxious or something like that. So we anticipate regret and keeps us from doing things, because we’re trying things that are also people. And one of the things we’ll talk about is that a lot of regret can be useful. So for example, we also have to get rid of regret and don’t have any regrets.
But if you think about, like, you know, people who are impulsive, who spend too much money or drink or drink, you know, act out inappropriately, whatever, is that where they’re making the decision, when they’re acting impulsively, they’re not anticipating that they’re going to regret the consequences of what they do. So some people have a deficit in regret. And that’s a real problem that perhaps in some ways, that’s the overlooked problem with regret the people who the incapacity of either anticipating regret or for learning from their regrets. Yeah, and we see that all the time.
Hayley Quinn 9:20
Yeah. So it can actually be a helpful thing, can’t it if you factor it into some of your decision making, like you say, if you’re a particularly impulsive person, or you’ve got behaviours that are really not helpful and perhaps harmful for you in your life, and actually anticipating some regret, could be a good way. For some other people. This anticipatory regret, could get them quite caught up in anxiety and concerns. And as you as you were talking, I’m wondering if people who are quite perfectionistic would they be more likely to be caught up in this sense of I’m going to regret I might regret this.
Robert L Leahy 9:55
Absolutely. So several things, one there’s there’s a, there’s a particular software thing called Google engrams, where you could, you could Google on this platform, how often a particular word appears in published language. So in English, how often goes regret appear. So between 1870 and let’s say 2022, regret after 1980 increases tremendously in terms of being mentioned in, in published books or articles, whatever. So regret is, has become much more common than it was 40 years ago, similarly, the same period, referring to perfection as being perfect, also increases. So, that’s, it’s an interesting thing is kind of, like, you know, I think in American in, in other parts of Europe and Australia, I’m sure that, you know, 90 need either after 1980, you had an increase in, in sort of the higher level of ambition, higher inequality within society, and people thinking that I should be able to accomplish anything. So you have this increase of wealth, I can do anything, which is a real trap. If you think you can do anything, then you’re really thinking you can defy the laws of gravity, which doesn’t work. It’s not a good career choice. But the other thing in terms, perfectionism, elite, there’s a concept in economic theory and decision making called maximizers versus satisfiers. So, maximizers are people who are trying to get the very best, you know, they go to, they go to a restaurant, and the menu comes in, they start doing pairwise comparisons of 50. Plus, I would order return your food sandwich and get out of the restaurants. So the maximise your steak, I have to have the very best in order to be satisfied. In what we know is that maximizers take longer to make decisions, they require more information. And when even with the outcome, they’re less satisfied. And even if the outcome is objectively better than the outcome for so called satisfier. They’re still dissatisfied, because they compare to what they imagined. So maximizers are kind of a version of our perfectionism, they have what I call existential perfectionism, you know, my life is going to be just perfect. And I’m going to have the perfect job and all that. So that really interferes with decision making.
And it makes it hard to make changes to take risks, and to live with the real world. I mean, we’re gonna live in the real world, everything involves trade offs, you know, it’s kind of like, if you’re married or unmarried, whatever job you have, they’re gonna be pros and cons.
Hayley Quinn 13:04
Cognitive Load to that isn’t there, I mean, that there is just such a heavy cognitive load to such intense decision making. And when we think about the prevalence of burnout, particularly, you know, a lot of my audience and business owners, is that stuff’s got to kind of impact the risk of burnout for people as well.
Robert L Leahy 13:23
Right? Yes. Yeah. It’s so in some ways. Sometimes you have to think it’s only a job. Right? It’s not my life. One way of putting it in perspective, Haley is they’ve looked at the regrets of people in hospitals who are facing imminent death. Yeah. What do they regret? They regret that I spent too much time at work. But it wasn’t true to myself. I wasn’t true to my feelings. I didn’t see my friends enough. I didn’t tell people I loved them, you know, things that your grandmother might have told you are the things in life. That’s, that’s the bottom line when you’re facing death. That’s what really counts.
Hayley Quinn 14:07
Yeah, absolutely not. No, I should have spent a few more hours, you know, working on that document or doing a bit more marketing or something? Not really, it’s gonna matter to us when we’re in our final days.
Robert L Leahy 14:21
Yeah, exactly. It’s a lot to be learned from working out how people face the end. And how we think about what, what do we say to them? Oh, you could have made more money or you could have published more books or articles. Right. As opposed to when we actually I think when we think about people who’ve died, we think about ordinary moments, you know that you’re walking along a hiking trail or making love with somebody that you care and cared for, you know, those are the things that really matter and regret in a way is saying that this alternative. Here’s that you missed out on, that would have made all the difference. Cancel the motion that cancels out your life.
Hayley Quinn 15:13
Yeah, absolutely. That’s lovely, I think of actually. So I’m curious to know, what was it that inspired the writing of this particular book? I mean, you mentioned that this was like the second most mentioned emotion from the students. But what was it that actually inspired this book for you?
Robert L Leahy 15:29
Well, I think I am not a particularly regretful person. And I’m fortunate that I have a pretty good life. You know, I certainly have regrets. Like, they think when I was in college, I didn’t study as much as I should have. But I got into Yale graduate, it’s turned out. It wasn’t a complete failure. You know, when I was single, I had girlfriends that may have stayed with for too long. But you know, what, I’m happily married for many years now.
What kept me interested Haley is that I see patients on a regular basis, which I really enjoy. And I found that a lot of people I talked to have regrets or anticipate regret, you know, I should have pursued this career, I should have done this. I shouldn’t have married this person, you know.
And so I thought kind of regret is such a powerful emotion I was talking with somebody few years ago, who was in her 90s, who was regretting that she got married at 22, to somebody she divorce, you know, 20 years later, and then married somebody else who she was very happy with. But she was regretting that decision she made over seven years ago.
So I thought, Gee, my God, this is a powerful emotion, what, what is cognitive behaviour therapy.
And it was almost nothing. So I began looking in the decision making literature, the behavioural economics, literature, and so forth. And regrets has been a very important aspect of that. And regret is another anticipated cost of making a decision. So when you when you have people doing pros and cons, like we do in cognitive therapies, the advantages and disadvantages, we often don’t say, we’ll have regrets. How much of a cost will that be? And that’s how that was introduced to economics. behavioural economics, no regret as the unseen costs and making decisions.
Hayley Quinn 17:37
Yeah. So you talk in the book about getting unstuck from regret and having more clarity and confidence in decision making? Could you talk to us a bit more about this, and perhaps share some examples of how people might get unstuck from regret?
Robert L Leahy 17:53
Right? Well, I think there are a number of things. I think one, one metaphor to use about life and about redress, is to think about your life as either chapters in a book, that you’re the author of which chapter or unit for you think about yourself on a train that has many stops. So regret could be a stop on the train, like, you know, somebody who, who, you know, had a patient years ago who was caught in in infidelity, and certainly regretted it. And we felt like That was a stop on the train, where you did something you now regret, let’s think about regret, as the opportunity to learn and improve your relationship, which, in fact, being his wife, with all the courage, and resilience that they could muster, actually improve the relationship as a result of that. I mean, it wasn’t easy.
So regret could be like a stop on the train or a chapter. And you move on to the next one. So the question is, when you move on to the next station, and the next chapter, what have you learned from your decision? And I always think about, we always think about regret as a failure, as opposed to as an experiment. So if your listeners are business people,
if you’re an investor or an entrepreneur, guaranteed, you’re going to make some mistakes, you’re going to make some mistakes, you’re going to lose money, right? If you’re in it. I mean, I just learned that this week that Uber finally is making money. I mean, think about this. How many billions of dollars Uber brings in and how little they pay their workers. And now they’re making money what a surprise she I thought you’d go into business and make money. That’s the long term view. So but if you think about regret as we carried out this experiment, I tried this behaviour and the outcome was what I wished. How can I learn from that? How can I make things better in the future. The other way I think of using regret is to look at the regrets of other people. So when I was in college and in graduate school, a lot of my peer group, were using alcohol and drugs to quite an excess. And I thought, wow, the only thing I really have of any values my brains, I had no money. I wasn’t, I wasn’t a trust fund kid, I came from a poor family. On scholarship, I thought, Oh, my God, what am I going to learn from these people that was don’t have a drug problem or don’t have an alcohol problem.
And so, the cheapest way of using regret is to use the regrets of other people. And there’s lots of examples out there, you know.
So to regret is an opportunity to learn to grow, to make yourself better. The problem is some people’s that they ruminate, and they could spot on with regret. And we can talk about how to deal with that. Yeah, so so not seeing it as like the final destination.
Hayley Quinn 21:07
Moving, yeah, and looking and thinking, okay, what are the lessons that I can take from this, so that I can actually move forward and make better decisions with confidence? Moving on, say somebody’s really haunted by something that like you talked about this 90 year old client that’s been holding on to this regret for seven years? And that’s almost heartbreaking, isn’t it? Yeah. What a thing to carry evil when she had finally then met somebody that she was happily married to holding on to this time in her life that she can’t change. So if somebody’s particularly haunted by that, and it didn’t work out as they hoped, what what might be something people could do with that? Because I’m sure there are many people that hold on to the regrets.
Robert L Leahy 21:53
Right? Yeah, I don’t think people want to regret I don’t think they want to feel bad, I think I think they get hijacked by it. You know, it’s like, it’s jealousy or envy, you get hijacked by emotions. And I think a way of looking at it is that like, like, like, you can think about regretting it, what you can ask the patient or client.
Do you think that you’re focusing on regret right now? And of course, it’s a truism. That’s what’s the focusing on, you know, what are the costs and benefits of continually to repeat this in your mind? Obviously, it’s costly, makes them depressed, cancelled out the present moment, attained appreciate it.
What if you were to accept that it happened, and you can’t change the past. That’s the acceptance piece, which is very liberating. In a way, it’s kind of like a rite, I made a decision that wasn’t good. But further wasn’t all bad. Did you have any children with that person, you know, this person did. Now that was a good thing.
What is the bigger picture is what I call the life portfolio. Right? So in fact, this person had so many things in her life, that were really, really meaningful. We all like we often say, we regret, we often think about this little tiny thing, if I had only done something different, my whole life would have been better. But all of us have a life portfolio we have, you know, we have our friends, we have our family, we have our, our spiritual or value systems, we have our community, we have our work, we have our health, we have our ability to learn, to grow and all that. So if you think about, I have this life portfolio, and you have regrets about something that happened years ago, I can’t change, how can I make this life portfolio as good as it can be?
Maybe it could have been better if he had not make that decision. But right now, the only thing that you have any control over is and make this this life better than it is. And one way of doing that is I grew up poor. So I think one of the advantages. Both were Bob report, I think there were a lot of advantages of being poor. I mean, there just has been it just what has been an issue that I take with me is the ability to appreciate what I have, I don’t take it for granted. And the ability to understand people who don’t have less and to have compassion about Riley’s and scorn and marginalise them, you know, kicks in winter down, so you can feel like you’re up, you know, that’s what people do.
So thinking about you know, if you were to like this one way of thinking about it, Haley is what I call the inner negation technique.
Which is just imagine everything has been taken away. I’ve used this with Wall Street people I’ve used with with cab drivers in New York and usually with anybody. Everything has been taken away. You have to do things you have no body you have no memory. You have no family.
You have nothing, you’re absolutely nothing. Now listen, we’ll do a roleplay I’ll play god. You can see this miscasting, but I’m going to reach on that once. Because he actress and rent strike. So there’s an opening there for me as God. So I’m going to play God. And you can have one thing back at a time, I won’t tell you how many you’re going to get back. The only way you can get anything back is to convince me that you appreciate it. And why you appreciate it. You think about that, or your listeners? You know, I did this with one guy I’m thinking about, you know, he’d want his daughter’s back. So what do you appreciate that like tears in his eyes? It’s tough Wall Street.
You know, even the difficult times we had and you would love it, him and all this. You want to just wipe back and why? And, you know, he, I said, Well, how about your eyesight? If you haven’t asked for your eyesight back? When would you? What would you want to see? And why? Why would you appreciate that? Of course it was his family. And I say here’s the irony is he had lost a couple of million dollars and cheated out of a couple million dollars. So is understandably angry. So here’s the irony. You have everything you want back that’s the most important vote because you’re so focused on this. You haven’t been focused on what’s right in front of you.
Hayley Quinn 26:25
Yeah, absolutely. So it’s really isn’t it? It’s but you know, I work from a compassionate focus perspective. And when you’re talking it’s like people getting threat it when you’re in regret, you’re in threat. So you’re really narrow focused, aren’t you on this one thing like this man, you’ve lost money. And all you think about is how am I gonna get my money back? How am I going?And it’s really about zooming out, isn’t it? Like zoom outof your life? So you can put lots of things into perspective. I love that that concept of life portfolio, there is so much more than this one thing isn’t there. It is right?
Robert L Leahy 27:01
And the thing about called the Albertson old friend of mine who developed some sessions, focus therapy, and impalas actually authentically compassionate, he does the walk he does the talk, right?
Hayley Quinn 27:12
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he’s a wonderful guy
Robert L Leahy 27:15
is a real match. But you know, it’s, it’s like, you can even think about compassion, as the antidote to be great if you want to be inoculated about regrets. Focus on compassion on a daily basis. Yeah. Besides focusing on loving kindness, that every living creature that you can think of even the ones who passed on, if you practice a loving kindness, prayer, or meditation, that, you know, like thinking about, like, I can think about Paul Gilbert right now. Wish him well and kindness as his wife, Jean, think about what a wonderful person is how I love him as a friend. I feel better already. I don’t have room for regret. I’m too much caught up. I’m hijacked by compassion. So, you know, the thing about it is that is that people who regret that my life could be better.
I mean, one thing, I was talking with a patient once who was regretting he didn’t have to make more money. And I said, Do you think there are any people who envy you? You know? And of course, if he thinks objectively, we’d be like, 99% of the workforce?
Hayley Quinn 28:28
Absolutely.Absolutely
Robert L Leahy 28:32
we don’t realise how lucky we are even when we think we’re unlucky.
Hayley Quinn 28:36
It’s that perspective shift, isn’t it? But you’ve got me all warm and thinking about Paul and Jean now, so let’s just do a little shout out to them because they are a weekly
Robert L Leahy 28:46
kisses to Paul and Jean. Yeah.
Hayley Quinn 28:50
They’re lovely. But it really is that perspective piece, isn’t it? I mean, that there are people looking at me and you and people listening, that are looking at our lives and saying, Gosh, I wish I had a life like that. Yeah. And we’re looking at other people’s lives, maybe say, Oh, I wish I had lived like that.
Robert L Leahy 29:10
Yeah, it’s an interesting thing, how we often go around idealising other people’s lives. And the reason we do that is we don’t know them. Yeah, we don’t know what they do.
Exactly. You know, we don’t know what’s behind the curtain, Haley in what’s behind the curtain can be pretty gruesome. You know? And, you know, you look at these celebrities, who incredibly talented people with normal money and fame, celebrity opportunity. You know, overdosing on drugs on their fifth marriage and in and out of rehab. You know, it’s a very difficult time. It’s very difficult experience. I think being a celebrity because you have a should statement all the time. I should be happy all the time. I should never have any difficulties. My partner should do everything. I want to because I am so famous. That’s a, that’s a absolute guarantee for being miserable. There’s there’s a concept that I found very helpful, called, you know, adaptive humility, which is not. I’m a doormat, where I’m less than people say that I’m a human being just like everybody else. I don’t deserve any better treatment, I’m not any better than anybody else a lot worse than other people. But I can always learn from my mistakes. And I can always respect other people for who they are. The depth of humility, you can see the connection with compassion, the adaptive humility, the people who have adaptive humility, one had better marriages, second, are, are considered better friends. I mean, you don’t want a friend who never says they’re sorry, right?
In it allows you to live in the real world, you know, so if you don’t have, if you don’t have everything is 100%, you have an 80%? You can say, well, you know, let me try to be content with 80. I could try for 85 or 90%. But while I’m doing that, let me try for contentment. Let me say yes, to 80%. And make the best of that.
Now, I was thinking about contentment with a patient who he was talking about aspiration of trying to be wealthier, more successful. And it was a physician. And I say, can you remember a time in your life, when you felt just really content, like this moment, is really a peaceful, wonderful, complete moment, just as it is. We said, you know, I was doing my residency. And I was sitting outside and there was this pond outside. The hospital was in the Redux. And my friends and I were just sitting here looking at the ducks. So this was the duck cure for that frustration with not having that being a maximizer not having everything, you know, the ducks don’t have everything. The ducks are ducking in and out and happy to be in a little pond hanging out with Daisy and Donald over here, you know,
their content, resists contentment, that seems to be a difficult concept. In a culture, we’re always pushing ahead. We never get to stay in the moment and be content and settled and peaceful.
Hayley Quinn 32:35
Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, we are we do live in a society down, we were striving is really rewarded. It’s like, just keep going to the next thing, go for the next thing. And we’re not when I’m working with people are always to take time to slow down and actually celebrate where you’re at. Exactly. Spend some time where you’re at. But also that that piece you’re saying about, you know, when we look at other people, I’ll say to people be very wary when you’re looking at all the shiny stuff online, or God. That’s the marketing work. Well, that’s not the story. That’s the marketing. And some of it will be genuine stories, and a lot of it is people who are putting out what they want the world to say. So we want to be comparing ourselves to something that potentially isn’t that real.
Robert L Leahy 33:20
Here’s a homework assignment for every day for the rest of your life. Count the number of things you see that are being marketed that you deep down inside, you know, you don’t need. One, you’ll save a lot of money. And so you’ll have a lot less envy.
Hayley Quinn 33:35
Yeah, I can’t remember where I heard it was probably at one of Paul’s trainings. But I think I can’t remember who it was. Who said I love going down to the markets on weekends to realise how much stuff I don’t need.
Robert L Leahy 33:50
You only take one empty bag and returned with one empty bag.
That’s liberation is sort of like deeds or hijacks, like I need this new Apple, you know, device or, or computer or technology or new wardrobe or whatever it is. I mean, I think one of the things about the pandemic is that, you know, people were no longer going into an office wearing fancy office clothes. Yeah, I have all these suits in my apartment. It’s a really nice suits. I haven’t worn any of them for over 30 years. Yeah, I feel sorry for the suits Haley’s the students they feel they feel I go and I talked to them I said don’t i It’s not about you. You’re a good suit. The other suits you’re also good suits, but I just haven’t had a need for you but I I will check on you periodically. Yeah, maybe put put it on we retire and then put you back in the closet for six months. Don’t take it personally. Get to know your brother suits.
Hayley Quinn 34:51
The suits aren’t having too much regret just hanging they’re not living their full and meaningful life. I love it love it.
So, people in business making, making decisions, we want them to be able to make decisions with clarity and confidence and not get caught up in regret. So I guess, you know, the things you’re saying is remembering that, you know, if we, if we do something it doesn’t work out. It’s not a failure. It’s it is just data, isn’t it? It’s just didn’t experience it’s less rostrum.
Robert L Leahy 35:25
Yeah. It’s part of the process is part of the learning process, you try something out, it works or doesn’t work, you try to improve it.
There’s, there’s an interesting book on the history of design called success from failure. And what it is, is that what what a lot of designers, engineers, or whatever, or product designers do, is they try to see where, where the limits are on this product, like where the Olympics are on a computer, or a bridge, or something that you design or piece of technology.
And, you know, to see where it will fail under the goal is to find out where it will fail, because that will tell you where the improvements can be made. And you can think about Steve Jobs from Apple. He was a genius at this.
And so there’s a sense in which we can think that’s a contradiction, successes and failures. But if you have a failure, and then you think, gee, I can learn better I would I used to do a lot of windsurfing, or sailing, what you do is you are doing windsurfing or sailing. If you want to get better you you sail as close to the wind as possible without falling over, which means you fall over.
But that’s how you learn how to sail on heavy winds. And that’s what makes it exciting says looking for this pushing the limit. So it’s an analogy, I think for the idea of thinking about things not working out, as experiences you learn from and you grow from. It’s an opportunity emotion. Yeah. So it’s almost like, you know, get get really good at failing, so to speak.
Hayley Quinn 37:15
Again, I can’t remember who I heard it from, so I can’t credit them. But it was like learn to fail quickly and move on. Yeah, right.
Robert L Leahy 37:23
Yeah, it’s kind of like, like you like, we often think that we have to avoid failure. So for your, your, your business people, your investment people, a lot of my patients over the years have been investment people in New York, and if they’re not investing the money that they’ve been allocated, which means that they’re going to lose some investments, if they just hold all of it in cash, they’re gonna get fired. So which means that they’re paid to take risks, they’re paid to be active, because that’s how you beat the market by being active.
So if you think about that taking risks is part of success.
On the other hand, there are some people who don’t assess risk appropriately. And they think their changes, for example, this whole Bitcoin thing, as became, you know, this whole fraudulent, you know, company, you know, taking down billions of dollars, with, with fake products, taking risks, thinking you’ll never get caught. So when you look, when we look at the when they’ve looked at some of the regrets of business people have is that they didn’t invest enough. They didn’t, they didn’t take risks, or they didn’t start their own business, you know, that kind of thing.
Failing is, is the is the feeling of things are the steps you take in business towards success. I mentioned Uber, you can say Uber failed for all these years because it made no money. But what it built up was market share, and the customer base in a product and a brand. And so now, I mean, Amazon didn’t make money for a long time. Yeah. horrible failure, Amazon.
Hayley Quinn 39:24
So that’s the thing is, we need to move forward. And some of that is going to involve things not working. If we don’t take the risks. We stay where we are. We’re never even going to have the opportunity to live full of means, right?
Robert L Leahy 39:37
Yeah. Yeah. I think one way of looking at it. If you if you’re honest with yourself, you say, I never have had any regrets. I think two things. Three things. One, you’re not honest with yourself to that you haven’t lived a full life because you haven’t taken the risks. And third, you haven’t learned from your experience.
You know, it’s like, it’s like one of the chapters in my book, if only is, you know, people often think guilt is such a bad thing, we have to erase guilt. But imagine if you were single, and you’re looking for a partner for long term relationships, and you met this person that you liked each other, you’re attracted to each other. This person said, you know, hey, they gotta tell you something, I like you. But there’s a module in my brain that’s missing. That’s the capacity for guilt and shame, and never feel guilty, and never feel shame. And I never anticipated how likely would it be, you’d want to form an intimate, close, lifelong relationship with somebody that’s a capacity for kill, why his guilty evolved? If it’s, if it’s always so bad, why is 100 evolved it because it told people, it’s sigma, you’d have to eat something, same thing with thirst, some people who have the absence of thirst, and those people get dehydrated and collapse. So guilt, guilt is a social emotion, that helps us avoid acting against the interests of other people in ourselves. And second, that helps us repair relationships. So if you said, I never apologise, you know, I did what I did, because I am who I am. How could you have with good relationships with somebody who thinks they’re only an individual, and they’re trying to live in a world with other people, you know, so their individualism about you know, I just do who I am, I do my own things, you have to live with it. Those are people who are constantly trampling on the feelings and rights of other people. So when people give an apology,
the best apology is going to be one that you fully acknowledge your own suffering in in hurting somebody that I feel so bad, that I hurt you that I had a hard time sleeping, and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I hope you’ll forgive me. But I can understand why you might not, you know, that we don’t act entitled to an apology. An apology is the gift that somebody else could decide to give or and last is.
Hayley Quinn 42:16
Yeah. So when regret shows up in our lives, sometimes it like we said earlier, it is a good thing, because it helps you reflect it helps you slow down and look at what is it that I’ve done? Or what is it that’s happened? What can I learn from this? What what’s the next station I want to arrive at on my train? Exactly.
Robert L Leahy 42:35
Right. There’s always the next station on your train. Yeah. And it’s, it’s something that, that we all, we all think it focalized on one thing, like if you think that that’s a whole spectrum of your life, you know, from your early childhood to now into your future self, right. And you think about all these different chapters, a different, different personifications of Haley, or Bob or whatever. That’s a lot of information. Why should we narrow it down to this one thing?
Hayley Quinn 43:12
Absolutely. Absolutely. So writing a book is such a huge undertaking. And you’ve written many of them, which is amazing. What’s been your biggest learning through writing your books? And are there still other books that you’d like to write?
Robert L Leahy 43:32
Good questions. Yeah. So I’ve written and edited 29 books, and I’m working on the third edition of the treatment plan for depression and anxieties. But we hope to finish up in the next few months to be published by Guilford.
I don’t know I mean, I, I’ve thought about what what drives me at this point in my life, is that I want to write, I want to work on a book, I want to write something that I want to read. I want to write something that I’m interested in that just simply add something to my resume or the royalties which will not change anything in my life.
It’s a it’s a sort of things about like, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a sort of a political psychology book about populism. So you know, we have Trump in the United States but we have populace all over Europe and Eastern European Orban Putin so populous.
You have popped the central left, like Chavez and visits really when he was alive. So what drives what are the psychological factors that drive populism? And, you know, it’s like, like, if we say, somebody’s racist, that’s whether a populace that doesn’t help us explain why they’re a racist, you know, is this sort of like, it’s like saying, oh, somebody has opinions different from me. So therefore, it’s stupid. That doesn’t explain why they have those opinions. Plus a lot of people who are populist are very smart.
So I’m really intrigued by that I’m intrigued why it’s so popular. And then I think I have some ideas. But that’ll be that would be a real challenge. So I don’t really know what my next book is going to be. I mean, I don’t want to be signing any contracts in the next 24 hours.
Hayley Quinn 45:33
Fair enough. And what have been your biggest learnings through the process of writing? And it goes, have you had any regrets through your writing process?
Robert L Leahy 45:43
I haven’t thought about having regrets and writing. I mean, I think if you talk, if you talk to somebody who does a lot of writing, they will acknowledge it’s painful. I was talking with a colleague, just last week, published a lot of articles and books. Were talking about this. He said, It’s actually him physically painful to write, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s physically painful, but it’s painful, I got to sit down and when since
I think what I’ve learned about writing is that you have to be disciplined, we can’t wait for the Muses to show up and inspire you. So what I do is I try to schedule like an hour on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Sunday, where I’d write or try to write.
And you get a lot done. If you do that on a regular basis. If you do that for let’s say 45 weeks, and you write six, seven pages, every week, you have a manuscript, you have 320 pages or something.
What I’ve learned from writing is I’ve learned from writing that it actually helps me become a better therapist. So if somebody like I wrote a book that worried here, so if somebody comes in with worry, I’m ready, I am ready for that. I wrote a book on jealousy, like, oh, jealousy, that’s my thing.
The other thing is, what I should do is I should put all my patients as my co authors, because without them, no material. I mean, you’ve seen this, Haley, you’ve seen people who are academics who never see patients who write about clinical stuff is thinking, What world are they living in? These are not real people. You know, these are theories and abstracts and philosophical grandstanding or whatever. So yeah, so I think about writing as it actually keeps me interested in seeing patients because I, I’ve always curious, how does that make sense of this person? How does that work for this person? And then how can I help them but also, how can I help other people understand that I’ve heard their story listening to this person in front of me? Everybody has a story?
Hayley Quinn 47:57
Absolutely.
Robert L Leahy 47:58
I plagiarise I plagiarised, and that’s what I’ve learned, taking other people’s lives and their dialogues, and their inspirations or disappointments, and I’m using it for my own profits.
Hayley Quinn 48:13
Or maybe you’re honouring them in a way of you know, being in service to many people, because I’m sure throughout all the books you’ve written, you’ve you will touch many, many lives.
Robert L Leahy 48:22
But it’s an interesting thing, because I grew up in, we have a weakened house 100 miles from New York in a very rural area. This is where I do all my writing 78 acres and forest over here, largest wetlands and Connecticut over here. All we have here are chipmunks and birds and flocks and you know, deer and stuff like that.
This is where I do all my writing. I think of myself as the sitting here at this little desk, you know, typing away, and then somebody halfway across the world, the world’s, you know, sends me an email, I’ve read this, oh my god, I can’t believe it. Somebody outside of this little village knows.
Hayley Quinn 49:05
Well, like I say, this is like a full circle for me, because on my bookshelf is, you know, a book I bought very, very early in my career that you’ve written. And then I was like, Oh, wow, I’m gonna interview Bob for my podcasts. This is so cool.
So if you were only able to give one piece of advice, and I know that can be hard to distil it down, but what would you most want our listeners to take away from our conversation today?
Robert L Leahy 49:29
You’re the author of your own life. And you don’t have to be stuck on a previous chapter or a previous station on the chain. You can write the next chapter. So think about what you want that to be. I mean, we often you know, there’s a whole area called Narrative psychology, like thinking about the story of your life.
Think about the story that you want to write in the next chapter. Think about what you want that dream to be. And think about how you can use your regret.
As a checklist of what to do differently in the future, right? It’s kind of like, like if you if you look back and you think about the mistakes that you’ve made or things that didn’t work out, collect that is useful information. So remind yourself, don’t treat other people this way. Your don’t, you know, don’t take risks that are unnecessary or don’t over drink, or don’t do this or whatever. But do this, live a life that you would be proud of? become the person that you would admire? You know, that’s how Aristotle defined the virtue, it becomes a person that you would admire? Would you admire somebody who’s cruel and selfish? Or would you mind? Would you admire somebody who’s kind and compassionate, like Paul Gilbert, become Paul Gilbert,
I think that’s what it’s all about.
Hayley Quinn 51:00
You’re gonna have to contact him after this and let him know, he’s got much love and many shout outs.
Robert L Leahy 51:07
So he might just,
Hayley Quinn 51:09
I might just let my listeners know, for anybody who would like to know a bit more about Paul, there’s an episode I think, episode four of the podcasts, I’m interviewing Paul as well. So you can go and have a listen to him.
So I just wanted to say as well, when you were talking before about you, you set aside like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and you allocate an hour, and you don’t wait for that sort of magical moment to arrive, you just sit down, and you have the willingness to do the work. I was thinking in terms of you know, business where people are kind of working on a project in business, or working on their marketing, or whatever it is, you know, these things can be really helpful. Can’t wait to just say this, this is actually what I’m going to shedule him for myself. This is what I’m going to do. And I need to have a willingness, not necessarily the motivation to sit down and do it. So thank you for sharing that. So this next question, I asked to all of my guests, and it’s my favourite question is, if you could meet your 80 year old self, what do you think he would say to you?
Robert L Leahy 52:06
Oh, hurry up.
I think I think I think my 80 year old self would say, you know, keep doing what you’re doing a sure balance in your life.
Keep yourself to keep yourself close to the people into the things in life, that have eternal value, like nature, love and kindness. And don’t forget that you grew up poor, you had a hard time, but you overcame those obstacles, other people are dealing with their obstacles.
And there’s, there’s always something to learn. I mean, like Cicero, wrote, many useful, called letters were actually essays, as dialogues, or as letters to other people, he will want an old age. And one of the things he says is that when you get older, you’re not driven by all the desires and ambition that you have, when you’re younger, you kind of are where you are. And the other part is that as long as your mind is working, you can always learn. So I think about Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, who died a couple of years ago at the age of 100. And we call this Tim little named Tim, a week before he’s died.
He you know, he was listening to audiobooks, because he has macular degeneration is good to see. He was listening to audiobooks. And he had a wide interest in audio in all kinds of things. And he was working on research projects, and he was co authoring books,in his mind was his mind was, was intact in the very end. And so if you think about, as long as you get away from the mind eight, I have this as my study because I have all these books. I have 1000s and 1000s of books, I have 1000s of books on my iPad, and I plan to buy other books I won’t read
I’ve got to live a very long time, because I have an obligation to these books, and I have an obligation to those suits. And maybe you could put your socks on and read some books. I think that’s a brilliant idea. And now you’ve solved my problem. And I feel like a complete human being now but but you know, it’s an interesting thing, because people think about people who are older, are going to be depressed and miserable. It’s actually the highest rates of depression are people in their 20s Yeah, that wasn’t always the case. But it is the case in today’s today’s world
In this world of alienation, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Hayley Quinn 55:04
So finally, if people want to find out more about you get in touch, where can they find you and engage in your work, and I’ll put some links in the show notes of the episode as well.
Robert L Leahy 55:14
They can take, they can come to New York City, go to Grand Central Terminal, take the number six, up to 15. Okay, that’s probably not a good idea.
We have a website cognitive therapy nyc.com. And you can go to Amazon, or any similar book platform. And all my books are there. My books have been translated into, I think about 23 languages. I sometimes don’t know, because sometimes people publish the books and don’t contact the publisher for the right to publish books have been translated into almost all the major languages available.
Hayley Quinn 56:02
Thank you again, Bob. This honestly has been such a pleasure. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. And I have no doubt that people will get a lot from listening to this episode as well. Well, it’s great to speak with you. And I think we’re also made a great is we had the same laughter
what’s the saying a day without laughter is the day wasted.
Robert L Leahy 56:24
Right? What are the metrics I used in talking to people about choosing friendship partners? Is who can you be silly with you think about this, make a list of all the people you know, and check them off on the silliness metre, right? And I’ll bet the people you feel closest to you can be the goofiest with you silly.
Hayley Quinn 56:48
I was just fortunate enough last week to celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary with my darling husbane.
Robert L Leahy 56:54
And one of the things that we talk about that we love so much about our relationship is we have laughed together every single day we’ve known each other. So that’s a great. One of the predictors of recovering from trauma is the number of times you recall laughing in the previous year. Oh, wow. It’s the Irish sort of therapy.
Joke joke your way out of misery.
Hayley Quinn 57:22
Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m so grateful to you for coming on the podcast. Same here. Here’s a you have a great, great day. Great evening. And thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure for me to thank you so much. Take care.
Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope your time here was helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person you think might benefit. If you’ve benefited in any way from the podcast, please do me a favour and share my pod some wealth by giving us a five star rating and review. ratings, reviews and shares really helped to increase the awareness and reach of the podcast, meaning I can spread helpful information more widely. All Reviews are welcome and much appreciated as I know they take time out of your day. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join my mailing list. If you have any particular topics you’d like to learn more about, or guests you’d like to hear from, please reach out and let me know I’d love to hear from you.
Music and editing by Nyssa Ray thanks Nyssa I wish you all well in your relationship with yourself and your business. And may you go well and go gently
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