PDF Summary:The Tools, by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels

Have you felt like trying to understand and analyze your problems isn’t enough to actually solve them? In The Tools, psychiatrist Phil Stutz and psychotherapist Barry Michels go beyond the common analytical approach to therapy by providing practical strategies for handling life’s challenges and unlocking your potential. They argue that focusing on practical strategies that change your behavior can push you past your mental blocks and limiting beliefs.

In this guide, we’ll examine the authors’ five strategies: embrace pain, accept yourself, love radically, let gratitude guide you, and stay disciplined. We’ll also compare Stutz and Michels’s ideas to those in other books, such as The Obstacle is the Way, and offer additional advice to help you change your behavior for the better.

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How To Embrace Pain

When you notice yourself dreading the pain of an uncomfortable situation, perform the following thought exercise: Visualize whatever pain you’re facing as a cloud. Welcome the pain by saying to yourself, “Bring it on.” Next, enter the cloud and say to yourself, “I love pain.” Finally, imagine the cloud spitting you out and say, “Pain sets me free.”

(Shortform note: In an interview about this strategy, Michels explains that it’s not uncommon for him to perform this exercise multiple times before feeling like he’s prepared to confront whatever it is he’s afraid of. He also explains that this exercise can take him up to about thirty seconds to complete. Over time, he’s reduced this to around 3-5 seconds.)

The Power of Visualization Techniques

The unique imagery of the cloud visualization technique that Stutz and Michels propose may help you remember it more effectively. In The Memory Book, the authors explain that it’s easier to remember concrete, tangible imagery. Abstract terms—such as people’s names—don’t have a specific visual meaning associated with them, so they slip your mind more easily.

Additionally, the action involved in Stutz and Michels’s exercise (stepping into the cloud and then being spat out of it) helps you retain the exercise. In Brain Rules, John Medina explains that our brains naturally detect and remember moving images because we evolved to escape fast-moving predators.)

Strategy #2: Accept Yourself

It can be difficult to step out of your comfort zone if you’re insecure about who you are. Stutz and Michels explain that to overcome debilitating doubts about yourself, you need to accept all of your negative attributes and transform them into strengths. In this section, we’ll explain why embracing what you least like about yourself helps you overcome social anxiety. We’ll also explain the authors’ strategy for becoming more secure and confident.

Why You Should Accept All of Yourself

By becoming vulnerable with yourself and others about your strengths and weaknesses, you’ll stop wasting energy on hiding insecurities and redirect it toward performing better in your daily life. For example, if you’re insecure about your struggle with technical tasks at work, but you have a talent for building positive relationships with coworkers and clients, you could have an honest conversation with your boss about your skill set. As a result, they might move you into a more communication-focused role. This will allow you to focus your energy on what you do best, rather than worrying about the inefficiency of your work elsewhere.

(Shortform note: In Strengths Based Leadership, Tom Rath and Barry Conchie argue that leaders should be open about their strengths and weaknesses. When you’re honest with yourself about your abilities, you can devote more time and energy to what you do well and build a supportive team around you to fill in for your weaknesses. When you and everyone on your team are performing roles you’re well-suited for, you’ll all feel more confident. Research Rath and Conchie cite suggests that when you feel confident about your work, you’ll be healthier, happier, and more productive.)

Accepting yourself helps you feel confident to express your true thoughts and feelings, which improves all of your relationships. When you’re in touch with your deepest thoughts and feelings, you’re able to express yourself to people more honestly and clearly. This will help you make others feel more appreciated and allow them to be more openly expressive with you, leading to stronger connections.

(Shortform note: Sharing your honest feelings won’t just improve your existing relationships—it can also help you attract a supportive community of like-minded people. In The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal says you can attract meaningful relationships by being honest and open about the things you personally struggle with. For example, if you struggle with anxiety, start a social media group that discusses anxiety. Doing this will help like-minded people feel heard and comforted, which will ultimately attract the right people to you.)

How to Accept Yourself

When you feel performance anxiety, imagine an embodiment of your negative attributes standing next to you. (The authors call this your shadow, but we’ll refer to it as your “dark side.”) Whatever manifestation you choose, make sure it’s personal. What’s important is that you feel its presence. For example, if you’re experiencing imposter syndrome at a new job, you might envision your insecurity as a nervous dog.

Focus on this embodiment of your negative attributes and imagine it working with you as an ally. By doing this, the authors say, you’ll tap into the universal power of personal truth. Embodying your personal truth means acknowledging your true thoughts and feelings—positive and negative—and then allowing yourself to express them wholly.

Once you’re partnered with your dark side, turn your attention to whatever audience you’re anxious about engaging with and internally demand their attention. The authors explain that doing this should fill you with confidence and help you communicate more clearly. For example, if imposter syndrome at a new job has kept you from feeling confident enough to speak your mind at company meetings, you might imagine yourself picking up the nervous dog that represents your insecurity and comforting it. You’d then picture yourself and the dog together calling for the attention of your audience.

Make Stress Your Ally

Stutz and Michels emphasize that we can overcome challenges by embracing the insecurities that cause us stress, but research suggests that it can also be beneficial to embrace stress itself. In The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal explains that depending on how you conceptualize stress, you can cause it to manifest in a variety of ways. A positive stress mindset can even help you perform under pressure with confidence.

McGonigal elaborates that one of the ways stress can manifest is as a challenge response. This response kicks in when you feel determined to achieve something or feel called upon to perform, but don’t perceive your life to be in danger (when you feel in danger, you’re more likely to trigger the debilitating fight-or-flight response). During a challenge response, your body releases hormones to increase energy, motivation, and focus. However, because you don’t perceive a threat, you feel confident rather than afraid. McGonigal explains that the increased confidence and energy evoked by a challenge response allows you to perform better during exams, in competitions, and at work.

If you don’t feel like you have the resources necessary to handle a given situation, you’ll experience a threat response. On the other hand, if you feel like you’re capable of taking on a situation, you’ll be more likely to experience a challenge response.To help trigger the latter next time you’re faced with a difficult situation, McGonigal suggests focusing on personal resources that empower you:

• View stress as an invigorating resource that can sharpen your senses and help you perform rather than as something to avoid. Stutz and Michels would likely argue that this strategy taps into your personal truth, as it involves acknowledging and embracing your stress.

• Think of moments in your past when you’ve handled similar situations well. Doing this can help remind you that you have what it takes to overcome the present challenge.

• Acknowledge personal strengths that can help you. For example, say you’re worried about making conversation with your partner’s parents during dinner. If you’re a good listener, focus on listening well and asking thoughtful questions about things they’re sharing with you.

Strategy #3: Love Radically

In addition to discussing internal hurdles, Stutz and Michels explain that we sometimes have to reconcile with problematic people in our lives. In this section, we’ll explain why it’s important to overcome your negative emotions about others and show you how to manage this in your daily life.

Why You Need to Heal Your Resentments

When you chronically ruminate on your negative thoughts about someone, you’re hindering your growth by pulling your attention away from self-improvement. The authors explain that you can’t change the past and you can’t always achieve satisfactory justice. By accepting this, you’ll be able to move on. For example, if you experience a difficult breakup, you might yearn to change how you behaved leading up to the separation or wish to receive a sincere apology from your former partner. You can’t change what happened, but you can do your best to learn from it and love better moving forward.

(Shortform note: It can be difficult to accept that you can’t control a situation and move on because it may feel like you’re giving up. In The Obstacle is The Way, Ryan Holiday explains that although acceptance can feel like an unsatisfactorily passive solution, Stoics consider it an act of strength. This is because acceptance can require a lot of self-control in order not to fret over how unfair a situation may seem and to wish it were another way. In this regard, we can also see how the Stoic virtues we discussed earlier can aid with acceptance. Wisdom helps you discern that your actions can’t change what happened in the past, and temperance helps you overcome any unproductive temptations you might have to ruminate.)

Resentful feelings can also aggravate your interactions with others. If you feel strong negative emotions toward someone you’re having a conversation with, this will be obvious and it may provoke an intense emotional reaction from them. This will only put you in a position to hurt each other. On the other hand, if you approach a difficult conversation or problematic person from a place of love, you’ll exude a calm confidence. This will help you manage your negative emotions and express yourself more clearly. When you’re calm and clear, you’ll also help the person you’re speaking with remain calm. As a result, your conversations will be more constructive.

(Shortform note: One possible way to approach a conversation from a place of love is by giving the person you’re conflicting with a compliment. In Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Jocko Willink explains that by doing this, you’ll also come off as secure and confident. This will gain you the respect of whomever you’re talking with and encourage them to hear you out. To deliver an effective compliment, make sure it’s sincere. An insincere compliment can backfire by weakening trust. Make your compliments more sincere and meaningful by noting something specific. It’s easier to do this if you pay close attention to the good things other people do—a practice that will also help you view your day-to-day more positively.)

How to Love Radically

When someone does something to make you upset or you’re about to deal with a difficult person, the authors say to imagine your heart expanding to accept the infinite love of the universe. Next, send the limitless love in your heart to whoever you’re experiencing negative feelings toward. Finally, imagine the love you’re sharing with them returning to you in an exchange that brings you together as one.

This exercise taps into the universal power of radiant love (the authors refer to this as outflow); that is, it helps you mimic the loving forces of the universe. To help you grasp the concept of radiant love, it might be useful to imagine the pure, unconditional love of a beloved pet. Despite our circumstances or attitude, our pets love us unceasingly.

(Shortform note: Research shows that imaginative strategies such as reappraisal encourage empathy and lead to forgiveness. Reappraisal involves reframing events in a new light to alter their emotional effect on you. For example, if someone has offended you, consider that their motivations might have been non-malicious. Perhaps you’ll forgive them. Forgiveness has been shown to decrease chronic negative emotions and promote positive emotions, improving general mental health. Given that Stutz and Michels’s heart-expanding strategy promotes empathy by prompting the person to visualize the experience of another person and imagine a loving connection with them, it could lead to some of the same benefits as reappraisal. Also, reappraisal is arguably another way to tap into radiant love.)

Strategy #4: Let Gratitude Guide You

Stutz and Michels say that when you notice yourself stuck in a downward spiral of negative thought, gratitude can stop your descent. Gratitude—one of the universal powers—makes you more aware of the loving, creative forces of the universe. In this section, we’ll explain why gratitude is worth practicing. We’ll also describe the authors’ strategy for fostering gratitude.

Why Gratitude Is Important

Gratitude expands your perspective so you can see more of the positive things in life, helping you see past the negativity you’re ruminating on. Chronic negativity can be debilitating, harming your personal life and performance at work.

(Shortform note: In The Secret, Rhonda Byrne explains that gratitude not only helps you become more aware of the good things you already have in life, it also helps bring more good things into your life. She says that the opposite is also true—negativity cultivates more negativity. She says this is because the universe reflects your thoughts and actions back to you. This theory is known as the Law of Attraction. According to this idea, the universe matches your conscious thoughts by guiding your intuition and emotions. For example, if you habitually think about being well-suited to a certain type of job, the universe will guide your intuition toward job opportunities that align with your thinking.)

More specifically, gratitude removes some of the burden we place on ourselves. By practicing gratitude, you’ll realize how much help you receive every day to be where you are. This takes some of the responsibility off your shoulders and helps you relax. The authors argue that along with helping you realize how many people love and help you, gratitude connects you to a spiritual source of love and life that cares for your well-being. Awareness of this source will help you feel less alone and conquer negativity more easily.

(Shortform note: Becoming aware of and feeling support from your relationships is also important for your health and resilience. Studies show that perceived emotional support from relationships is a critical factor in cancer recovery. One study showed that cancer patients with a lot of emotional support are half as likely to die from their disease as those without much emotional support.)

Additionally, gratitude helps you become more creative. By actively trying to think of things you’re grateful for, you’ll put yourself into a creative flow state. This flow state can carry over and assist you in other areas of your life. For example, as you become more aware of qualities in a loved one that you’re grateful for, you’ll more readily express things you appreciate about them. This will ultimately help them feel more seen and loved.

(Shortform note: Gratitude can also boost your creativity by easing stress. When you’re in fight-or-flight mode, your mind focuses on survival and doesn’t have time for open, creative thinking. By helping you relax, gratitude allows your mind to explore unhindered by stressful concerns.)

How to Unlock More Gratitude

When you notice you’re stuck in negative thought patterns, start by listing several things you’re grateful for. For example, you could try to think of different ways that people in your life have loved and supported you.

Next, sit quietly with the feeling of gratitude this exercise has stirred up. Imagine your heart opening to a spiritual source of limitless generosity and concern for your wellbeing.

(Shortform note: Although positive visualization techniques can be helpful for cultivating gratitude, so can negative visualizations. One expert suggests imagining how you’d feel if all of the things you value most in life (friends, family, health, and so on) were taken away from you. By introducing the possibility that the good things in your life can go away, you’ll become more appreciative for having them in the present.)

Strategy #5: Stay Disciplined

Finally, the authors emphasize that discipline is an essential strategy because it will help you be diligent about practicing the rest of the strategies. Discipline does this by helping you overcome moments when you feel resistant to using the strategies for your benefit. This resistance might happen because you doubt the other strategies’ effectiveness, you feel demoralized, or you’re overconfident in your ability to overcome challenges without these strategies. Unlike the other strategies, discipline doesn’t originate from a universal power—it originates in you. In this section, we’ll explain why discipline is difficult to maintain, then we’ll explain how to use the authors’ strategies with discipline every day.

Why Discipline Falters

One reason we lose discipline is because we feel unmotivated. Life’s relentless difficulties can make us feel like our strategies for self-improvement have failed to help. We may also just feel exhausted and unconfident.

(Shortform note: Some experts say that in order to stay motivated to achieve your goals, it’s important to be driven by intrinsic motivation (your drive to do what you innately enjoy). This is more sustainable than being driven by extrinsic motivation (external reward or punishment). Some experts say that intrinsic motivation and discipline are required to reach your long-term goals and achieve long-lasting health. In this view, discipline is essential to perform the daily habits that lead to your goals. However, you should try to form habits that you’re intrinsically motivated to do because these are shown to be the most sustainable. For example, if your goal is to lose weight and you enjoy community atmospheres, consider joining a local running club.)

If our strategies pay off and we succeed in achieving our goals, we may think we’ve grown past the need for discipline. The authors warn that once we feel like we’ve reached a good place in life, it’s easy to get too comfortable and abandon the healthy habits that brought us there in the first place.

(Shortform note: According to some experts, when you’re trying to replace old habits with healthier habits, it’s important to stick to your new routine to keep the old habits from coming back. Research shows that our old habits are deeply coded into us, even long after we’ve overwritten them with new behaviors. So, if you abandon your disciplined routine after feeling like you don’t need it any longer, you’ll become vulnerable to reverting back to your old habits.)

Finally, Stutz and Michels explain that the main reason we lose sight of our goals and let discipline fade is because we falsely believe our lives are eternal. This causes us to take each present moment for granted because we feel like there’ll always be more time to pursue our goals. When we believe that there’s always another tomorrow to get started on our goals, it’s easier to justify slacking off in the present.

(Shortform note: In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter suggests that Western society is particularly detached from death and lost in an illusion of permanence. He explains that death is uncomfortable to think about, so Westerners try to distract themselves from confronting it with materialistic pleasures. For example, Americans work an average of 47 hours each week and take pride in acquiring material things like big houses and new cars. One expert argues that the materialistic philosophy linked to Americans’ denial of death is partly based on expectations that modern technologies can extend our lifespans. For example, the US is home to 28 of the world’s 38 anti-aging labs.)

How to Maintain Discipline

How can we create a sense of urgency to accomplish our goals and be who we aspire to be? The authors prescribe a thought exercise: envision yourself on your deathbed and imagine all of the regrets you might have because you didn’t live in the moment more and strive to fulfill more of your potential. Let your fear of ending up in this regretful place spur you into action.

(Shortform note: Along with visualization exercises, consider using a “Memento Mori” (Latin for “remember that you will die”) calendar that displays the number of weeks in an 80-year life as boxes on one page. You can check off these boxes as a visual reminder of the time you likely have left to live. This functions as a literal “dead”-line.)