Leon Logothetis, also known as “Leon the Kindness Guy,” is a global adventurer, motivational speaker, and author best known for his work in spreading kindness and human connection. Formerly a successful stockbroker, Leon left his career to embark on a journey around the world, relying solely on the kindness of strangers for food, shelter, and transportation. His experiences led to the creation of the Netflix series The Kindness Diaries, where he shares powerful stories of compassion and generosity. Leon now dedicates his life to inspiring others to lead with kindness, showing how small acts of goodwill can create lasting change in the world.
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Spreading Kindness One Mile At A Time: Leon Logothetis’ Inspiring Journey
Kindness
We’re joined byLeon. I’m going to allow you to introduce yourself because in all honesty, I’ve read a lot about you but I’m sure I’m going to screw it up somehow by talking about your experiences. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
First of all, thanks for having me on. I used to be a broker in the City of London. This is going to be the short version. I had everything you could want on the outside but on the inside, I felt very broken. I ended up quitting my job after watching the movie the Motorcycle Diaries, which is about a man traveling around South America relying on kindness.
It inspired me and moved me to realize it was another way to live. I started traveling around the world, relying on kindness, meeting all these amazing people, being inspired and hopefully, inspiring some people along the way. I ended up moving to Los Angeles, did a couple of TV shows, wrote a few books, a documentary and here we are. That’s the very short version.
I appreciate it. I have to say, in our area, we’re not able to get the Kindness Diaries on Discovery Plus but I have done my research and watched many videos of you on YouTube. What an amazing story and what an interesting thing to focus on kindness. Why kindness?
The easy ask to is that when I grew up, I felt a lack of kindness. I always had this urge to go on adventures. I created this show and this life, whereby I went on adventures. It was all about relating to people from a place of the heart, generosity, and love giving and receiving.
Leon Logothetis, the Kindness Guy, otherwise known on social media. I referenced your show the Kindness Diaries for those of you that are able to view it online. I strongly suggest you do. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve seen a bunch of clips of it on YouTube and it looks fascinating. Very moving. One story after another. I’m not sure if you’re able to sum up your takeaway from all of those experiences. Can you tell us a bit about how that kindness has impacted you?
The Kindness Diaries was when I purchased a vintage emoji bike with a sidecar. I drove it from Los Angeles all the way around the world back to Los Angeles with no money, no food, no gas, and no place to stay. All I had was relying on the kindness of strangers. People always say to me, “What was the one thing you learned?”
I learned many things but the main thing I learned was that we’re all the same irrespective of religion, how much money we have, and how cool we think we are or think we’re not. At base, we just want to be seen, heard and be loved. It took me traveling the world, becoming part of so many different cultures and meeting so many different people to realize that one simple thing. That we’re at the base of our humanity the same.
Super well played. Very hard to sum up but you did a great job now doing that and I agree. In the world we live in, there’s so much conflict, opinion, and difference. I always find and always say this out loud even in session as a family therapist to patients of mine, “Kindness is free.” It doesn’t cost you a dime. It’s an option that so many of us overlook. The core piece that I took away from watching so many of your videos is just that basicness of being a human being and recognizing that, as you said, we all just want to be seen and not overlooked and treated well.
Often, that option is sitting right there in front of us. I applaud you. Your work that you’ve put together, your Kindness Diaries in general, which I just heard was a proof for season 3. Congratulations. Your general demeanor around this topic, Leon, is admirable. I think there’s so much to this conversation around kindness that again people overlook. Yet, here we are talking about mental health and wellness. To me, it’s one of the pillars that can’t be overlooked because without kindness, we don’t have that connection with other people.
We all know what it feels like to be treated in a kind way, hopefully. We all certainly know how it feels to be treated in an unkind way. No one’s perfect. This isn’t about Leon being a perfect human being and being the kindest guy and always being kind. Sometimes, I’m not. That’s just life. It’s about making a commitment to how you show up. Showing up as best as you can and as often as you can.
Self-Care
I love the way you put that. It brings us into one of the large topics I talk about here is self-care, what is self-care and what does that mean to you. Can I throw that at you? What does self-care mean to you, Leon?
Treating myself in a way that I would want to treat someone else. Often, we treat ourselves in ways that we would never let someone else treat us, calm, meditative, with love, with respect, dignity and grace. It doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, I talk to myself, I’ll wake up and I’ll do the opposite of that. I’ll be like, “If someone else treated me this way, would I accept that? No, so why are you doing it yourself?”
I like how you said that. It feels like an option. As you mentioned a moment ago, it’s a work in progress for all of us. As long as we’re on that track and we’re working toward it. As long as we’re aware of it and we see it as an option. We can always change course if we need to and as you said, what a great question. Why would we allow ourselves to do that if we wouldn’t allow other people to? What a great point.
From my point of view, Leon, I’m a family therapist. I see a lot of individuals in my office, mostly young adults and normalize it forward is to me was created based on the concept of so many young people not doing these things. We as older adults need to be role models and get young people to recognize that these are achievable things. These are options and choices that we all can be making. Honestly, if we don’t, our mental health suffers.
Mental Health
If we’re not taking good care, not getting good sleep, not getting some physical activity, and not eating decently, our mental health is impacted. Therefore, we’re not feeling so good about ourselves. That brings me to my next question to you and that is mental health. We hear that phrase thrown around a lot. What do you think of when you hear the phrase metal health, Leon?
Most of us or many of us do not have a good relationship with our mental health meaning that we’re broken. Society has broken us in many ways, some more so than others. If we can have the desire to make our mental health as good as we can, then things will change. Most of us don’t even focus on our mental health. We only focus on it when we’re broken and shattered into millions of little pieces. Whereby, mental health is a daily thing that we have to look at and deal with. Sometimes, it feels so insurmountable. We don’t deal with it until it’s too late or not necessarily too late but it’s at a point where it’s become very difficult to deal with.
Certainly, with young people. I see that all the time. When I get a call from a parent and they say things to me like, “This, this, and this already happened.” “My son has failed out of school and their home.” One of my first thoughts is, “Why didn’t you call me three months ago?” You’re 100% right, most people don’t want to focus on their mental health until they have no choice or until they have to. You made a choice to leave an occupational path because of an inner desire that you had to change things up. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
It goes back to what I said about the mental health piece. It became so desperate internally that I felt like I had no choice. That was a good thing because had it not become that desperate, I probably would still be doing it but now at this point, there would be a moment where it would all implode. It was something that I felt very strongly about. I wanted to live as peacefully, as calmly, and as freely as I possibly could and I certainly wasn’t doing that. It was like the pain that pushed me. The pain pushed me to change.
I’m thankful. I think many people are thankful, Leon, because you’ve done a lot of amazing things since then. Let’s not overlook the fact that just showing us the kindness in other people and where that exists all over the world and the opportunity where we all have. Even on a daily basis to hold the door or to say something kind or to be complementary to somebody and the impact that those words have on a person. Sometimes sustained throughout the rest of their day or even further than that.
I think about the impact of the unkind words and turning the news on and being told that we’re different and that person is a disgrace or whatever it is. It happens all the time. We are being bombarded with negativity. Therefore, that’s how we are living.
I think you’re right. Here we are, we’re progressing in the states here toward another election. I do worry about that. I worry about how that message, those negative messages impact not only adults but also young adults and their general wellbeing. Wellness is a topic that is broad. Wellness and mental health, it’s in there. There’s lots of things that fit in there but wellness is one of those topics that’s super broad.
As you mentioned, people take care of certain aspects of their wellness. They are certainly things that are overlooked with regards to wellness. When you think about freeing yourself, your journey and things that you’ve learned through other people, when you think about that word wellness and the importance of it. What comes to mind?
There’s physical wellness, so looking after yourself physically. There’s mental wellness. The chances are, if you go to the movies and watch a horror movie. You’re going to come out not feeling particularly good. If you go to the movie and watch a movie about love, humanity and about hope. You’re going to feel better. Be very careful what you put into your system. We put a lot of bad stuff into our system without even realizing what we’re doing.
These things alone. These things are social media. I use social media for my business, I’m there. Some of the things I come across are just disturbing. You think about what that does to a young person’s psyche. They’re just looking at it. Unfortunately, this society was different many years ago. We were in school. Students now, over 70% of kids have tremendous amounts of anxiety. Very few of those kids get helped.
To your point from earlier, something like 11% of kids nationally get assistance. A big part of that is based on what you said earlier, which is kids wait and wait until things get bad. I’m not even so sure it’s just kids. Adults sometimes do that as well. I’ll have an adult come into my office and they’re clearly in mouth pain. I’ll say to them, “What’s wrong?” They say, “My mouth has been bothering me for weeks.” I said, “Have you been to the dentist?” “Not yet.” “Why not? What are you waiting for?”That happens with physical and mental health. In addition to people waiting, are there other reasons in your mind that people don’t address these things that they let them fester?
It’s painful to address it. It’s easy to turn on Netflix.
That’s for sure.
You look at your phone. It’s easier to do that or to eat something or to take a drink or to do a drug than to sit and face yourself. That’s the hardest thing to do. That’s why people don’t do it. Also, we live in a culture where it’s instant gratification. You know better than I do that to heal doesn’t happen instantly. It takes time and dedication. That’s why people don’t do it and that’s why the people who do it are the ones who are in desperate need more often than not.
That’s a great point and often overlooked, the simplicity of how hard it is. Caring for yourself has gotten a bad name over the years. When you use the word selfish, a lot of people think negatively. How do we explain things like going to our doctor for an annual exam or going and getting our teeth cleaned or doing things that we’re supposed to do to maintain ourselves. Those are positive things and yet sometimes people label those things in a very selfish manner. It’s confusing.
As a young adult, what do I do and what do I not do? You’re right, I do think we live in a world where we avoid things that are hard. Things that take a lot of energy and take a lot of our time, even though they’re important. We tend to avoid those things. You’re 100%. It brings me back to this show and the conversation around mental health, wellness, and the importance of us talking about it. The importance of us trying to figure out where we start. Maybe kindness, Leon, is the place we start because kindness is one of those things.
Even if we’re feeling bad, we can always send a kind message to somebody. Whether it be electronically or out loud or even through our behavior. As I said, over the years, I’m a door holder. I like to hold doors for people, especially when I go get my coffee. I’m just amazed at people’s response by holding the door and waiting there for a bit. They’re so profusely excited when they get to the door. I’m like, “I didn’t do much.” They’re like, “You did.”
Advice For Young Adults
Those actions that people could be doing, those kind acts where it doesn’t take much but as you said, it could set the course for that person for the rest of the day and maybe even longer. That’s a great place for us to start. If you were talking directly to a young adult nowadays, picture a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old or a 21-year-old person who’s struggling with some of these things.
Maybe in a way where they’re feeling broken. Maybe in a way where they’re contemplating. What should they do about this?I feel Leon, so many people in life I’ve been given such good suggestions from people over the years. I’ve had some good mentors guide me and make suggestions. I’m wondering what suggestions might you offer a young person if they’re in that particular spot?
Find one person who you feel safe with and share everything with them because part of the challenge is we don’t speak. We let it fester and then it destroys us. Maybe you don’t want to share everything. That’s okay, but share something. Share. Let it out.
That’s immense. That’s a great suggestion and especially for men because I find that so often men hold it all in. For some reason young men, they’ve been given that message if that’s what we’re supposed to do. As a human being, I don’t care if you’re male female. To me, our bodies don’t like that. At some point, our cup runs over. We can’t hold all of that in but I love what you said. Whether it’s a friend, a therapist, a parent, a coach, or a teacher. It doesn’t even matter as long as they’re willing to listen. In one word, share. I love that.
Share your pain.
I have a funny feeling you have lots of stories that you’ve learned over the years in your travels, Leon. We’d love to one day pick your brain and hear about them. In all honesty, in watching each of your experiences and I’m sitting at my computer listening to what you said and what they’ve said, every single one of them touched me. Every single one of them just brought emotion out.
I would encourage all of our listeners to go on and do their homework and watch your videos and your show because to me it teaches a lot about humanity, about people and what brings us all together as you started with. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. One of the other things I like to do in these episodes is just because I want the conversation to continue. I know I’m putting him on the spot when I do this, but I asked that if you have somebody and your network, whether it be a friend, a relative or a co-worker that you would like to nominate to normalize it forward to keep the conversation going. I would love to interview that person. Anybody come to mind, Leon?
I do. We’ve been working on a documentary called the Kindness Within. It will be coming out soon. The guy I have in mind was the writer and one of the producers. He’s one of the wisest and kindest men I know. His name is Alpha. I would love to put you in touch with him so you can interview him.
I look forward to that and have you shoot me as information offline. Is it too early to ask, where can our viewers watch this when it does come out?
The movie hasn’t come out yet. If you go to KindnessWithin.com, you can see the trailer and you can see everything that the movies are about.
I can’t encourage our readers enough to do that. you’re a unique individual, Leon. You’re a trailblazer around this concept, what a basic easy important concept of kindness. Thank you so much for joining us and for your time and energy. I appreciate it.
Marc Lehman delves into an open discussion about mental health and wellness with Ellen Bradley Ganus, online business expert, entrepreneur, athlete, and network. Ellen explains why self-care, consistent incremental efforts, and strict time management are crucial in maintaining sound mental health and finding genuine joy every single day. She also talks about the importance of embracing mindfulness practices and the right way to balance eating, sleeping, and exercising to secure significant personal growth.
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Mental Health And Wellness With Ellen Bradley Ganus
Welcome, everybody. This is a day where we’re going to talk about mental health and wellness. This project is called Normalize It Forward. We are welcomed by a fantastic guest, Ellen Bradley Ganus.
Ellen Bradley Ganus
Ellen, I have to say that as I was reviewing all of the things that you’ve done, online business expert, entrepreneur, athlete, and networker, you are a super passionate individual and, certainly, mom is at the top of the list. You’ve done so many different things. I wonder if I could toss a ball to you and have you tell us a little bit about who Ellen Bradley Ganus is.
For the sake of the readers and the subject at hand, which is all about mental health and wellness for families, children, and so on and so forth, I do many different things. However, everything is motivated by my love of family and wanting to be the best mother that I could be. My children are grown. It is my son’s birthday. He’s 22. My daughter is 25. Even though they’re no longer living at home, we still work and cultivate this relationship at every new stage of life.
My background is as an actress. I’ve been in the arts my whole life. I met my husband on a TV show when I was eighteen at Northwestern University. I have had what feels like so many lives since then. For the last couple of years, I’ve had the great pleasure of aligning with a health and wellness company that has allowed me to provide solutions for people who are looking for foundational elements to living their best life. Meaning, they want to look better, they want to feel better, and they want to be better.
What I learned over the last few decades is that when we don’t have the key nutrients in our body working right, it doesn’t matter how many affirmations we do or how many counselors we see. If we’re going home and we’re relying on that bag of Fritos, you are what you eat. Part of mental wellness, as it relates to what I’ve done, is really about that nutritional foundation for well-being.
I still work in the arts. I’m a flamenco dancer by night. I’m producing a film. I’m still acting. I’ve always had a love of personal development in every aspect of it, which led me to become a triathlete in the sports world and then allowed me to continue to be physical and active in the dancing world. The last few decades though relative to nutrition and mental wellness have been my great focus.
You’re a person who whenever I’ve asked you what you’re up to, you never say, “Hanging around.” You’re always doing things, which is great. You’re doing wonderful things.
Thank you.
Self-Care
That leads us to the first topic I wanted to chat about, which is self-care. Self-care is so important when it comes to mental health and wellness. I’m curious to throw the topic out to you and ask what self-care is and why it is so important.
Self-care is everything about cultivating a great relationship with yourself. People have it backward. We’re seeking outside validation on a regular basis, especially with social media, likes, comments, and what’s the interaction there. The reality is if we don’t have a relationship with ourselves, if we don’t feel good when the door closes, or if we don’t feel good when we are alone and we can’t enjoy being alone, then we’re not going to have very successful relationships outside of self. Self-care is honoring yourself, being true to yourself, and building a relationship with yourself where you’re able to identify the pain, able to identify the joy, and able to make strategic changes in your daily routines to stay better attached to that path that is helping you live your best life.
I love that. Self-care is one of those things that everybody defines a little differently. You’re right. In many ways, we’ve got decisions to make as a human being. Some of those decisions that we make aren’t healthy. Some of them are. For some reason, selfishness has gotten such a negative tone in our community that it makes it hard sometimes for people, especially parents, to step out and go to the gym, go to a therapist, or do things that we know to be healthy for them.
When you’re exhausted, stressed out, and not taking care of yourself as a parent, you cannot be patient with your kids. You cannot be as loving as you’re capable of being. If you don’t feel good, how can you behave like you are feeling good?
It really comes down to sharpening the saw. When we take care of ourselves, we’re in a better place to take care of others.
My next thought about self-care is the fundamentals that I talk about. I know you feel so passionate about eating, sleeping, and exercising. You’re so passionate about doing those things and managing all three. I feel like every human being, including me, has trouble managing all three on a regular basis but we know in the backs of our brains, that’s the key. If we can do those three things, we’re generally in a healthier place. I’ll ask you. Why is it so hard to manage all three?
Nobody could do everything all at once. What they say is the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It has to do with understanding that if we’re consistent, even if it’s 1% a day, that 1% can grow into 2%, 3%, 4%, or 5%. It all starts with very small incremental changes, but the key is consistency. If you think of your life like a pizza pie and you divide it into sections, ask yourself, “How much am I moving? Am I sitting at a desk all day? Am I not moving my body? Am I not helping my cardiovascular health? Am I not getting that blood through my body so that my muscles feel agile and good?”
Our vitality is directly connected to movement. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a triathlete. It doesn’t mean that you have to compete in anything. It means that every day, you do something, even if it begins with taking a walk. When you talk about how you manage it, you manage it by focusing on those different slices of the pizza pie a little bit each day and maybe eliminating a little bit of sugar in your diet.
It doesn’t mean you’re going to make a whole different dietary change. Maybe start with one thing. It may be eliminating a little bit of white flour or a little bit of sugar, having your protein before your carbs, or decreasing a little bit of the calories that you’re taking in a day. Choose one aspect of eating. Choose one aspect of exercise. Help yourself go to bed maybe fifteen minutes earlier than you would’ve. Maybe go to bed earlier but also wake up fifteen minutes earlier. How can you give yourself more time in the day? Especially busy families, You have to find the time that everybody else doesn’t need us. It’s the consistency of small incremental changes and then focusing on all those different aspects of self-care.
You said it really well. Your kids are very similarly aged to my kids. We’ve been through that rollercoaster if we don’t have a moment to do these things. I love how you said that. Do it 1 bit at a time or 1 step at a time so it’s not so overwhelming. Let’s face it. When we’re overwhelmed, we throw our hands up and don’t do anything, right?
That’s right. Fear, uncertainty, and overwhelm lead to the same thing, which is inaction. You have to break that cycle. You have to do some sort of pattern interrupt to get you out of that. It also has a lot to do with who you hang around with and what your circle is like.
Mental Health
No doubt. Healthier individuals tend to breed healthier individuals. The more people surround themselves with like-minded individuals that way, the healthier they become. Speaking of health, the phrase mental health, I’m always fascinated by this. When I say mental health, what do you think of?
I think of my ability to process life, engage with life, and be joyful in life on a regular basis.
That’s a really good definition. Often, I interact with young adults or their parents. Physical health, we got it covered. Everybody knows what physical health is. When we get a broken leg, we go to the doctor. We got that. When it comes to mental health, anxiety and depression are at an all-time high for young people. My area of work is often on college campuses. To me, the amount of kids that are either anxious or depressed is overwhelming. It’s going up each year for lots of different reasons. I wonder from your perspective what you think some of the causes might be that have led to such incremental rises in mental health for kids.
There is so little human interaction. We are being machine-taught. We’re socializing on machines. It has completely broken down the ability for people to know how to communicate and know how to express themselves on all levels. It has skewed our ability to trust because we don’t even know what it is to have a real relationship. We’re measuring relationships by, “Who ghosted me this week?” That has led to where we are. We’re living in unprecedented times politically. With good reason, people are stressed. It’s a very difficult time.
I want to share something with you that I wasn’t going to bring up, but it’s important as a mother, as we talk about anxiety, and as we talk about moving forward. This is why his birthdays are always so special to our family. When my son was two years old, he had a vaccine for diphtheria and tetanus. I was on the National Vaccine Association. I was trying to help the Vaccine Association make vaccines safer for children.
In an ironic moment, we took this vaccine, and then two days later, my son’s bone marrow stopped working. We were hospitalized at Children’s Hospital in ICU for a four-year journey. He had no white cells. He had no red cells. He had no platelets. If you touched him, he would bleed to death. The only opportunity for him to stay alive was, at that time, a bone marrow donation which had to be from a sibling. My daughter wasn’t a match.
When we talk about stress, I’m sure that every parent here can only imagine what it would be like to be faced with a two-year-old in a hospital with a PICC line to his heart and not knowing if each day is going to be the last. My daughter was in kindergarten. We lived every single day not knowing what the next day would bring.
Honestly, he’s a miracle. We did forms of chemo that took his body down to nothing, and then slowly, reticulocytes and red cells came back. A lot of gratitude, a lot of life, and a lot of trying to figure out how to move forward from there, releasing the fear of what we experienced and deciding how we are going to live our life and what’s important. Everybody has to say to themselves, “What’s important to me? What brings me joy? How is it that I am contributing to my family, my friends, my community, and the world?” It’s through our contribution and sense of purpose that we can rise above everything.
It was coming out of that journey that made me link arms with this company that was forming in order to educate about the perils of toxicity in our world. By cleansing the body at a cellular level and rebuilding the body, we had a better chance of staying alive. I made that my mission. That turned into the whole nutrition of how we feel, how we look, and all of this stuff that I talked about.
Coming out of that was a complete paradigm shift. Everybody needs a personal paradigm shift. They need an exploration of that inventory of, “Where have I been? How am I feeling? What’s got to change?” It’s up to us to make those changes. When it comes to children, the adults in their lives who love them have to be the ones to foster communication and try to dig in and find out what’s going on in their lives.
When we got out of the hospital, I wanted to expose my children to everything. I wanted to uncover their talents. They were never on screens. They were never playing video games. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that, but everything in moderation. We started teaching my son piano from the hospital bed. He and my daughter ended up being concert pianists. We gave him dance classes. He then started playing baseball. He’s playing for the Big 10 at Northwestern, hoping for his final year for a draft. He ended up playing in the Pan American Games representing Team USA at twelve.
My point is to expose them to things that they love and then help them stay the course and develop those talents. While other kids were getting bored and existing on social media platforms, they were busy honing a craft. They were busy getting better at something they enjoyed. They were entering into their own competitions to test their skill levels and give themselves a way in which to compete against themselves.
They were interacting with other kids that were doing similar things. We were interacting with other families that had that same priority. I know it’s more difficult now than it was then because everything is machines now, but you’ve got to find your space to play a sport, play an instrument, dance to a song, go out with a friend, or have conversations. That’s what most people are choosing to not do.
That’s very well said. First of all, thank you so much for sharing that story with all of us. What is your son’s first name, if you don’t mind me asking?
His Name is Tyler.
Let’s celebrate his birthday. Happy birthday, Tyler. What an amazing, resilient young man and resilient family. You guys have been through a lot. I like so much of what you had to say. I told you that I wrote down passionate. When I was talking about you, I wrote down passionate. She’s passionate. As a mom and as a parent, you said it best. We have moved away from this type of interaction, this direct interaction.
I’m a virtual therapist. I see people in my office and I see people online. I’m the first one to say nothing’s going to replace in-person connection. When I talk to young people and they won’t go into a store to talk to a store manager about employment opportunities, it makes me sad. I also know, and you know this, that when kids go off to college and they don’t have that ability to talk to people, how do we as adults expect them to make friends? Let’s say you got a social kid in high school. They go from a bunch in high school to none. They go to college and it’s a whole new world. I agree with you.
Happiness And Challenges
One of the biggest reasons why we’re here is I want to normalize the conversation and get young people and parents to understand it’s okay to have struggles and challenges. What’s more important is what are you doing about them and what steps are you taking to help find your happiness in this world. Happiness comes in all different sizes and shapes.
It has to be defined by the individual. What makes each person happy is going to be different. A large part of mental wellness relative to everything we’re talking about is mindfulness. I raised my kids as yogis. We’re all yogis. Meditation was a part of our life from the minute we were born. I highly recommend that as something to explore.
There are great apps like Balance. You can still get it for free. It’s guided visualizations. They even have sensorial meditations where your phone will vibrate in your hands according to the gongs, according to the storms, and according to whatever the ambient meditation is. It’s such a great way to get your feet wet. Even if you don’t know anything about it, start some practice of getting quiet with yourself.
Time Management
It’s a tool. Let’s face it. We could all use additional tools. Clearly, every kid goes to school with their phone in their pocket, so to have an app on that phone that teaches them how to do things like that is great. Lots of people aren’t experienced with that. I appreciate the suggestion. That’s fantastic. The more tools kids can have, the greater their wellness gets and things like going off to school don’t have to be so daunting. You mentioned mindfulness. Time management is also a part of wellness. Let me ask this. What are some things as an individual you do to manage your time?
I always make my schedule the night before and always leave space in the day for the unexpected and welcome unexpected miracles. I try to not overschedule. I leave what I call blank space. I make my schedule the night before and time block according to activities. Time blocking might be the first two hours of the day for my meditation, my workout, my journaling, and my gratitude. That’s uninterrupted no matter what. You have to have the time blocks that are non-negotiables for yourself.
I’m an entrepreneur. It’s a little bit different from a corporate job. If you have a corporate job, you’re going to have a task list and you’re going to have when you arrive, when you go home, and what your check off for the day is. For me, it’s about what are my income-producing activities, what is growing my pipeline, and all the different aspects of what completes my day. I made a schedule the night before. I time block. I make sure there’s empty space in the day. Every night before I go to bed, I do the same thing so that I have a schedule. Some people feel like, “If I make a schedule, I’m going to feel like I’m in jail,” or something. When you make a schedule, it gives you more free time.
I agree. It gives you the bumpers of the day. I’m 100% on board with what you said. Let me ask you this. You said your kids are 23 and 20.
22 and 25.
Out of curiosity, from your own observation, what do they do for time management?
They do the same thing. I have a list from my son in elementary school. At the end of the list, he would always put, “Have fun!” They took great responsibility for how they were planning their day. My daughter, Spencer, worked really well with calendars and stickers, making it visually appealing. She could see, “This is going to be one of my dance classes,” and she could look forward to that. If she had a paper that was due and maybe she was having to put time into something she didn’t want to do, she could always look at the schedule and know it was coming. The key is the night before planning the day. You won’t have your activities for the month but nailing down that daily schedule the night before is everything.
It’s a great suggestion. I love that you make time for things that pop up unexpectedly. I love what your son did when he wrote, “Have fun!” If we’re not having fun in our day, we’re missing out. Tomorrow’s another day, but guess what? We can have fun. Making some time, making some space, and making it important to take care of ourselves, which is so unbelievably important.
Ellen’s Nominee
This has been awesome. I appreciate you making the time. I know you’re busy and this is such a great topic to talk through. I feel like you and I could talk for hours about this, but I know we don’t have hours. Let me ask you this. Part of the project of the show is that I’d like to continue the conversation. One of the things I’m asking everybody is to nominate a friend, a coworker, or a relative that you think would be helpful to talk to and interview on this platform and discuss health and wellness. Do you have anyone in your circle that you think would be helpful for you?
It would be terrific if you wanted to interview my daughter. When she was thirteen, we did a campaign called Bridging the Gap. This was about the relevance of young people’s voices as well as the relevance of the middle-aged. We’re living in a world right now where young people who have access to everything sometimes feel that the adults in their lives don’t have important messages anymore. They can figure it out and they can find it on their own.
Through the campaign I did with my daughter and the work we did when she was younger, there was this very interesting place where we met in the middle. We respect each other, listen to each other, and learn from each other. As a philosophy major and literature major, she’s got a wide net of education and experience that will lend to sharing some really important thoughts about the world as a young person but also someone who has grown up in a family that was extremely mindful that also went through some very difficult challenges. I would suggest a conversation with my daughter.
Episode Wrap-up
I would love that. You’ve got my information. Put her in touch with me. We’ll set something up. The life of a young person, and sometimes, I feel like a dinosaur when I say this, is so different from our generation. When you look at the things they go through and the challenges that they have. One of the biggest reasons why I love working with young adults is helping them through that process. I really appreciate it. I look forward to meeting with her and interviewing her. Thank you so much for your time and energy. Have a wonderful rest of your day. I’ll talk to you soon.
Just as we prioritize physical health, it’s equally important to invest in our mental wellness. In this episode, Marc Lehman talks with Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of Lifelines, about the importance of mental wellness for young adults. Melissa discusses the societal pressures that can lead to an existential crisis and emphasizes the importance of authentic connections for a fulfilling life. She offers practical tips for parents and educators to support young people’s mental well-being through self-care, meaningful connections, and pursuing passions. Whether you’re a college student, a supportive parent, or prioritizing your mental health, this episode offers valuable guidance and inspiration.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the episode here
Nurturing Mental Wellness In Adolescents: Melissa Bernstein’s Guide To Supporting Their Growth
Lifelines
We will be meeting withMelissa Bernstein. I’m excited to talk to Melissa about adolescent mental wellness. I hope everybody is doing well. Melissa Bernstein, welcome. I’m very excited to talk to you. I thought maybe what we could do to kick things off a little bit is talk a little bit aboutMelissa and Doug and then give us a little background on that. Also, certainly a little background onLifelines, what that is and what you’re currently doing. Is it okay if I put you in the hot seat?
No, it’s fine.
Maybe just tell us a little bit about Melissa and Doug, Lifelines and what you’re doing. I’ll throw a little bit of information in about U Are Heard. I do have some questions, so certainly afterwards we’ll get into that.
Doug and I, I think when we grew up the conventional path for your livelihood was to go business or law or medicine. It was very pre-professional and we both went that path. Not because it was what our soul wanted us to do but because society was like, “Go that path.” He went into advertising and I went into investment banking of all things. After a very short time, we were both miserable. He was more suited for what he did but I am a like white space creative who loves words and notes. Numbers don’t do anything for me.
I became disillusioned and fell into an existential crisis like, “What am I doing each day?” Doug, thank goodness for him, we were dating. I was probably 21 and he was 23 at the time. We’re like, “There has to be something better than this.” We went away for a weekend in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts and we decided we’re not leaving until we decide what can get us out of bed each day. We decided that we wanted to do something that involved children. Without him, I never would have had the courage to leave even though I was so miserable. I think I might have stayed there if he had given me the courage to leave with him.
Awesome story and taking from that, Melissa, for all of the young people that are watching or re-watching this, pay attention to your passion. It’s important.
It’s so true. We were told, “Don’t listen to your passion. Follow what gives you a solid stable career.” When you do that, when you deny your soul, it’s going to sneak up on you and you won’t have a choice. We were just dating. We weren’t in any position. Nobody started companies back then but we pulled our meager savings and decided to make products for children.
That’s awesome. You’re very humble. Your products are and were amazing. Most people I know when I mentioned to them Melissa and Doug, they know exactly what I’m talking about and always have a story. I’m sure you’ve heard millions of them. Many amazing things that you guys created and so many homes that you impacted with a variety of things that you guys made over the years. Now, this was when, Melissa? Give me a time frame.
This was in 1988. How crazy is that? We just celebrated our anniversary.
Congratulations. That’s awesome. An amazing accomplishment and amazing business. As I said, impacting families and children everywhere. I’m curious, out of that, you’ve developed Lifelines. When did Lifelines begin?
It began in 2020. It mirrored my own personal journey because Melissa and Doug had been the most magical experience ever but it was no longer an entrepreneurial venture. It wasn’t no longer a white space innovative company because we were 1,000 people. It became like a pretty big business. We didn’t know how to do that. We weren’t good at doing that and we didn’t want to operate a big business that was beholden to a lot of different things but it happened.
We still would have stayed there. I’m sure, but it so happened that we knew that there were better people to run the company. I was also going on my own mental health journey that led me to develop Lifelines. It wasn’t meant to be another company. In fact, the one thing Doug and I said is we will never and we put never in bold caps and underlined it. We will never start another company. The fact that we are doing this again and now have like 40 plus people on our team is insane. We both are insane.
It’s passion driven and experience driven. Sometimes when you get involved in these things, that’s how they develop. Let’s talk a little bit about what Lifelines is.
Lifelines was my chapter two. My chapter two was that I had been harboring a lot of mental health issues. I am creative and that came with a very stigmatizing personality that made me hypersensitive in many different areas. My whole life, I was ashamed by those hypersensitivities because if I was allowed to do what I naturally do. I be muttering to myself like a headband in some corner because I’m an idea person. I see ideas, words, and notes in my head but I trained myself because I got a message very early.
I also ponder dark things. I go very low and have had meeting crises and fall into a nihilistic tendency, which we can talk about. It’s part of my imagining in being able to ponder higher realities. I think about meetings and deep things like that a lot. When I got the message early on that like, “Do not show that dark side to the world because nobody wants to hear it, Melissa. Go out and play and be like the other kids.”
I remember even as a toddler thinking like, “Don’t they realize I want to go out and play and be carefree?” I can’t. I’m feeling this despair that’s raging through me and nobody seems to care. I worked myself into a person that would be acceptable by societal standards. That involved three Ps. It involved pleasing, which I became the ultimate pleaser. Putting myself not even on the list and becoming a martyr serving to the extent that everyone needed me and loved how I supported them but never asking for anything in return. Which leads you to martyrdom which is a deep undercurrent of resentment.
I became a perfectionist who felt like I had to be perfect in everything, my performance, behavior, and looks. Anything short of exemplary was a failure and that leads to an otter breakdown because perfectionism is inhuman and we are imperfect as humans and then performance. I became the ultimate actress who could put on a show and convince people that I was happy, go lucky and carefree when inside I was very much the opposite.
I was able to put on that façade through my 20s and 30s. That was who I was. I didn’t even realize I was putting on a façade. That became my persona but in my 40s, right around like 2018, probably. I started feeling that cry of my authentic soul to be seen. I kept saying, “Shut up, Soul. You’re going to stay out there.” It wouldn’t listen to me. It kept saying, “I need to become authentic and I need to express my truth.” It got so loud that I ultimately went on a show and expressed this.
I started to have these revelations that I suffered from something called Existential Depression, which is like a crisis of meeting which we can talk about and I bared my soul. That led to the beginning of Lifelines because Lifelines is my memoir that I wrote after I did the show and received hundreds of the most powerful soulful letters, I’d ever gotten in my life of people saying, “Oh my gosh, you gave voice to something I’ve experienced my whole life. I’ve never had the courage to share.” I thought if I could show people they’re not alone and let them see that someone who on the face of it and looks like she has everything is still struggling every single day, even now. Maybe I can help them to find their light in the midst of a lot of darkness.
I applaud you over and over again. Number one, when you and I first met, Melissa, one of the connections I made as well, “This is such an authentic person.” I know you’ve done a lot of work in your own journey to get there. You talked about the mask that you wore or wore in the past. I think that Lifelines as well as many other things that are out there for young people are so important for individuals to recognize that we can do two things in life. We can pretend all the time or we can become our authentic self. When a person works and a lot of times goes through therapy to get to that place, it is extremely powerful. I applaud you for being as open as you are about your own journey and certainly, appreciate all of that.
I have no choice now. I’m so glad I did it. You don’t realize how exhausting it is to live a lie. People I speak with who are in a state of despair always use the same word which is exhausted and it was. It’s exhausting because you’re putting on a show to hide your truth. You have to keep yourself quiet with all your energy.
Mental Health Challenges
You know a bit about what I do and with U Are Heard, me and my stuff are constantly working with the young adults. That’s a good segue into talking about wellness because to me, one of my big motivators when I first started many years ago was looking at the statistics of how many young adults don’t get help. I was shocked at this huge gap and then started to look into why. You’d come up with things like this stigma which makes sense, a person’s stigma and the community stigma. You look at access to care and all of the things that probably don’t surprise you.
You look at the concept of it’s easier to just keep moving on or at least people say it is. I know over the years, thousands of kids that have taken a step, whether it’s an email or phone call or gone to a counseling center and they haven’t had a good experience. What do they do? They do nothing and they keep trudging. As parents, providers, and adults in the community, we’re looking at this huge population of young adults that need services and aren’t getting them.
Again, I come back to your ability to be so authentic. It’s a role model on many levels for people to say, “We’re all human beings. We are all susceptible.” I tell people all the time. I’ve been to therapy myself several times. I’ve done my own work. The second we get to a place where like, “Not me.” We’re wrong. We’re missing something. We’re all susceptible.
Moving into that topic, I’m curious to ask you. We’re living in a complicated time as you know and the suicide rate for young people has gone up tremendously statistically ten years ago is number twelve. It’s now number two in terms of leading cause of death for young people. Anxiety and depression as you know, since COVID has exponentially gone up. I’m curious to ask you, when you think about the biggest stressors that you notice for young adults. What comes to mind?
This is directly related to Lifelines because our inaugural partner is Barnes & Noble College. We’re part of their Be Well, Be You initiative which is exactly about wellbeing and tools for wellbeing. They shared a whole bunch of stats with us from inside higher Ed. They did a lot of surveys and 83% of students are saying that stress is negatively impacting their college experience.
According to that survey, they say that pressure to perform is number one. Now, I see another stat that talks about money and other things, but the pressure to perform is a scary one. When did learning become secondary to performance? It’s so insane that they’re so worried about grades that they can’t even enjoy learning about new things. It’s sad.
I know. Somewhat rhetorical I know when you said it but I’ll answer you by saying when I look at middle school and high school kids, it starts way back then. Where there’s this concept of, if I’m not taking 5 million AP classes. When you and I were in school, straight As was a 4.0. That’s like average now. It’s like I get a 4 or 6, weighted, and unweighted. There’s all this terminology. To me, we live in a bit of a world where good is not good enough.
It’s so true. We’ve gotten so caught up in the extrinsic that the extrinsic, the things we do for joy in meeting are completely lost. I have six children. I have had the children experience. We had a bunch of six graders over. I remember they were like sitting in a circle and they were talking about the pressure they felt to get into college.
They’re in 6th grade.
I was like, “Oh my Gosh, are you guys feeling that?” They were like, “Yes, we’re so terrified.” They’re like, “First, you got to get in the honors classes then you got it.” They already had the path and it looked more terrifying to them in 6th grade. In Melissa and Doug, I talked a lot about play and how play became something that parents didn’t believe in because it wasn’t a skill that you could put on a resume and this idea of making these children adults.
When they’re now little kids, we’re professionalizing everything they do and making it into these route scheduled activities. We’re basically taking the joy out of life. By the time they get to college, they’re burned out and exhausted. A lot of them are depressed because they don’t even know who they are and what they want to do with their lives. They have no passion for anything.
It’s funny you should say that because I often thought in my town, when I was younger in 6th grade, we went up to the junior high school and then recess was gone. People would say, “How was school? How was junior high school?” I said, “It stinks because I miss recess. That was like my favorite time of the day.” Back then, you’d ask kids and that’s what they’d say. They’d say recess, gym or lunch. Nowadays, it just gets absorbed.
I’ve met kids in Junior High School, 7th and 8th grade where they’re not taking lunch. They’re taking a class. The concept of, I like how he said that it’s very accurate, we’re taking away the fun. I worked hard as a therapist when I’m talking to kids. We do four things. There’s a formula I developed when it comes to college. There are four things that all kids need to do in order to succeed and have a smile on their face.
It’s funny, Melissa, two of the four things are so social. When I talked to parents about that, they’re aghast like I’ve got academic in there. That’s one, but I want kids to have fun. I want kids as human beings. We need to find a way to let the steam out and enjoy ourselves. Otherwise, we become anxious, depressed or both.
One of the most profound things I’ve read is the surgeon general’s report on loneliness. It came out a few months ago and said that loneliness is an epidemic. If you read his report, I suggest everybody read it. It is so mind blowing. The group that is the loneliest is 18 to 24 year olds in the throws of college. There’s a whole process and I’ve written a practice for myself called practice makes purpose, which talks about you can’t even make those authentic connections until you begin to discover who you are.
One of the problems with college students is even though there are among thousands of peers because most of them have never had a childhood. They’ve been resuming their whole lives. They’ve never done that inward journey to discover who they are, what they love, and what their passions are. Their friendships and connections are also inauthentic and are filling them up in the way that true connections are. They may not be alone but they’re still lonely in the midst of having all these superficial inauthentic connections.
Role Of Parents
It’s a great point. That’s the exact word, superficial. They may have people around them, but they’re not actual friends or deep friendships with those connections. I see that all the time with kids. It’s funny, for the high school kids transitioning into college, all they want is to have that group around them. In some ways, kids don’t necessarily even care if they’re deeply connected friendships. They just want those people around them so they’re not feeling that loneliness. That’s a fascinating comment about loneliness. Let me ask you this, as a mom of six, what can we do as parents? What can we do to assist our kid’s mental Wellness? What do you think?
It’s the hardest thing to do ever, but Young said it many years ago. He said the biggest threat to children are their parents’ unrealized dreams. The best thing we can do is allow our children to be who they truly authentically are. Try hard not to pressure them to be something that they can or don’t want to be. When you allow your kids to flourish, and I’m not saying you give them gentle guidance. You don’t let them do whatever they want but you let them follow their passions.
You don’t push them into hockey because you were a hockey player who didn’t get their due. You don’t force them to play year-round sports if they don’t want to. That’s hard for parents and it was hard for me. I learned by screwing it up a lot of times. That’s why I joke, we had to have six children because I messed up so many times that we need to keep having more to fix the problem.
That’s how we learn.
The last two, I’ve become much better at allowing them to be who they are. It’s giving me such joy. They’re not traditional learners. They don’t go to the high-pressure school but they’ve found their people and a place where they belong. It makes me feel so gratified to know that I got my ego out of it and allowed them to do what they wanted to do.
Very well said. I feel like I say this all the time because I watch staff members in high school, families throughout middle in high school. I watched them helping their kids tour schools and pick schools.
Doing their work for them. How many parents are doing their kid’s papers for them? A lot.
Very rarely do they ask the basic question, are you happy? The answer for most kids, they’ll say, “Probably not.”
It’s because the parents aren’t happy. As much as I went into parenthood saying, “I want the best for my kids. I want them to be who they are.” I had so many expectations. I’m shocked when I thought about it and I saw the way I was pushing my kids in ways that I wanted them to be to de-validate my ego. It was horrifying.
I had an experience with my very first one where I pushed him. I was a classical guitarist who thought about playing professionally. I ended up giving it up to go to college and I was pushing my son to play classical guitar not realizing it. Totally unconsciously. One day, I noticed he wasn’t practicing at all. I’d take him to his lessons and he’d be hanging his head one day. He came up to me and said, “Mom, I have to tell you something.” I was like, “What, sweetie?” He looked so depressed and started crying. He said, “I’m a baseball player. Not a guitar player.”
I didn’t even hear it the first time. I was like, “What did you say?” He said, “I’m a baseball player. Not a guitar player,” and my heart broke. I was literally like, “Oh my gosh, me.” I’m the play advocate and I messed up my kid. I pushed him to do something that he hated. We ended at that day and he did love baseball. Baseball, by the way, also became professionalized. By the time he thought about playing in college, he was so brutal over making it a job that the same thing happened. We messed up our kids and it’s inadvertent. We love them. We’re trying to do our best but it messes with their head when they’re trying to live out our dreams.
We love our kids, and we’re trying to do our best but it messes with their heads when they’re trying to live out our dreams.
I take so many things from that but one of which is we’re going to make mistakes. It’s important for us to learn from them. I also think that it’s important for us to listen to our kids because a lot of times our kids will give suggestions. They may say it once and as you said, “I didn’t hear it the first time.” It’s very important to listen to our kids because they’re going to talk a little bit about what their passions are and their passions may be very different from ours and that’s okay.
The funny thing is we want this homogeneity but the truth is, the weirder and more different they are, like the more exciting it may be. My kids that have had the strangest passions are the ones who are, I’d say the most authentically, that they themselves and have done the coolest things in life.
They’re interesting also because it’s like something that maybe we don’t know about.
Also, if you understand creativity. It’s about collecting ingredients in very diverse domains and mixing them into a recipe that becomes this like secret sauce. You think like, “My kid’s interested in that. What good is that going to serve them in life?” Inaugural to them being a truly innovative and creative person. Unfortunately, you go into parenthood with no skill. Zero training.
We have to do more than to adopt a pet then have a kid. Trust me, I’ve adopted a lot of pets, the rigor. What’s our house going to like? With kids, you don’t do anything. You’re a flawed person. I’m speaking of myself. I’m a flawed person so, of course, I’m going to make all these mistakes with my kids. If I had known some of these things, I’m sure I would have been better served.
Life is a journey and part of our process to learn from all those things. If you think about it way back when we learned math, spelling, and handwriting and all those fun things. The only way you learn is by making mistakes.
Trial and error.
Addressing The Routine Of Young Adults
Why would parenting be any different? I’m curious about your thoughts. Wellness is a topic that I’m around all the time and I talk to students about all the time. It’s one that I find the treadmill of life talking about before. Kids are just in this routine. They’re doing everything they can to get the best grades they can get and open up the best opportunities they can get, but they’re not thinking about their wellness.
They’re not getting enough rest, not eating, and not hydrating. They’re not seeing a counselor when they need to and not exercising. They’re not doing the basics. I know one of the philosophies behind what you guys do in Lifelines is wellness. I’m curious, when you think about young people and the easy things that some of them may be able to do that maybe they’re not. What comes to mind?
In my journey, I realized that I can’t just wing this. I’m too much at risk of going low or going high and not coming back like to Earth. I created a framework for myself that’s in the form of a practice called Practice Makes Purpose. That’s what I’m talking about when I go to speak to college students. It’s basically four branches in the metaphor of a tree that helped nurture your physical wellbeing.
Practice makes purpose.
It’s self-care. It’s your mental wellbeing through grounding, detaching from thought, and coming back to the present moment. It’s emotional wellbeing through connecting to yourself first. Only once you have connected and can love yourself, can you connect to that greater group. We call it our grove because it’s trees. The last piece is our spiritual well being, which is a combination of two wings of a bird. One is play and one is purpose. To sore like a bird, you have to have pretty equal measures of play which leads to joy and purpose which leads to meaning.
It’s through being able to satiate your physical needs, being able to get out of the past and the future and come home to the present moment. It’s being able to understand who I am. What are my unique gifts I want to share with the world? Connect to people who want to be your tribe in that and then ultimately, how do I take that gift I have transcended myself to engage in purpose? Also, how do I measure that with ample amount of play that brings my life joy and doesn’t give me empathy fatigue from too much purpose.
I love that. What a great framework. Wonderful. It captures a little bit of everything. As I’m listening to it, I’m noticing not once did you say cell phones or social media, which is good. Number two, I’m thinking the word balance. It comes through as you’re talking about all these things and trying to strike that balance. Very often do I see young people playing too much or not playing enough. I know students that are in the library way too much 8 or 9 hours a day.
I think that’s why when they’re in high school, when you’re seeing them before they go to college. This is what happened to me because I had a complete breakdown in college and so are a few of my kids. The reason is because they go to college without any practice at all. It’s becoming all about social and academic. If one or both of those fails, then they’ll fall into an abyss of nothingness because you don’t know. It’s hard if you don’t schedule it and create a very deliberate practice. It usually doesn’t happen and then you wonder why you’re falling so low. It’s like because I’m not sleeping, as you said. I’m eating horribly. I’m not doing anything that’s bringing me joy. Everything is extrinsic and you can start to see.
It’s a great point. For those parents that are reading, I want to make the point added on to that, Melissa. There are some basic things in high school before they get to college they can begin to do because these are all things, whether it’s self-care, eating, sleeping, exercise, journaling, learning about nutrition, or organization, checking your email each day, or having a good system going into college. I love how you said scheduling time, whether it be time to get productive things done. Even scheduling time to have fun, I know that sounds weird but that way, you know it won’t go anywhere. You know it’s there.
I even tell that to my kids because they get very panicked about all the stuff they have to do. I’m always saying, “Break it into bite-sized chunks and reward yourself. Say, ‘If I finish these first two pages of my paper, I can go for a walk. I can even watch a show that I like.’ Make it a reward system,” which doesn’t make it overwhelming and allows you to give yourself the breaks that you desperately want.
Also, motivates you. Let’s face it, kids need that. I like what you said earlier, the commentary around the surgeon general’s thoughts around loneliness. In college, the stakes are high. I don’t think parents recognize that going in. There’s tuition, grades and everything’s new. Kids that I work with, as you said when they fail something, their first thought is, “My life is over.” My first thought is, “No, it’s just beginning. This is an opportunity,” but nobody’s ever said that to them because it’s just push.
What they’ve done to get into college, they’re already exhausted. They basically pulled out all the stops like postering themselves to get to the space and now it’s only just beginning, the competition. Everybody’s at that level and suddenly it’s like, “I have four more years of this?” It could be overwhelming to some.
It’s funny, I had a very similar story. My son is a junior in college. When he was in 6th grade, he took a math class that he qualified for. It was a 7th grade math class. I find myself sitting in this presentation in 6th grade. The parents are all in 6th grade. All of a sudden, the presentation which was the PowerPoint shifts into AP and honors like their life. I’m like, “We’re still talking about eleven-year-olds. What’s going on?”
I went up to the presenter afterwards and I said to him, “I’m a little blown away,” but that’s an indicator. That happens in a lot of towns. There’s a track that gets set up and until the parents say, “I don’t want my kids playing six sports every season or doing every activity under the sun.” I met a kid who told me he had done every activity offered at his high school. How does he even have time for that?
That’s the other thing that I tell so many kids. They missed the point. Colleges don’t do that. They want you to show that you are passionate about something and get into it. They much rather see that than act like you’re trying a little of everything because that shows that you have no passion and you’re stopping. It’s much more important. If we stopped thinking about the goal and lived in the verb. We’re living in the now like what college you’re in as opposed to realizing that the journey is the path.
In Buddhism, the journey is supposed to be the path. This journey is awful. Everybody is suffering so much to get to something that’s going to spark more suffering. We have to say to them, “I get that you’re in a system that is valuing this.” Some would say, when you have children, a lot of play expertsPeter Gray, one of my favorites says, “Before you have children, you should think about the community you want to raise them in and what their values are.”
As my daughter said to me many times, “In the community we are in, Mom, we can’t not care.” Every time I said, “Don’t worry about your grade. They don’t matter.” One of my daughters said, “We have like three streaming apps of GPA at our high school. Literally, it’s telling you your rank on every test you upload. I can’t not care. This is the town I’m in.” Which horrified me. Those decisions, if you want to make them, you can make them early earlier on. Visit your schools and see what messages they’re giving. Choose a different path because it is hard. If you’re in a community, that’s the path every single kid is on. Yes, you could be like, “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine with whatever you do,” but it’s harder.
It’s a great point. As graphic as this commentary is, I can’t tell you how many kids that are number one in their class over the years that I’ve hospitalized for severe eating disorders, severe depression, and severe anxiety.
I was there. I was one of those kids. I was a complete and utter mess. I had a horrible eating disorder because that stuff just makes you feel like the bar keeps getting higher and you can never reach it.
Looking at ways in which parents can help kids enjoy life, have fun, put a smile on their face, and not be so intense. Maybe take a break from the treadmill that school creates. All of those things are important and a lot of it’s done through role modeling.
I was going to say the exact thing. If we are showing ourselves to be uptight, intense and worrying all the time then what are we showing them? We do have to model that. It’s okay to mess up. One thing my husband has done well. Not what one of many things but one thing he’s done especially well is he was a horrible student. He always shared stories and his mother would get so angry because they lived with us for a while.
As parents, we do have to model that it’s okay to mess up.
He would always when he failed stuff and got C’s. He’s been so successful, but I always love those stories because he was showing them like it’s okay. He went to a very average State University and he’s done anything he ever dreamed of and having gone to a different school wouldn’t have changed that at all. I always love the fact that he was that voice of reason like, “Look at me. I didn’t mind.
A good example. Again, sometimes families and kids will merge the concept of success and happiness. The kids will say, “I have to go to a certain school. I have to get a certain GPA. I have to do this. I have to do that.” I have to say to them, “That’s just school. That’s your education. That’s not life. That’s not success. Your life, your occupational path starts after that.” A lot of that comes down to hard work and passion. How passionate are you?
Your point, Melissa, from earlier is a great one.Students in the family are finding that their passion is going down and down as they are taxed and stressed through college. That’s not helpful because then they hit the working world with no energy toward what they want to do. It’s important for families to put some energy into that.
I was going to say there’s this amazing graph in meaning logo therapy which has scaling two through meaning which has axes. One is happiness and despair. The other is success and failure. It shows that they’re separate completely separate axes. It’s all about how you perceive it because many of the most successful people, the number one in their classes, are utterly miserable. Many people who’ve experienced failures learn from them and they’re the biggest gifts ever. If you’re thinking that they’re on the same plane, they’re not. It’s important to realize that because it frames that when we say we’re trying to strive for success. It means that we might get there and we will be happy at all.
I can’t tell you how many examples I’ve seen of that in my career. I’ve seen so many adults that are surprised by that. They are successful but they’re so unhappy. For families, it’s important to acknowledge and to recognize we’re living in a bit of a different world. Not only is success, as you were saying, in a lot of communities top of the list. There’s a competition. We’re also living in a world where mental wellness isn’t great.
We haven’t rebounded since COVID the way I don’t think anyone’s wanted to. It’s important for families to be thinking about that. As a therapist, I’m biased but for kids, if they’re sparking symptoms and having difficulty, letting them know, “Not only is there help out there. There’s help that looks differently than it used to.” It used to be, I’m going to go and speak to a 110 year old person with a huge long beard. I’m being a little extreme, but you know what I mean.
The way in which helped looks different. Giving young people that ability to say, “It exists. You just have to decide if that’s something you want.” In so many instances, Lifelines being a great example of this. Help doesn’t necessarily mean sitting down with a counselor in an office to talk through things. A lot of help is acknowledging that there’s a journey that needs to occur and you’re deciding not to right now but it doesn’t mean that you can’t.
Exactly. It’s about the tools that are there. A lot of times kids aren’t ready or they don’t think they want it. I believe you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make a drink having been a parent for somebody years, but having them know that these are the tools and they’re right here when you need them is one of the most important things we can do as parents and not stigmatize them saying like, “I went to therapy. Here’s some tools. This is a great place to go if you need it. Please, let me know if you need something. Don’t suffer in silence.”
I’m just looking at the time, Melissa and we had talked about seeing each other for twenty minutes. I feel like I could talk to you forever on this topic. I want to thank you for your time and acknowledge that you took some time out of your day-to-day. I appreciate it. For those that are out there that have interest, please educate yourself and look up Lifelines because it’s an amazing program out there that Melissa is working hard at developing. Thank you so much.
What you’re doing it U Are Heard is so amazing. From the time I met you I knew Mark is going to change the world one person at a time and that’s the best way to do it. Please support him as well.
Thank you so much, Melissa. We’ll talk to you soon. Be well.
Melissa Bernstein is the co-founder of Melissa & Doug, a leading toy company renowned for its educational and creative products. As an entrepreneur, inventor, and author, she has dedicated her career to inspiring creativity and play in children through the toys her company produces. Beyond her success in business, Melissa is also an advocate for mental health. In 2020, she launched Lifelines, a platform focused on supporting mental well-being, inspired by her own lifelong struggles with existential depression and anxiety. Through Lifelines, she offers resources, tools, and community support to help others navigate their inner challenges and find meaning.
Dave Briggs, a seasoned national broadcaster, joins Normalize It Forward podcast to discuss his personal journey with mental health and wellness. In this candid conversation, Dave shares how he navigated anxiety and depression, emphasizing the importance of self-care and the role of therapy in his healing process. Tune in as Dave reflects on the evolution of mental health discussions, the impact of COVID-19 on our collective well-being, and the need for more accessible mental health resources.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Navigating Mental Health In The Age Of Screens: Dave Briggs On Self-Care, Media, And The Impact Of COVID
Welcome to Normalize It Forward, the show that openly talks about mental health and wellness. We are here with Dave Briggs. Dave, thank you for joining us. Dave is a long-time national broadcaster, having anchored at major networks including Fox News, CNN, NBC Sports, and Yahoo Sports. He has also played a news anchor on Season 4 of HBO’s Succession. He’s anchoring for Cheddar Business News at NYSE, and creating content wherever he can all around Connecticut. Dave, welcome.
Good to see you, my friend. It’s a pleasure being here. I often joke that I ran out of real networks so I started working at a fake one, ATN, on Succession but I think about every network I’ve worked at in some capacity.
I’ve seen lots of your work over time and certainly admire it for several reasons. You’re on the other end of the mic today but we’ll be talking about one of my favorite topics, mental health, and wellness. As you know, I’m a Family Therapist and work with young adults who head off to college. These days, the support that’s needed in young adults’ lives to manage their mental health and wellness is immense.
We’re living through a pretty difficult time for many. All the more reason we have these conversations and try to continue to have these conversations to be role models for our youth. Let me kick things off and ask this. Self-care is one of those topics. It’s a big topic within wellness that a lot of people talk about. I’m curious about your thoughts on what self-care means to Dave.
Self-Care And Its Importance In Mental Health
It has taken me about 47 years to begin to figure that out and I’m still not there. I had always employed various elements of self-care but never figured out that I needed all of the above and then some. I’ve always exercised and I thought that would be enough. A couple of years ago, I added meditation, journaling, and counseling. Therapy is a part of that journey.
What I realized is if I’m not doing all of the above at least 3 out of 4 or 5, I struggle. In particular, meditation and exercise, if I don’t do one of those things, I’m completely out of balance with my mental health. Certainly, therapy and journaling help. Those other things are complementary. If I’m not doing at least two plus of those things, everything is a mess. I’m learning a lot all the time about my mental health journey because I wish that I’d have understood what I had twenty years ago was anxiety.
I wish I had understood twenty years ago that I was prone to depression. Thankfully, my realization of those things early has helped me identify them in one of my kids. Honestly, in having those discussions, that child has helped me better understand some things about mental health and has taught me things that I didn’t know. It’s been quite a journey and one that honestly evolves every day. Sometimes you just fall apart.
Our kids are our best teachers. Life is a journey and we’re learning all the time. I’m glad that you brought up youth or young people. As you mentioned, a lot of young people in high school and college feel like they have it down. They’re getting okay rest. They’re getting some exercise here and there but they’re not forced to lean on self-care quite the way maybe adults are to manage things.
Sometimes for the first time, it’s in college for kids where they feel, “My stress level is overwhelming and something isn’t right here.” To your point, they have to find their own space. For some people, they love yoga and some people love meditation. Some people love car rides. Some people love therapy. Some people love journaling, and the list goes on.
There are so many different ways to take care. I learned over time as a therapist and as an individual that you have to pick some. They won’t just show up at your door. You have to go get them and figure out what you like and what works best for you on your journey. Self-care is an interesting topic. I find that the conversation around wellness can be uncomfortable for some. Mental health to me, the more I talk to people, the more I realize that everybody is susceptible. Everybody is dealing with things at varying levels. Some people are more open to it than others. What has been your experience as you’ve been out and about with people in public?
Honestly, I am surprised at how innate these things are or are not. I can see that. I pretty much see everything through the perspective of being a parent and that’s why I appreciate what you do and how you do it. For example, my eldest child, my eighteen-year-old daughter, it’s innate in her to have anxiety and to have a bit of depression. Unfortunately, she is exactly like her dad.
Whereas, my son who is sixteen is exactly like his mom. I can say right now, he will not know anxiety and depression and these things. I’m astonished at those things. You have little control over them. That has taken me a long time to realize that a lot of these problems are innate in us or they’re not. My wife is the first one to admit that it took her a long time to understand what I was going through because she always wakes up and is happy.
It’s hard for someone like that to understand someone like me who tends to wake up blue, who tends to see the dark side or focus on the negative, and it takes a lot of work to get to where she wakes up every day. That has been an interesting part of my mental health journey, and as a couple, realizing that we wake up in different worlds.
That’s amazing to me to see and it’s been difficult, but I suppose it helped me deal with a lot of other people. What I have noticed in recent years is that men talking about mental health has come 180 degrees in the last couple of years and that I am grateful for. I remember the day that I came out on Instagram that I was depressed. People couldn’t believe that a man, crying on Instagram and admitting it.
A lot of mainstream television shows and athletes have normalized men dealing with mental health issues. Those two things have been instrumental. I don’t know if you watched Ted Lasso. That show dealt with mental health head-on with the signature main character, Coach Lasso and the Suits, which was on the USA, one of the longest surviving shows in the last 25 years. The main character, Harvey, dealt with mental health and straight-on had panic attacks. He was like the bastion of manhood. It’s a good time that mainstream media and our role models and athletes are beginning to normalize these conversations.
The Impact Of COVID On Mental Health And Social Media’s Role
I can’t agree more with you. It’s funny in some ways how it has taken us as men longer to be able to get to that place, but I’m glad we have in many cases because as human beings, we’re all susceptible. As you were talking earlier, some people are built in a way. Like allergies or anything else, we’re built in a way we’re more prone to depression. We are more prone to anxiety.
For those people to have to hide that and for those people to have to pretend on a day-in and day-out basis only makes their scenario ten times worse. I’m super thankful for people like you because I feel like when you have made more public conversation around things like mental health, that is something that has ripple effects. Let’s face it, social media gets seen by lots of people.
I think that kid sitting in their dorm room at nineteen years old feeling like they’re the only one on a college campus who’s depressed and overwhelmed sees some of that and can recognize that there are things that can be done. I constantly find myself saying, “You’re never alone.” There are people around. Some people will contact you, hound you, and be on you because they want to help. There are plenty of people out there who want to help. I’m curious because a lot of people talk about things like social media and things like COVID as game changers for mental health. How do you feel about the subject of mental health and wellness has changed since COVID?
The subject has come miles and miles in terms of being a mainstream discussion. The reason I’m wearing this T-shirt, which is Anger, the emotion from the Inside Out. I came from the movie Inside Out 2, the number one movie in America, which is all about our mental health and handling Anxiety, Joy, Sadness, Embarrassment, Envy, and Boredom.
That movie alone will change this conversation because it puts it in the mainstream. Families are seeing this movie together. Millions of people are seeing this movie and probably having mental health discussions before or after the film. I think that is helpful, but you asked about COVID. COVID was devastating for our mental health.
That seemed to be the root of my real mental health struggles. Part of that was losing a job during COVID, but it was that being at home, feeling depressed, and being stuck that started this in me. I’ve seen it in kids all over town, in particular here in Westport, Connecticut. COVID spiked mental health issues around the country.
In towns like this, it cuts back on socialization and development. It added screens to our lives. It increased the amount of time we all spend on screens and social media. On one hand, we’re in a much better place because of mainstream conversations like the Inside Out and the television shows I mentioned. On the other hand, I know that prescriptions for mental health medication have spiked.
On one hand, you might say that’s great because we’re treating it. I think that’s a result of our mental health being in a much worse place than it was before COVID. That is sad because we’re short on competent mental health counselors, therapists, psychologists, and therapists like yourself. We’re desperately short. Things like BetterHelp are helping, but I don’t think we have nearly enough infrastructure to handle the mental health crisis that’s going on that the surgeon general talks about often.
The Pressure Of Mental Health On College Campuses
I tend to agree. Having talked to many college campuses in the last year imposed the concept that we need to change the way we look at this. It’s not just brick-and-mortar counseling centers that can be helpful to kids. You’ve got lots of adults on lots of campuses who can lend an ear, who can simply be a mentor, who can be a guide, or who can listen.
You see these things popping up that colleges are reaching for nowadays because they are desperate. They’ve got many kids walking around nowadays with their struggles. The word that no one wants to talk about is suicide. The suicide rate is way higher than most people realize in the last ten years. It’s climbed to the second spot for young people in terms of cause of death.
Nobody wants to talk about it because it’s an ugly word and it’s a horrible concept and an awful thing but it is a reality that is connected to this conversation of mental health and wellness. That to me is significant. Things like this movie you are referencing to me are fantastic because they bring the conversation around the basis of our emotions. Things that people don’t want to talk about but need to.
It’s okay to feel this way and it’s okay to feel that way because we’re all human beings. We could either ignore it and not talk about it. We could try to address it. I agree. Post-COVID, I feel like those numbers have all shot up in the wrong way in some cases. It puts some pressure on places like colleges and universities, and even counseling centers around the country to think about, “Are there ways we can do this differently so that we can help the general public better?” There are many more individuals struggling and not enough providers.
As someone who recently did the college visit tour with my daughter, who is going to the University of Chicago next year. We probably went to a dozen schools that we visited more than most. That gives you a good sample size for my next point, which is I can only remember one that emphasized mental health and mental health professionals, talking about it and mental health breaks in a building they had, and that was Yale.
Kudos to Yale. I know a lot of people have issues with how they’ve handled things over the last six months to a year regarding other issues. They wear it on their sleeve how they encounter mental health struggles head-on. They provide counseling. They provide help. They provide break space. The downside is that was the only school that I remember. These are high-pressure schools that my daughter is going into like in Chicago. We went to North Carolina, Harvard, and MIT. That was the only one that seemed to understand the mental health crisis that these types of high-performing students are undergoing right now. It’s a little scary that more schools aren’t doing more.
That’s significant. For our audience’s sake, recognizing that isn’t more part of the tour because lots of parents aren’t thinking about that. They’re thinking about how to design their dorm room, what majors they want, do they have access to a city, what computer to buy, and all that stuff, which is all important as well. However, when your child gets to school and if they have struggles and you haven’t investigated that as an option for them, they’re going to be stuck behind the eight ball.
Parents want to be thinking about that because as the numbers dictate, the statistics show us that there are lots of kids out there on college campuses with struggles. Dave, if you’re talking directly to a young person in college who’s starting to have symptoms of either depression or anxiety, what advice would you offer them?
Social Media And Its Detrimental Effects On Mental Health
A lot of them, first off, need to prepare for it well before that now, even if they’re happy or even if they’ve never dealt with it. I guess my advice would precede that because a lot of kids come from towns like this one, where it is a wonderful place to grow up. I’m thrilled that my kids got to grow up here. On the other hand, kids that did grow up here didn’t go through a lot of adversity because it is a wonderful upbringing in towns like Darien, Westport, Greenwich, Weston Wilton, you name it.
They’re going to deal with a lot of adversity that they’ve never seen or dealt with. They’re going to get, God forbid, a B-minus or a C on a report card. They’re going to deal with terrible social situations, not getting in the sorority they want to, not getting in the fraternity they want to. I know that’s not likely that students catch this message before they deal with anxiety and depression, but I hope they’re prepared for those moments and knowing that there are people to talk to.
Bring a toolbox to college, which is someone you can talk to, ideally a best friend, if not a therapist. Learn how to meditate now because that will help you deal with stress. Find a workout strategy and exercise. That doesn’t have to be going to the gym. I have a daughter who had never been to the gym before in her life until she joined two weeks ago and now has been every day since because she suddenly realized, “This is the best outlet for my stress and anxiety.” It doesn’t have to be the treadmill or weights. It might be going to Lake Mohegan and taking a walk because you hear the river, you smell the trees, you hear the birds, and you see dogs.
Find what works for you now so you know how to handle it then and things that clear your mind. That’s going to be something different for everyone. It might be meditation. It might be taking a walk. It might be going to the gym. Let’s hope that they don’t make having a drink part of that routine. I am guilty as charged but don’t think Mom and Dad are a great example that they come home from work and have a cocktail because that would be the worst road to go down as an eighteen-year-old kid.
Let’s face it. There are easy options. Kids find pot, kids find drinks, kids find this, and kids find that but to your point, it’s not going to resolve anything. It’s a temporary solution to a much larger issue. I appreciate your suggestions. You offer some good insight for young people to hear about. The takeaway in many cases is finding something that matches you, or finding something that works for you. If you haven’t found it with your first, second, or third choices, keep looking because there are options out there that will help.
I always use the word, willing. You have to be willing to try things and maybe leave your comfort zone to do it because you never know what club, activity, or things you try that exist. As corny as it may sound, go try it and see how it feels. If it feels good, keep doing it. It’s good for your mental health and your well-being. I’m curious to ask you about one other topic. Social media is a big topic for young people and older people. It has its benefits and has its drawbacks. I’m wondering your thoughts on that as associated with wellness.
The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murphy, said recently that it should come with a warning label. I strongly support that mission. I fear that it might not make as big a difference as we hope, but at the very least, it might make parents open their eyes. I see there’s a growing movement to ban phones in schools, which is a tremendous idea. New York and Los Angeles are going in that direction.
There’s a movement for parents to keep kids off of social media and off of smartphones until thirteen, which I also strongly support. This comes from someone who spends ten-plus hours a day on their phone, has three kids who are on their phones all the time, and has a twelve-year-old who has been on social media for a couple of years. “Pot calling the kettle black,” I understand that. Genie is out of the bottle.
I think we can get it back in. Social media is extraordinarily harmful to our kids. As a parent, I can say this, having seen it firsthand. It is much more serious a deal for daughters than it is for sons. Parents, you should know that. I am not being sexist. I have two daughters and I have one son. The pressure on young girls is 20X what it is with these young men.
Go look at what the boys can wear to school. Sweatpants, gross t-shirts, and these boys don’t even comb their hair. The girls are under so much pressure to be thin, look cute, and have those pictures match on Instagram. As long as you can keep your kids off of social media, please do it. You have to do this together. You have to talk to 4, 5, or 6 parents. The parents of your daughters or son’s friend. That’s the only way to do it because you cannot keep your kid off social media if they’re the only one. Don’t do that to them. That’s not fair.
I probably shouldn’t elaborate, but I do have a kid who I believe Instagram caused an eating disorder. That was the leading factor. This cost parents their lives. I’m thankful it didn’t for us. This gets me a little emotional. We were on it. We were determined to stamp this out, get counseling every day, and talk to her. We never ignored this for one second. I quit a job that I was doing in another state because I knew we needed to be here and focus on this every minute of every day, but I don’t think parents have any idea how much harm it’s causing.
It’s destructive. You hit on two important pieces. The body image piece for females is immense. As you’re talking, I’m thinking this is a formula for anxiety for kids. It churns anxiety and makes kids feel less valued, which is crazy. It’s crazy that it has come to this but your message is important.
I’m hoping my audience can hear it and think about it. Dave, you hit on such an important topic, to band together with friends’ parents. If you do this with just your kid, you’re going to constantly hear about all of the other friends that they’re around and their availability on social media. Be wise and be smart. Times are changing for us as parents and for kids, and we have to stay up to date with that stuff and do what we can to protect our young ones.
I will add that I know you don’t want to snoop but believe me, you better snoop. I wish I had. You have to follow them and that’s part of the contract. If they don’t let you follow them, they’re not on it because you need to be looking at these comments. We were a little late in that regard, but I’ve talked to a lot of parents who have done that since learning from us and seen some of it before it became a problem. Read those comments, and see who’s following them and who they’re following. It’s part of the contract.
I don’t love that we’re on Life 360 and Find Me, Find My iPhone. We see where our kids are going every minute. Again, it’s part of the contract. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle. You got to snoop around a little bit. If anyone wants to talk to me about any of these things, I’m an open book. I will answer every DM on Instagram. That’s the best place to get me. I’m happy to talk to anyone about the mental health of our kids or pressures. I’m here.
I appreciate it, Dave. I know you’re a busy guy. I appreciate your honesty around this topic. Especially for men, this is a hard thing to talk about. Especially when it hits our kids, we’re protective of our kids and we want our kids to be happy. That’s all we want. We want them to be happy and safe. There are things we need to be doing.
As parents and as individuals, the reason I created Normalize It Forward is I want there to be more conversation around these hard topics. Mental health is not easy to talk about. Wellness is not easy to talk about, but it does help when we try to have a conversation and kids hear us talking about it. Kids hear us and recognize, “These parents understand that this is impacting us and this is big in our community amongst young adults.”
I appreciate your time and your energy around this, Dave. The other thing that I’ve been doing, I don’t want to put you on the spot here, but I’ve been asking people to nominate someone, a friend, a coworker, or a relative who you think would be helpful for me to interview in this particular area around mental health and wellness to continue and keep the conversation moving forward. Any thoughts? Any ideas?
I’ll put her on the spot because she is one of my favorite human beings in this space and has been a therapist at times for me. She’s an actress, Stephanie Shostak, who is probably very busy and tough to pin down but I will help you apply pressure to my friend Steph because her voice in this mental health conversation has been extraordinary.
Fantastic. That is the right person to nominate and keep this conversation going. Again, I appreciate your time and energy. Thank you very much. Have yourself a wonderful rest of the evening.
Dave Briggs is a seasoned television host and journalist, known for his work across major news networks. He has co-anchored programs on CNN, NBC Sports, and Fox News, including co-hosting Fox & Friends Weekend. With a focus on sports, politics, and breaking news, Dave has built a diverse broadcasting career. He also served as a host for NBC’s coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics. Beyond news, Dave is recognized for his engaging interviewing style and ability to cover a wide range of topics, from major sporting events to national political issues.
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