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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved Youth

Providing Support To Underserved Youth With Damian Gregory

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved Youth

 

In today’s highly digital and fast-paced world, kids have to deal with a ton of unnecessary distractions and pressure. Former NFL player Damian Gregory has been providing support to the underserved youth through his non-profit organization Gridiron G.A.N.G., helping them navigate the chaotic society and achieve profound success. In this conversation with Marc Lehman, he talks about his mission to guide the youth on overcoming the adversities of life, the pressures of social media, and the challenges of becoming an athlete. He also emphasizes the importance of taking care of your mental health, cultivating a resilient mindset, and finding stability in uncomfortable situations.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Providing Support To Underserved Youth With Damian Gregory

I’m super excited to welcome Damian Gregory. Damian, welcome to the show. How are you?

I’m pretty good. Glad to be on here.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Damian is a former NFL defensive tackle who played for a variety of teams, including the Dolphins, the Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After retiring from professional football, he became a motivational speaker and advocate for mental health awareness. Drawing from his personal experiences, Damian emphasized the importance of resilience, mental well-being, and personal growth.

He’s been featured in various platform sharing his insights and overcoming adversity and the significance of mental health in achieving success. In 2019, Damion founded Gridiron G.A.N.G. or Giving Adolescents New Goals, a non-profit organization and advocating Athletics as a mechanism to inspire achievement in all aspects of life for the underserved youth.

The goal for each participant is to lay the pathway to success by instilling the mindset of accomplishment in spite of adversity. Over the past thirteen years, the Gridiron G.A.N.G. a successfully administered volunteer football camps and lectures with the support of community advocate partners. Welcome to the show. Damian, how are you?

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved Youth

 

I’m great. I’m excited dive into the conversation.

Damian Gregory And The Gridiron G.A.N.G.

Maybe that’s a great place for us to start. Tell us some more about the Gridiron G.A.N.G..

It’s an organization that I started in my last few years in the NFL and was able to implement programming after I got done. It was something to try to give back to my community. I grew up in Lansing, Michigan. My mom is 1 of 12. My grandma was instrumental in my upbringing and so is my grandfather. He did a lot of community service work. He worked at the plant, but he also was a janitor/program director at the local Lets. I believe it’s a community center in my hometown

Therefore, the different programs that my family put me in, they would put me in different programs at the Kingsley Center in Lansing, Michigan at the Black Family and Child Institute, which was called the BCFI. I went to YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club. I was a program baby. Seeing the effect that those programs and those leaders had on me at early age, made me want to give it forward. I started to get on Gridiron G.A.N.G., which is giving out adolescent goals.

We just started off with going to visit in small hospitals at first and seeing kids that were in need. We saw that there was a greater need for some sports training as well, so we added some sports element to that, where that’s how we were able to bring the kids in to be able to talk about leadership qualities, stabilization of mental health, dealing with your situation and how to better yourself in bad situations.

It’s fantastic. I feel like you’ve combined several areas of your childhood as well as recognizing that you have a platform as an athlete to be able to give back to the community and have kids recognize and respect your professional situation and understanding. That’s admirable, Damian, for you to do that with young kids and to give kids that message of how important they are and where youth sports could anchor kids. I’m curious, what role would you say sports play for you?

Starting off, the things that worked for me were just being stable and trying to find a happy place in a chaotic situation. Football is a chaotic situation being things are moving at you rapidly, especially the defensive tackle position which I played. I got Lyman here. I got running back, so I got where I receive. Things are just very chaotic during that. Trying to find peace within my own situation was how I was able to find out what I would be good at after getting done with football to be able to apply that and help other kids.

Trying to find a way to help them through the chaos. They’re dealing with moms and dads both working, or sometimes not working or being disabled. I know kids that have parents with cerebral palsy and they’re not just going to school. They’re taking care of their families. They’re trying to earn a living. We’re trying to give them a place of comfort in the chaotic situation.

Wellness In An Athlete’s World

Well said. It’s such a need. I’m curious, too. You were an athlete for many years and imagine you went through all the levels and saw lots of different things, some positive, and some negative. I’m curious for you when you think back, how would you categorize your define wellness within an athlete’s world?

Again, just trying to find that stable situation in the chaotic situation. As an athlete, things are coming at you so much, especially as early athlete. In high school, there’s the females, the grades, and your parents being able to be a part of your situation, either in a supportive role or they can’t be because there are working. Trying to find what small things that you can concentrate on to get you through the day.

I was always told by a coach early on, “You never get better. You don’t stay the same. You’re going to get worse or you’re going to get better every day. You never going to stay the same. You have to figure out a way to just notching those days and over and over trying to find a way to keep it going. Keep taking those strong steps.” The wellness part of it is mental.

You will get better every day. You will never stay the same. You have to figure out a way to keep taking strong steps. Share on X

As you know, just because of the social media aspect of the kids these days, we didn’t have that we were coming up and that’s a blessing because the pressure that social media puts on these kids on a daily basis is astounding. I can see it every day with my own children, with kids that I’ve coached, and kids that I mentored. They feel like they’re in a rush. They have to do this. They have to get here. They have to get to these points, and every kid’s story is different. Everybody’s situation is its own situation.

Letting them know that you don’t have to compete with time Tom, Bob or Samantha and Christy. You have to compete with yourself first and understand who you are, what you’re able to bring to the table and your strengths, your weaknesses, what you can work on to make your weaknesses, your strengths and try to move yourself ahead. That’s the wellness part. A lot of kids these days aren’t concentrating on what they can do to better than themselves from within.

That’s a great point. Many has changed in the last 15 to 20 years. Certainly, social media and NIL. The money that comes through now is just equated to a ton of pressure. I see and hear kids in 8th, 9th or 10th grade and they’re getting mandated with coaches and inquiries. In 8th grade, I was learning how my shoes. These kids are making life decisions. It’s stressful. I like what you said, though. Figuring out a way, whether it’s within your sport like a workout or some other way to feel stable or to feel comfortable within yourself.

I have some kids that rely on journaling or meditation. I have certainly kids that work out and enjoy exercise. I have other kids that join a club or an activity and that gives them some sanity. Certainly, athletes now more than ever need something to rely on to create less stress and anxiety. It’s a tough world. It’s a tough world for young adults. You make a great point about social media.

Unfortunately, anxiety and depressive levels are up. They’re higher than they’ve ever been. It does put some pressure on young adults to find ways to make themselves feel less stressed and less overdone each day. I like what you said, though, how do you do that and get through the day. It’s a good way of looking at it. Are there certain views over time that seems to help you and assist you with wellness?

Things that I’ve done over the years, I’ve tried the meditation. I’ve tried to digging and sleeping the 9 to 10 hours and say, “Sleep about 10 hours is bad.” I’m not asleep like that. Overall, reading is something that has always been something that helps me stabilize and get back into a place of comfort. I try to tell kids, “The flipping of the screens on social media and the quick viewing of TV gives us a short attention span. It makes you Jump from different levels of emotions.”

Flipping screens on social media leads to a shorter attention span. It makes you jump from different levels of emotions. Share on X

You might be there for five minutes and you’ve seen something from politics all the way to sexual type stuff. You have to find, as I said something that works for you and cut off some of those extra-curricular activities like the phones, the social media, and the TVs. Get back and find a way to read. It doesn’t even have to be a book. It can be read a poem or a comic book or concentrated on a lesson that you have already in school that you just double back on. Something to just stabilize yourself.

Also, music as well. I like to play some music. A lot of different kinds of music to just assume the mind. I’m R&B guy. I like listening to some old Jazz and some R&B. It brings me down a level. You can’t just be bopping to Jeezy and 50 Cent all day. You have to find a way to decompress and be able to use those different tools that are available to us on a daily basis to calm us down and be a little bit more mentally focused.

I like how you said that. I’m up in Connecticut. It’s husky country. When they won the championship in 2024, it was interesting. One of their players who since graduated mentioned early on in the year that he doesn’t have any social media. Being a 23-year-old young man with no social media. Every time this kid was interviewed, they him asked him about it. No one could believe it that he had no social media. I thought it was great. He had focused, understood, and the impact.

For young people reading, your words are important. You’ve achieved professional status at your career. You know a thing or two when it comes to athletics. One of the reasons why I love having various people on my show is that, everybody’s got an opinion. It’s important to embrace everybody’s viewpoint because if people are reading and they take a nugget or two here and there, that’s the point. That’s the whole point of normalizing photos.

Open Dialogue With Your Kids

I appreciate you putting that out there, Damian. I’m curious, you are also a dad. Another hat that you wear. You have three kids, I believe. They’re just coming into the teenage world now. As a dad, as kids are growing up, we start to think about what was life like for us when we were their age and because of some of the things we talked about. It’s changed dramatically. I’m wondering, what are some of your observations in terms of your own kids? What are you noticing? What are some of the things that kids are facing nowadays that seem difficult?

A lot of things that are kids are feeling these days are things that we felt as well but just on a magnify level. They’re competing with each other in sports. Not just in sports but in school. There’s competing in a different kind of way because as I said with the social media stuff. It becomes a different competition. I have young daughters as well. I have a daughter that’s ten and some of her friends have started to get skin care stuff, so then they’re sharing their skin care stuff. It’s not harmful stuff. It’s not stuff that they’re doing where it’s a bad thing, but it can become something else. Unless you let her know what she needs to be doing with that or how she needs to be obtaining it.

She’s like, “I want to go to Sephora, dad. I want to go here.” I’m like, “There are certain items I would allow you to have and that are good for your age group but there’s some things that I don’t agree with and this is why I don’t.” You explain to them why you don’t want them wearing these certain things or going in these certain areas at this age because it’s a lot of pitfalls out for young ladies that are dressing a certain way or seen a little older when they’re not just because of the skin care stuff that they’re choosing.

That has been an obstacle being that I never faced before that I had to try to align with the proper judgment with me and my wife. My son as well going off to high school. He’s a younger kid for his age. He’s a little younger than mostly kids in his grade and he plays football as well. I didn’t have the pressure of my dad playing in the NFL or being coached by guys that played with my dad. It becomes a different hurdle for him. He’s like, “I feel like guys are always on me.” It’s probably they are always on you because I go half way with the couple of those guys there. They know what I would be expecting from you and they would be expecting from you as well.

Being able to limit their expectations and their exposure but not limited in a capping way. Only in a defining way. Defining what these different feelings that they’re having maybe the anxiety of being coached by someone that I know or the anxiety of, “Dad. I want to get this product for my face.” Those are totally different things but, at the end, they all come back to the same home and the same message, which is, let’s try to find the good in these products. Let’s try to find the good in this situation.

What can we do to concentrate on being better at understanding why this is not a good product for me or why I shouldn’t be going to lift weights right after I left wrestling practice?” I’m like, “Son, you can’t be in a rush.” As you know, there’s no speed limit in life. There’s a speed limit on the road but not in life. Once you get cooking, it can go like that. Trying to make sure they’re stable and they have a good base.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved Youth

 

You hit on a number of things. One important word, understand. As parents, we wear a hat. We wear a lot of hats, but one of the hats we wear is teaching. I always say to parents like when your kid is fifteen, a lot of times your oldest when they turn fifteen is like, “I got this down.” They turned sixteen and you’re like, “Now I got to figure out sixteen,” then your daughter’s.

It’s different when they’re fifteen. In many cases, parenting is on the job learning. Guess who’s our best teachers? Those kids. They teach us and they teach us well, but we got to work together. You strike me as someone who’s got a open dialogue with not only your kids, but maybe also the kids from Gridiron.

I admire that, Damian, because it’s interesting. I meet parents of all types and I don’t know how parents encounter the next stressor and parenting and not talk. I don’t know how they do that, but I imagine the kid figures that out or doesn’t themselves and things get challenging as a result. Open dialogue is huge. It sounds like you’re a person who encourages that with kids.

I do, and I still get a lot of open dialogue from former campers, mentees, and guys that I’ve worked with from Naples. I used to have a program a few years there, and still gets a heads up from those kids that are there. Some of them are grown, in college, and in careers. I see them on social media. I always liked their stuff. I’m always sending nice little message just a to let them know coach is still there coaching. Don’t think I’m not watching or I don’t know where you’re not making the right decisions.

That’s why I try to walk the way. I walk on my social media and Pages, just to show it’s okay to be a father. It’s okay to do things outside of the norm. You don’t have to do it like the Joneses and everyone else is doing. You can do what you’re supposed to be doing, which is aligning with God or whoever seeing fit to move forward with your life. Having that open dialogue and somewhere kids are able to come back to.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved Youth

 

I get hit from guys that are, as I said, still playing guys, aren’t playing, and guys that gave the game up right after camp. They always knew coach Carrie. I can bounce a couple of teams with him. I can bounce this off of him like, “Coach, what do you think about this school? What do you think about me thinking about this career?” I’d be like, “That’s where you should go. As a matter of fact, check this out, too. This concentrates on that as well.” I’ll send more information because I want to see them successful. Not that it’s any sweat off me but if I have been around, you or if I’ve touched you, I want to see you have a success.

I hear you. Your helper, Damian. You like helping. I’ve coached myself. I certainly have done lots of counseling over the years. I always say to my patients, “Stay in touch. Drop me a card here. Drop me a line. Drop me a message.” Sometimes I hear and sometimes I don’t. Someone said to me a long time ago and it meant a lot. I’ll say it back to you because it’s applicable here. You have no idea just when you say to someone, “You mean a lot. You’re important. Your actions are important.” Those statements from a grown adult to a kid have this ripple effect and oftentimes, create for that young person a positivity that we don’t necessarily get to see.

Get In Touch With Damian

Years later, you may hear from that person. I admire what you’re doing. I do and your positivity, openness, and your ability to communicate with people in general. You connect with them where they’re at. Again, you’re a person in the athletic industry. You’ve touched all the levels. You’re credibility is there, and yet you work with young people. Again, you find out how you can help and you’re there. You got a big heart, Damian. I appreciate what you do. I do. Can I just ask for my readers, how can they find you if they’re in in the southern Florida vicinity?

We’re at @Gridiron_GANG on Instagram and we’re @GridironGangInc on X. I don’t use X as much no more as I used to but you can still get with me. You can also send me an email at Info@GridironGroup.org and I’m always available. We do a lot of stuff at Holiday Park, which is our local park in Fort Lauderdale. We partner with the City of Fort Lauderdale on the couple small projects. We’re working hand in hand with Mount Olive Church in Fort Lauderdale very close with the deacon and Tom over there.

We’re trying to do more in the community. We’ve only been here for a few years, but we did a lot of Jersey and Naples as well. I used to have a camp in Naples with the Bayshore Educational Center, which is an educational center that’s tailored for the Lely area of Naples, which is a highly populated area of people from Haiti that came over. We’ve done a lot of camps for transitioning them into America and things that they would love to do in the states.

You do not have to do what everyone else is doing. You can do what you are supposed to be doing: aligning with God and moving forward with your life according to your plans. Share on X

That’s been a great program we did. We did a lot of stuff with the Calais Foundation, which was in New Jersey, which is a special needs school that is dear to my heart. We’re probably going to be doing a little bit more of that going forward. Not in that Aventura but we got still in the works with some of the stuff for 2025, but we have a 5K walk with an organization called Ellie’s Army, which we’re pushing for. I was close with Ellie. She had cystic fibrosis. She died about 10 years ago. That’s my agent’s daughter.

We were just two of a kind. As soon as we got with each other, we were full of energy and full of balls of joy. She touched my life early on and she helped me get through some obstacles that I had early on and just being able to keep her legacy going. We have a 5K that we do every year. This is about the 17th year of it. It’s at Aventura Library on February 23rd. Anyone that wants to know about it, you can go to DirtySocks.org. You can sign up to be a participant and/or sponsor. It’s a great event. You got former players, coaches and people from the community. Everyone that wants to give back and put on honor on Ellie’s name.

That’s fantastic. I got to connect you with my buddy Dr. Joe. Do you know Joe Oravecz. He’s the CEO of NAMI Broward County in that area. He does a lot of work down there. Him and I have done some work together as well. I got to connect you, but you’re doing some great work down there, Damian. I appreciate and admire all of what you do with your community.

Damian’s Nominee For Next Guest

Let me ask you, part of Normalize it Forward, to continue the conversation around wellness. Talking about not only mental health but from all of the different hats that we wear, whether it’s athlete or parent or individual in the community. Part of what we do with Normalize it Forward is to try to continue to have the conversation. I usually ask, if you have a friend, a co-worker, or a relative, someone who you think would be helpful for me to connect with next. I’ll put you on the spot and ask, any thoughts? Anyone individual that you thought might be good?

A great guy to look at is a guy that I see on a daily basis, Brandon Marshall that played the NFL for a long time. Brandon played for numerous teams. He has a show called I Am Athlete and he also has a facility called House of Athlete. He’s been a champion for mental health and awareness over the years. I just shared something on my social media about a lady that came up to him on the street over the last couple of days and just said, “His openness to talk about his mental health situation helped her of her life and helped her serve to the next steps.”

Him as well as AJ Brown that has just showed a lot of initiative with the reading of the book on the sidelines. A lot of people looked at it as a weird situation, but we all have things that we need to calm us like we talked about earlier, to center us, to bring us back to a place of comfort. If reading on the sidelines was that thing that kept him calm during those tense times, then that’s a great opportunity. Leaning into that same realm of football players, AJ Brown would love it and a former player Brandon Marshall. Both of those guys are leaders in the mental health space, and enlighten a crowd, too.

We all have things that bring us back to a place of comfort. Share on X

That’d be great, Damian. I’ll get their contact info offline for you, but I appreciate the names and would love to connect with those gentlemen. I, too, agree with what you’re saying. It’s interesting when you hear about the stats of mental health and they say 1 and 5 or 2 and 5, but I think it’s 5 and 5. I have a good friend of mine who talks about that as their mission statement, 5 and 5 constantly. It’s like we are all susceptible. We all have good days, bad days, and our struggles. The more we talk about him, the more we’re able to glean information that can be helpful and continue to move forward. One last question for you on the brink of the Super Bowl. Do you have any predictions for us, Damian? What do you think?

It’s kind of tough. I went to the Super Bowl to see the first time they played against each other and I was going for Kansas City. I’m going to state here, I’m going for Philly. I’m a State Farm Barkley fan. We live in Rutherford, New Jersey, before we moved down to Florida. Say Quan was right there in our backyard. He was a great kid. He did a lot in our community of brotherhood at the time and seeing him flourished into the player he’s become.

My son got to go to a couple of his camps and meet him early on in his career and just seeing his impact on the game and being the Ambassador for the game that he is an ambassador for being such a great young. He’s such a well-rounded great young man that you want to see a person like that representing the lead. Having him there on that podium, holding that award as MVP of the Super Bowl would be great. Not just for the game of football, but for the game of life.

You heard it here, Damian’s predicting Philly. I’m with him. I think Philly going to take it as well. I appreciate your sentiments. I’m also a big Say Quan fans, so I would love to see that happen. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. I’m sure my readers do as well. Your thoughts around mental health and wellness are spot on. I agree with so much of what you had to say, but I want to thank you. Thank you for your time and your energy. Enjoy yourself. Have fun.

Thank you, Dr. Marc. Go Eagles.

You take care. See you, Damian.

 

Important Links

 

About Damian Gregory

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Damian Gregory | Underserved YouthDamian Gregory, a Michigan native, born in Ann Arbor and spent his youth in Lansing, where he attended Sexton High School. He received a football scholarship to attend Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana and graduated in the class of 2000. At Indiana University he was a three-year starter, voted “All-Big Ten”, appeared in 31 games with 22 starts and registered 125 tackles. He spent his last year of his college career with Illinois State University, where he was voted team MVP, 1st Team All-American and served as Team Captain voted by players and staff.

In May of 2000 Damian signed as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins where he played Nose Guard and Tackle. After two years with the Dolphins in 2002, Damian signed with the Cleveland Browns where he played Defensive Tackle and Nose Guard. In 2003 Damian moved to Oakland where he played with the Oakland Raiders as Nose Guard. In 2004 Damian played a year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as Defensive Tackle. He also played in the NFL Europe League with the Scottish Claymores in 2004, where he was voted Team MVP, “All Europe First Team” and “Lineman Of The Year”. In 2006 Damian spent his last playing year with the with Michigan’s own Detroit Lions, where he played Nose Guard and Defensive Tackle.

After a six-year career in the NFL, Damian founded Gridiron Marketing Group LLC in April 2005. Gridiron Marketing Group specializes in investment property, foreclosures, short sales, buying and selling commercial and residential property, and remodeling. Gridiron Marketing Group also provides commercial and residential development planning, marketing and funding of housing initiatives, which include rental housing projects affording low-income families with quality affordable housing.

Damian has spent every year since the end of his college career serving as a coach to several youth football camps, and various weekly football clinics in the United States and Scotland, such as the Gridiron Institute Football Camp , the NFL Youth Activities, Fuel Up To Play 60, and a host of others.

In July of 2008 Damian was selected by the NFL Retired Players Association to receive an internship as Defensive Line and Defensive Scout Team Coach with Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan. After 2 Seasons with the SVSU Cardinals Coach Gregory decided to concentrate fully on his Real estate entrepreneurial endeavors primarily in the Lansing, Michigan area. Damian continues to serve as president of Gridiron Marketing Group LLC, as well as coaching with various youth football camps / Teams (Ft lauderdale Falcons) and professional representation Goalline football sport agency training future NFL hopefuls.

In 2009 Damian founded Gridiron G.A.N.G. (Giving Adolescents New Goals) a 501c (3) non-profit organization, advocating athletics as a mechanism to inspire achievement in all aspect of life for underserved youth. The goal for each participant is to lay the pathway to success by instilling the mindset of accomplishment in spite of adversity. Over the past thirteen years Gridiron G.A.N.G. has successfully administered volunteer football camps and lectures with the support of community advocate partners (Y.M.C.A., Gateway Services, Rutgers University, Troop 21, NFLAA, NFLPA, etc.) in Michigan, New Jersey, Florida and New York reaching over 20,000 children.

Damian Gregory currently serves on the executive committee of the NFL Alumni Detroit Chapter, and President emeritus of the Board of Trustees for the Calais Foundation. Damian is married to Mrs. Shayla Gregory and they have three beautiful children Damian “DJ” Gregory 14 years old and Genevieve Gregory 10 years old and Vivienne Gregory 6 years old . The Gregory family resides in Fort Lauderdale Florida But Lansing Michigan will always be home.

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | Neurodiversity

Championing Neurodiversity In The Workplace With Dr. Jen Hartstein

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | Neurodiversity

 

Let’s talk about neurodiversity. It’s not just a buzzword; it’s about building a better future for work. Marc Lehman ignites a crucial conversation with Dr. Jen Hartstein, owner of Hartstein Psychological Services and co-founder of Mental Capital. This isn’t your typical HR talk; Dr. Hartstein, an expert in child and adolescent psychology, is revolutionizing how companies embrace this concept. This episode dives deep: How do we move beyond surface-level awareness to truly attract, hire, and retain neurodiverse talent? Dr. Jen Hartstein provides the roadmap, empowering leaders to cultivate workplaces where every mind thrives, and innovation flourishes.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Championing Neurodiversity In The Workplace With Dr. Jen Hartstein

I am joined by Dr. Jennifer Hartstein. Jennifer, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for being here. Dr. Jennifer Hartstein is the Owner of Hartstein Psychological Services, a group private practice in New York City. Dr. Jen works with children, adolescents, and their families with a wide range of psychological diagnoses and specializes in the treatment of high-risk children and adolescents. Additionally, she’s the Cofounder of Mental Capital, working with companies large and small to attract higher and retain neurodiverse employees and staff while helping to create neuro inclusive work environments. I can’t wait to hear about that.

Dr. Jen frequently speaks with companies about mental health stress reduction and how leaders can create healthy work environments for their employees. She’s on the executive committee and is a Board Member for Active Minds, an amazing organization working on college campuses to decrease the stigma of mental health.

She’s part of a practitioner alliance of Same Here Global, a major mental health organization run by my colleague and friend Eric Kussin. Dr. Jen was a Self-Esteem Ambassador for Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and was on the advisory board for MTV’s A Thin Line, which focused on the digital behavior of today’s young people.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | Neurodiversity

 

She’s the author of Princess Recovery: A How-to Guide for Raising Strong, Empowered Girls Who Can Create Their Own Happily Ever Afters. She’s a regular contributor to a variety of media outlets, including NBC News Now, NBC’s The Today Show, The Huffington Post and Parents Magazine. Dr. Jen, thank you so much for being here. How’d I do with that?

You did great. I’m like, “That person sounds really impressive.”

Absolutely. I agree. I do think you’re very impressive. Let’s dig in. Let’s talk about this, because you and I do very similar work. There’s some crossover, but clearly, you are doing some stuff that I don’t do and would love to hear about. Can we start with Mental Capital? That intrigued me. Tell us about that.

Dr. Jen Hartstein On Mental Capital & Workplace Inclusion

For sure. Mental Capital is a business that I started with a longtime friend named Peter Shankman, who is very well known in the entrepreneurship space and is a neurodiverse entrepreneur. He has spoken a lot about his ADHD is his superpower and has written some books on it. He has a book called Faster Than Normal and a podcast called Faster Than Normal, which I highly recommend for people who are A DHD or think they might be neurodiverse. They’re great resources. He wrote a great children’s book. We’ve been friends for a very long time.

We were talking and one day we were like, “There seems to be a lack in business space of supporting neurodiverse employees.” He does keynotes about his own experience and here I am, a clinical person and can bring an element into companies saying, “Here’s the clinical side and here’s the lived experience side and this beautiful synergy of how we can help you create neuro inclusive environments.”

Think about it this way. If we think about the fact that I live in Manhattan and every corner has a curb cutout. The curb cutout started as a way to help handicapped people get across sidewalks. It started as a disability focused intervention, but who does it help? It helps parents with strollers, it helps delivery people with carts, it helps groceries, it helps all the things.

What helps one helps the masses. We are trying to really go into businesses and say, “If you can make this change for your neurodiverse staff, it helps all your staff. We also know return of investment. Happier employees make happier businesses, and so on and so forth. That’s really where it started and that’s where we’re getting our traction.

If you look at the research, like when you think about college age and young adults, 53% of Gen Z is identifying as neurodiverse. That doesn’t mean they all carry a specific diagnosis, but it doesn’t matter. They’re going into the workplace identifying as neurodiverse. You have Gen Xers and Boomers still in leadership that don’t know what that means and how to talk to them. They think they’re lazy. They think they’re not working hard enough. Whatever you want to see, there’s all this judgment and you’re losing really good employees because we’re not shifting environments to make it better.

That’s really what Mental Capital is, and it’s really fun and it’s really exciting and to go into like a place like Morgan Stanley where we’ve gone in and done a series of talks and had this wide range of people come up to us at the end, like, “We learned so much. This is so enlightening,” or parents of neurodiverse kids being like, “This is so helpful. How do I advocate for what I need in a workplace?” All of those things. It’s been a lot of fun to be creating.

It’s funny, I was just thinking as therapists, we take that for granted sometimes that everybody knows what we know or everybody’s had the similar experiences. Every once in a while, we meet people that have such a base experience with diversity or neurodiversity and as a result, the working environments can get really complicated and really hard.

I think you have it on both sides. You have the people that just don’t know what it means. They don’t know what the definitions are, they don’t know that we all have different cognitive differences. We have that piece and we’re all supposed to fit into the same hole and peg and that doesn’t work anymore. I think there’s two kinds of problems we have with people coming into work spaces that are neurodiverse.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | Neurodiversity

 

One is they don’t always know how to advocate for themselves because you’ve also been told to be the round peg to get into the hole. You try and mask or create a persona that presents as normal whatever the heck normal means or you have people coming out of environments where they’ve been given. You work in schools.

In school systems, we have 504s and ieps, supports and all these things. All of a sudden, they got thrown out of college and those things don’t exist. That’s maybe what made them a really successful candidate for the job, having some scaffolding. Why do we take all the scaffolding away just because we like have a magic number of 21 or 22? It’s like, no scaffolding. We’re creating frameworks and businesses to keep some scaffolding because I mean, let’s face it, we all could use some scaffolding at different times. Wouldn’t that be helpful? We only know what we know. Having these conversations is really so important because more and more people are impacted and are going to be in the workplace.

You got me thinking about high school, college, and then work. I do a lot of work in high schools and that work in college, that transition. I see that when students not only have scaffolding academically, but then they go into a dorm. Their social skills are limited or low, and really, no one’s taken the time to help them with that.

It’s amazing when you start teaching and you start giving them skillsets and all of a sudden, they start picking up friends. I think it’s similar in the workplace in that they’re able to get things done in a way that their bosses want them to. Wonderful idea. Love the concept. I appreciate you giving us the backdrop of it.

How COVID Changed Mental Health & Emotional Resilience

Let me ask you this. Your practice. You see a lot of different things. I guess I have a couple thoughts or a couple of questions for you. One is we’ll call it post-COVID, I don’t even know if that’s the right term to be using right now, but since COVID has been a little bit in the backdrop, I guess I’m wondering what are some of the trends that you’re noticing with young people in your office?

I think starting in COVID, we really started to see how disconnected young people are. I think that has continued, unfortunately. You have kids in rooms with other kids that are just lonely and disconnected from one another. Fundamentally, we have two buckets of things I’m seeing, not even diagnostically, but we have the emotion dysregulation, lack of the ability to regulate an emotion without some distress tolerance strategy. Without some sort of distraction, I don’t know how to just sit in emotion. You have these very dysregulated kids that become young adults and adults, and we don’t have those skills. I think you have that on the one hand. You have simultaneous with that, a real dearth of interpersonal effectiveness skills.

They don’t know how to say, “I’m really struggling,” or, “I know you think I’m the star athlete and everything’s great, but am I miserable?” In fact, I spoke to a parent who’s like, “We just found out my son had four suicide attempts that failed. We had no idea that this was going on for him.” Top student, top school, star athlete but so well masked that no one had any idea. We hear those stories all the time.

Our specialty in Hartstein Psychological is these high risk, high intensity, highly dysregulated kids. Even with our clients that don’t fit that category, no one knows how to self-soothe. No one knows how to just be like, “This is a rough day. I’m going to lay on the couch and have a pity party for a few hours and cry or be upset or whatever and then I’m going to get up.”

We are so busy being like, “I can’t feel this. Get on my phone, get on a screen. Do something.” It’s amplified as we all know so much more now by comparisons online and all of the things that we’re leaning into with social media. Those are the big buckets that my practice and like all my people would all probably agree are the big holes for young people right now.

Teens, Substances & The Problem With Over-Parenting

I have to say, whether it’s running to the phone for soothing, clearly the whole social media piece, I also see young people with the advent of marijuana pens, mobile it is, we’ll say. With the advent of that, I’ve noticed when I say to kids sometimes, “How often are you using marijuana?” They can’t answer because it’s like 15 to 20 times a day that they’re just taking a puff off of their pen, which reminds me a lot of a child with a with a pacifier. 

It doesn’t even have to be a marijuana vape. I think it can be any vape. They do such a good job of hiding it in their hand or hiding it in a sleeve, and all of a sudden, it’s like, “What?” I’m always amazed. I’m like, “Anywhere?” There’s this lack of responsibility. “Maybe sitting in the doctor’s office is not a place I should be vaping.” I had a client in the hospital and she’s like, “I snuck my vape in.” I’m like, “What?” It wasn’t marijuana, it was nicotine, there is this dependence thing.

I think that the third thing we don’t always like to talk about is we have very well intended adults in the lives of young people who over-function for young people. That makes that interpersonal effectiveness and emotion dysregulation bucket that much harder to fill because someone is always navigating the world for you. All of that over accommodation doesn’t allow anybody to learn they’re actually capable.

All of that overaccommodation from adults doesn't allow young people to learn they are actually capable. Share on X

It’s funny you should say that. I remember a student of mine getting turned down by a college, a seventeen-year-old. It occurred to me as she was sobbing about this that this might be like the first time she’s felt disappointment of this level in her entire life at seventeen. I think that as adults, it becomes our job to let kids tolerate some of these things. Let’s face it, as parents, I think we’re constantly in the middle there of I don’t want my child too anxious or depressed versus I do need to let my child deal with stuff.

Failure As A Tool For Growth & Building Resilience

Failure’s a gift. Jess Lahey wrote one of my favorite books that I recommend to parents all the time called The Gift of Failure. It’s really all about the place we learn is where we fail. Kids learn how to walk because they walk and they fall down. We don’t pick them up all the time. They’ll never learn how to walk. Why do we, all of a sudden, think we can’t let our young people fail? I think that that’s where we learn the most. Jess’s book is just like so spot on in having that conversation. I think that there’s that.

I think that what we ultimately are doing when we’re trying to protect our kids from feeling anxious, feeling sad, failing, is we’re inadvertently teaching them that they’re actually incapable of handling it. We’re actually making them more anxious. We don’t realize that because it also requires parents to navigate their own emotions. Be like, “I can tolerate my kid being anxious. I can tolerate my child sobbing out of disappointment,” and having to just sit there and validate and not tell them, “I can fix it.” That’s really hard.

The resilient piece of being able to come back from that Yeah. Is so important to their self-worth. You hit the nail on the head. I see a little bit of all of that. As parents, it’s a challenge. It is a huge challenge with things like vape pens and things like phones and stuff around kids that work against us as parents. Even therapists. It puts us in a position. You mentioned it increases anxiety. A lot of our work is helping kids tolerate anxiety.

That’s so hard. I had a meeting with a teenager and we were talking about something she was anxious about, but she had something else. She remembered she was anxious about over here. She wants an answer on something that she can’t get an answer on it. She’s so frustrated. I’m like, “Okay, but you’re going to do this thing. We’ve got to come up with some strategies.” She was like, “I have to focus on this side and you have to give me an answer.”

When I wouldn’t give her an answer, it was like she got more and more escalated and I was like, “Alright, hold on. I will hold this space for you to be upset. I can handle it. You can be as frustrated with me as you want. I don’t care, but we still have to finish this conversation. How can you be okay waiting?” I think that was like this beautiful microcosm of what happens with so many kids we see all the time. “What do you mean I have to wait? Give me an answer now.” We are an immediate gratification society. I want it. I order it, I get it tomorrow, the end. There’s no waiting.

You sound like me, Jen. I say that all the time. Amazon wasn’t good enough, so we made Amazon Prime because we need it faster. What’s interesting is like one huge thing in a young person’s world that they can’t speed up is school. School is anything but fast. Many kids have to wait for grades. They have to wait for college entrance stuff and everything you have to wait for.

They’re just not used to that. Maybe that leads me to my next question. I’m wondering about this. Anxiety and depression are obviously way up. You and I see it all the time in our offices. I’m wondering, when you think about what are some of the things that prompt that? Why are they up so much? What comes to mind?

Social Media, Anxiety & The Rising Mental Health Crisis

When you look at the numbers, the numbers are staggering. If we just think basic research numbers like suicide is the second leading cause of death for 10 to 25-year-olds. Anxiety went up for girls heading into COVID until just after COVID, like 200%. Self-harm rates increased. We know 1 in 4 young people have tried self-harming at least one time, which we can talk about also. The numbers are scary. I’m not scared of them, although I think they are scary. I think so much of it is what we were talking about a little bit before. We live in a society because of social media especially. Please let me preface this by saying, I do not think social media is the only enemy of young people. I think it is a problem for young people.

I think that the pendulum has swung over to phones and social media and all this stuff are the devil, but for a socially anxious kid, they’re a lifeline. There’s so much good but I think we’re the messaging right now is take all the phones away and like, go back to feeling the grass. Go back to building independence. Kids are too codependent. They do not know how to do. When I see a ten-year-old walk into school by themselves in the city, I do a little internal happy dance because I love the independence. I think the anxiety and the depression is coming from this constant comparison.

Let us go back to building independent kids. They are too co-dependent. Take all the phones away and go back to feeling the grass. Share on X

When I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I didn’t know about the party because I didn’t know about the party. I learned about it on Monday but I wasn’t watching it unfold in real time on social media through Snapchat or Instagram and then having maybe people talk about me when I wasn’t there and all of those things. There’s this, “Am I going to be included?” That’s part of adolescence. That’s part of development, growth and finding yourself.

However, if I had to live my life out loud all the time, I’m so glad that that was not part of my adolescence. We can’t diminish the impact of that on a very malleable undeveloped brain of trying to understand what it all means. We, as adults, I’m sure there are moments you see something on social media as an adult. I’m a 53-year-old woman, and I’m like, “Why wasn’t I invited to that?” I feel disappointed in that. I can be like, “Does it really matter?” Now make me 13 or 14 and I’m watching that.

I think that there is a part of us that always wants to be part of the community included and when I’m not, I question it. I’m comparing myself to what do you look like and what’s your curated life. The comparisons that we’ve always had are so much harder to navigate, and because we’re not always talking about them, kids don’t know how to process it. They don’t know how to say, “That’s not reality. That person’s life isn’t real.”

I think the social media piece, the comparisons piece and the life in real time unfolding in front of us are huge. Sometimes we just have these unrealistic expectations of young people and what they’re supposed to be doing and the way the world is. They are climate afraid. We have not prepared a world for them that’s great and they know it and they’re afraid of it.

We are getting messaging that if you belong to a certain marginalized group, you’re not good enough. If you’re part of a trans community, you’re not allowed to be who you are. How does that impact this young group of people who believe in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity, but no, don’t do that. Everything about them that they’re supposed to be questioning is being questioned by the larger thing. I think that there’s just like no reprieve.

I see that all the time. You made me think, too. I’m on social media a lot for my businesses and half of my audience is students, half of them are parents. The things that I see students, in particular young ladies doing online in terms of comparison is disturbing. I was looking up the book you wrote and thought, “I’ve got to ask Jen about this.”

I’m all over the place.

Empowering Young People & Encouraging Emotional Expression

No, you’re not. You’re touching on some very amazing things. I ask, Jen, you’re talking to an audience of young people right now, and I want to know from your perspective if you’re talking directly to a young lady, let’s say teenager, what advice do you give them around empowerment?

I don’t know if you saw that amazing Dove commercial during the Super Bowl.. It’s just like this delightful three-year-old that she’s running and her legs bring her places and are so empowering, but at fourteen, they’re going to be the things she hates the most. We get that this is why girls drop out of sports. I was teary-eyed in the commercial because I loved it. What’s so disheartening to me is I wrote my book in 2011. We could have the exact same conversation with a few tweaks about what I talk about in my book, because this is what happens with girls and it has happened forever.

It’s hormonal, societal and developmental. There are so many variables. What I really say to young people, and I see a lot of girls in my office where we have these conversations, is what’s the thing you love internally and externally? Internally, what’s the thing about yourself that makes you, you? You have to identify that. Most people will go, “My friends will say,” or, “My parents will say.” No, I don’t want to know any of that. What’s you and how do we water that seed?

“I’m really funny.” “Cool. How do we use that as your superpower?” “I’m a great juggler.” “Awesome. How do we use that as your superpower?” Really slowing down and having some internal exploration of what’s that thing, that light that I will not let anybody snuff out that I will protect at all costs. What’s the external thing that I love? You love Dungeons and Dragons? Cool. Find a Dungeons and Dragons team. You love to play soccer. Okay, great. Can you be part of a soccer club?

There are groups of people for all of us. Being part of the popular crowd looks great, but being part of the popular crowd sucks. There’s so much effort in staying in the popular crowd. Find your people. I think that’s where most young people get stuck. High school movies show high school as so fabulous. I tell most of my clients, “You find your people, like your true people, on your sophomore year in college.”

Your high school people are your people, but many of them are people you’ve known since you were in kindergarten, so they’re your people by default. You go to college, it’s sometimes the first time you’ve had to actually make friends outside of the forced friendships from childhood. Freshman year, you’re trying to figure out who those people are. It’s all new. You might find this crew and they might be great, but sophomore year, when you’re settled, you find your people.

I have had several clients come back to me later and be like, “How did you know that?” I’m like, “I went to college and I lived it.” I just watch what happens. Some of that is really understanding who you want your people to be. I think that’s empowering in and of itself.

I’m really glad you said that last part because I just said to a patient, “In my opinion, your people, number one, treat you like you treat them. Number two, they’re there for you when you need them. Just like you’re there for them.” Kids get that really confused. If you’re around people that you think are your people that aren’t there for you, they’re not really your people.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | Neurodiversity

 

Yet we continue to try and make them our people. We continue to try and be like, “They were nice to me yesterday, so they’ll be nice to me tomorrow.” You shouldn’t have a friendship that’s an every other day friendship. Young people just they think it’s what should be. This is the negotiation of relationships young people have to figure out. The letting go of a friendship at any point of our lives, I don’t care how old we are, is painful and sad and no one wants to feel that. Part of it goes back to this idea of failure. It’s part of life. Not all relationships are lifetime relationships, even when we think they’re going to be. That’s really hard.

I think if you talk to enough young people, you hear those themes. You just hear them over and over again. You also hear what referencing earlier, that hidden world like, “I’m super depressed, but I don’t let people know that.” Especially males. I was talking with a student and we joked about this, but I think there’s some real truth to it. I had said to him, “When was the last time you cried openly in front of people?” He looked at me as though he had never done it. I said, “Just so you know, I asked that same question to a female an hour ago, and she said, ‘Your waiting room.’” there’s that sense of male-female split of how young men are able to embrace that. I’m sure you see that in your space.

Athletes, Mental Health & The Role Of Public Figures

This is why I love AJ Brown. There is some really important stuff happening. I agree that I think we’re getting a shift. We’re getting a shift in the AJ Browns, the Jason Kelsey’s like all of these tough NFL players and basketball players and all that stuff that are coming out and talking about mental health. We can say, “Kevin Love really started a lot of these conversations with basketball and all this stuff.” I think that we’re seeing it’s becoming the norm.

I’ve had some interactions with some former pro athletes and a lot of them are really starting to recognize like, “I need to talk about these things. I need to be open. I need to be sharing my story because I can have an impact on person X, Y, or Z. I can tell these young men.” We know there’s also an even bigger divide when it’s men of color versus not. Men of color have a whole very another level of, “I’m supposed to be strong.” I just want everybody to bow down to AJ Brown and his openness because I think that that is going to be a game changer. I like what he did for the author of that book. Just a game changer. He’s basically being like, “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It’s funny, I was interviewing Damien Gregory, a colleague of mine who played in the NFL, and Damien nominated AJ. This is before the Super Bowl. I said, “If you get him on my show, I’ll be forever thankful.” I agree. He has opened doors for people, not just men, but it isn’t just around general mental health. I also think it’s around suicide specifically. To me, and I’m sure to you as well as a therapist, the scariest side of mental health for parents and for anyone is that, and yet, who are watching those numbers. Here’s the craziest part. Yes, suicide is the second leading cause of death. Years ago, it was number twelve. I always tell parents like, “It is moving in the wrong direction,” and there’s a reason for that.

By the way, attempts are three times that. We’re talking about these completed suicides. We’re not talking about the fact that you get three attempts to every completed suicide. The greatest predictor of future attempt is past attempt. People attempt multiple times.

I’m with you. It’s such a scary topic. As a therapist, I think we’ve talked about it a lot. It maybe is easier for us to talk about, but I tell parents all the time, please. Certainly, there’s things that are hard to talk about. Sex, puberty, I get all that. This is one of those topics that nobody is immune to. One of the greatest things that I hear Eric say all the time from Same Here is five and five, we are all susceptible. I really believe that. I believe that in all the wrong circumstances, these things come out. Just when you think that guy or that young lady, they’re fine. They’re not. Ask them.

Destigmatizing Therapy & Treating Mental Health Like Physical Health

I think what one of the things that I also appreciate about Eric’s messaging is that mental health and physical health are equally important. We go for yearly physicals. We don’t hesitate. I didn’t feel well last week. I didn’t hesitate to walk into the doctor like. It’s very funny, as a therapist, it’s not like I say to my clients, “When I go to therapy.”

I had a client say to me, “I don’t know anything about you.” I was like, “What do you want to know? Within reason, I’ll answer you.” She was like, “Do you go to therapy?” First she said, “Do you have a mental illness?” I said, “I don’t actually think of things that way.” She goes, “Do you have issues?” I was like, “Doesn’t everybody?” She kept poking the bear and I finally was like, “What do you want to know? Do you want to know if I go to therapy?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Yeah, I go to therapy.” She was shocked I answered her. I think she was also shocked that I go, “Why not?” I’ve got to practice what I preach. If I’m telling you to go to therapy, I’m going to go to therapy.

I think that surprises people. We always joke like, “Who’s the therapist to the therapist to the therapist?” At what point, does the threat end? Mental health and physical health, we know they play off each other and we know that they’re equal importance. If we are not paying attention to that, we’re really missing the mark.

I think our physical health and our mental health, I’ve really thought this really for my entire adult life. We have two choices. We either take care of them or they take care of us. For young people, it’s unfortunate, but I know young people that don’t go get annual physicals. They don’t go to the dentist, they don’t do this, they don’t do that.

I say it all the time, “If you’ve got things that are troubling you,” and everybody knows what that means, “Go see a therapist.” I’ve done it many times and it’s really helped, simply put. Jen, your breath of fresh air. You’re fun to talk to. I feel like I could talk to you all day and unfortunately, I’m sure we’ve got other things we got to move on to at some point.

That may be true.

Who’s Next? Passing the Torch

Let me ask you one last question. Part of the show is I ask if you’ve got a person, a friend, a relative, a coworker, AJ’s already taken by the way, to nominate. Feel free to throw a name out. I’d love to interview them next.

I’m going to nominate a young woman who I met at an event. Her name is Olivia Healy. She is amazing. A young Gen Z-er who made a short film about her panic attack. Brilliant. Smart. She really wants to open up people’s ability to talk about what anxiety is like, as it has impacted her and as it impacts young people. I am going to suggest that she be involved in this convo because I think she’ll bring some great ideas to the table.

I really appreciate it. I super look forward to connecting with her and get her info from you offline. I appreciate you nominating her. I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to break this one. Please go back when you get a chance and watch Emma Benoit’s interview. I interviewed her. She’s a young lady. She’s actually a suicide survivor.

I interviewed her a couple of shows ago. Unbelievable young lady. Readers, if you haven’t seen it, please go back. Most importantly, I appreciate your time, Jen, really, and this was great. I don’t often have therapists on, so this was really helpful for me to hear your side of things. Things are a little different in Manhattan than they are in Connecticut, so it’s always nice to hear a different view. I didn’t even ask you about the Yankees and the Mets. I won’t even go there.

I’m a Mets girl. Sorry.

You’re a Mets girl. All right. We we’re going to disagree on one thing. That’s all.

That’s okay. Thanks for having me, Mark. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all you’re doing to just have the conversations, it’s so important.

I appreciate it. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thanks. You, too.

Thanks.

 

Important Links

 

About Dr. Jen Hartstein

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Dr. Jen Hartstein | NeurodiversityJennifer L. Hartstein, PsyD, is the owner of Hartstein Psychological Services, a group psychotherapy practice in New York City. Dr. Jen works with children, adolescents, and their families with a wide range of psychological diagnoses and specializes in the treatment of high-risk children and adolescents. She has received intensive training in adolescent suicide assessment and has specialized in this population for several years, using a variety of treatment approaches, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

Additionally, Dr. Jen is the cofounder of Mental Capital, working with companies large and small to attract, hire and retain neurodiverse employees and staff while helping to create neuroinclusive work environments. Dr. Jen frequently speaks with companies about mental health, stress reduction and how leaders can create healthy work environments for their employees. Dr. Jen is on the executive committee and is a board member for Active Minds, an organization working to decrease the stigma of mental health. She is part of the Practitioner Alliance of We’re All a Little “Crazy,” a global mental health initiative.

Dr. Jen was a self-esteem ambassador for Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and was on the advisory board for MTV’s A Thin Line, which focused on the digital behaviors of today’s young people. Dr. Jen is the author of Princess Recovery: A How-to Guide for Raising Strong, Empowered Girls who Can Create Their Own Happily Ever Afters and is a regular contributor to a variety of media outlet, including, but not limited to NBC News Now, NBC’s The Today Show, Huffington Post, Parents Magazine and more.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental Health

Using Music For Change: A Mental Health Advocacy Journey With Shocka

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental Health

 

Mental health advocacy takes center stage in this compelling episode, where host Marc Lehman welcomes rapper Kenneth Erhahon, better known by his stage name, Shocka, a force within the grime scene and a passionate voice for this crucial cause. When rhythm meets reality, powerful voices emerge, and Shocka’s is one of them. Beyond the beats and rhymes of his music, Shocka shares his deeply personal journey, revealing how his own experiences ignited a mission to advocate for others. This conversation uncovers the raw honesty of Shocka’s artistry, his impactful efforts to raise mental health awareness, and the transformative power of using your voice for change.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Using Music For Change: A Mental Health Advocacy Journey With Shocka

I’m super excited to welcome in our guest Kenneth Erhahon, better known by his stage name is Shocka. Shocka is a rapper and mental health advocate from London. He gained recognition by being one third of Grime collective Marvell, alongside Double S and Vertex. Yes. After dealing with mental health issues himself, Shocka became a mental health advocate to help those with their own problems with his music. If you haven’t heard his music, look them up. It’s awesome. He has since aimed to raise awareness of mental health issues. Shocka, welcome. How are you?

I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. It’s our honor.

Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. It’s so tricky. When I do an intro, I feel like I’m telling just a bit about a person, but I know there’s so much more. Tell us a little bit about your background.

There is so much to it. First of all, the name Shocka because everyone always says, “That’s an interesting name. Where did they get that name from?” The name has two meanings. First of all, two positive meanings. The first meaning was because I wanted to shock my friends, my family, and the world in a positive way. I wanted them to look back on my life’s story at the end of it and be like, “He really did something amazing.”

The second meaning is actually an acronym for what Shocka means. Shocka stands for spiritual healer others can know is around them. What does that mean? That means the more I’m open about my story, the more I’m vulnerable. Other people around me can see that and decide to emulate that if it works for them and brings them to their place of healing.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental Health

 

That’s why I do what I do. Healing is actually a big theme of what I do. I was just talking to my manager about this saying like, “Healing has played a major part.” You know about the Marvel characters, right?

Sure.

The X-Men. Wolverine was my favorite character. It’s so crazy that I subconsciously picked him because his power was like he could heal himself whenever he gets injured. It started from there because people used to call me Wolverine because I used to have like long sideburns, which I still have now. I used to have fixed sideburns and people used to name me Wolverine. He has always played like a little theme.

A Transformational Book: You Can Heal Your Life

There’s been a thread throughout my whole life. The name and then when I went through my mental health difficulties, which I’ll get into, the book that actually changed my life was a book from a woman called Louise Hay, which you might have heard of. She’s American. She’s passed on now. I don’t if you know who she is.

I haven’t heard of her, no.

She’s incredible. She’s got a book called You Can Heal Your Life. I discovered that actually changed my whole life around, but a bit into going into my journey. I was in a group with Marvell, as you mentioned in my bio. There was three of us, me, Double S and Vertex. I was the Nigerian one. Another one was Ghanaian and another one was Ugandan.

We formed this group and we just had big dreams to take over the world and just do something positive from where we came from because where we came from is really negative. I’m from a place called Tottenham. I don’t know if you know about football. I don’t know if you watch football, if you’re into it. There’s a team called Tottenham, which is the area I live in. One in the football teams are called Tottenham, but there’s a little place in Tottenham called Broadwater Farm. That’s where I’m from.

That place had two riots. One was in 1986 where police officer’s head got chopped off. That’s how severe the riots was. There’s always been problems between the community and the police. There was another riot in 2012 where someone from my area got shot down by the police. There’s a hostile relationship with the police and my area was so terrible that Princess Diana, I’m sure you know who Princess Diana is. Princess Diana came to my area to make peace, to tell us to relax. That’s how bad my area was.

Now my area’s extremely positive. There’s a guy from my area, I don’t think you know who he is, but he went to number one in the charts and he brought a lot of positive attention to my area. You’ve got people like myself doing really positive things here. Things are changing. Anyway, the group called Marvell, the other two guys in the group, they’re round the corner from me. They’re from Northumberland Park, which is like ten minutes away. We all got together, formed this group called Marvell and we did amazing things.

In 2010, we met Drake really early. We were one of the first artists from the UK to bump into Drake. We literally bumped to him. We met Drake before he became a megastar. I still have the footage of it. When I see Drake, I’m going to show him this footage and hopefully he remembers me because he’s done so much since then. He’ll never forget the first time he came to London. That’s when we saw him.

He came with Rihanna, which was the distracting part because he came with Rihanna. Rihanna’s already a big star. He wasn’t. We forgot about him and focused on Rihanna. We met both of them and it was amazing. We did some incredible things. We toured us some huge acts over here. That was in 2010. This is where it gets interesting.

We brought out our first single on the 10th of the 10th of 2010. We picked that date because we believed that our lives was going to change forever on that day. We’ll look back in twenty years and be like, “That was the day that we became millionaires and changed our family’s lives.” The complete opposite happened. That day came and our song didn’t even do well. It wasn’t even the top 200s of the charts. That’s when I went into depression for the first time. I experienced isolation.

I always say to people, “There’s a difference between isolation and solitude.” Solitude is when you willingly depart from the world and take some time for yourself willingly. Isolation is when you’re forced into hiding where you force yourself into hiding because you can’t face the world or face people. That’s what I went into.

There's a difference between isolation and solitude. Solitude is when you willingly depart from the world and take some time for yourself. Isolation is when you're forced into hiding. Share on X

I went into isolation. I started like hiding from my friends due to the fact that we lost our record deal and our song didn’t do well. I was talking to a lot of artists now and I realized a lot of artists has been through that similar situation of having problems with their record. It’s a common thing. Even Liam Payne from One Direction that passed away. The news broke out that he was having problems with his record label just before. It is a common thing. I went into deep depression. We got signed in 2010. The song came out 10/10/10 then we lost our record in 2011. I went into a mental health hospital for the first time in 2012.

That’s when everything really changed because now, I’ve been introduced to a world that I knew nothing about. I used to just hear about this world. I don’t know what they call it in America, but in the area that I’m from, they call it like, “He’s gone crazy. He’s lost his mind. He’s a cycle.” You know the words that they throw around. I had to deal with that thing, that big mistake when I came out of hospital the first time. I feel like just sweep it under the rug and pretend like nothing had happened, which is wrong. I was meant to speak and verbalize it and get help. As you can imagine, the stigma was so fake. I came from a family that wasn’t educated on mental health. Even they was advising me not to tell no one.

That’s what we’ve been used to. That’s the programming throughout all of these centuries and centuries, don’t speak about it. That’s what I did. What happened was when I came out hospital in 2012, the group that I was in, Marvell, we got some investment from someone and they moved us out of our area. This is where the problem came.

Every Christmas, we will come back to the area to see our family, to spend Christmas with our family. Christmas time, I had to come back to this house where I had the breakdown and other mental health issues. That trauma will resurface. I end up getting sectioned again and putting a mental health hospital again for the second time. It used to be every two years. Every two years I would relapse and end up in hospital.

From 2012 to 2014, two years later, in 2016, I went to the hospital again. This time is where everything changed for me. The doctor said to me before he discharged me, “You’ve been sectioned,” because that’s what it’s called, sectioning. I don’t know what they call it in America when you get put in mental health hospital. In the UK you’re, it’s called being sectioned. They’re allowed to keep you there for 21 days.

The third time I got sectioned, the doctor said something just before he discharged me. He said, You’ve been sectioned three times. You’re 27 years old. You need to figure something out because you don’t want to keep coming in and out hospital for the rest of your life.” When he said that to me, it’s like a light bulb just went off in my head like, “You’re right.”

It reminds me being 50 or 60 and I’m still being sectioned. That’s when I discovered the book. That’s when I found the book. Whatsapp stories was just being introduced. I didn’t want to use whatsapp stories because I felt like there was copying. Instagram, I avoided it for so long. When I came out hospital, I started checking people’s stories and a girl had this book on her story from Louise Hay and I mentioned it to her. I said, “Ashley, is that a good book?” She said yes. I bought the book and it completely changed my life. I’m not really an avid reader, I’m more a visual person. Stuff like this is perfect. What I did after I read the book, I tagged her name into youtube to see if she’s got any videos that I could watch.

She had tons of videos. I studied all of them. What changed my life was she spoke about self-love in a way that I never heard of before. She said self-love is not about bubble bath and massages and getting your toes and your nails done. She said self-love is about how you speak to yourself, your internal dialogue. She said, ‘If you could get that conversation right, everything will change. You’ll know it will change because your reality will begin to reflect back to you, the conversation you’re having in your mind.” She was completely right.

“Self-love is not about bubble baths, massages, and getting your toes and nails done. Self-love is about how you speak to yourself.” Share on X

As soon as I got in that conversation right, everything started to change. I did my first sold out show in 2017. In 2018, I made a song called Self Love based on everything she taught me. That song ended up getting signed. Snoop Dogg posted that song on his Instagram. Snoop Dogg has 26 million followers. It was worldwide. In 2019, I got offered to do a TED Talk.

I’ve seen it.

I did the TED Talk 2019 and then I did two shows in New York. I actually came back to America, did two shows. At the end of the year, in 2020, we all know what happened. COVID. We had to go into lockdown. I was pissed off because I started getting trauma about what happened with my group. We were just at the door and then we started record deal. Now I’m at the door again and COVID has come. I’m getting trauma and then my life’s about to change even more.

Losing His Mother & Coping With Grief

My mom comes home one day and tells me she’s just come from the hospital and they said she’s got cancer. She’s got a year to live. It devastated me. I’m my only child. I grew up with my mom my whole life. As you can see, there are pictures of my mom on the wall. I don’t know if you can see that there. I’m in the same house that she told me the news. She had a year to live so we had to fly away to Nigeria to see our family because she has to say her goodbyes to the family, which was devastating.

In 2022, she passed away on the 2nd of February. I had my headline show on the 27th of February. I had my mom’s funeral on the 8th of February, like a week later. Everything was just happening so fast. I ended up being back in hospital again. After all of that pressure, I ended up relapsing going back in hospital again after six years. Remember, I said it was every two years. I broke that two-year curse and it was six years. Don’t forget now, in between that six years, I’m a full on mental health advocate now because I did TED Talks and talks in school. I knew exactly what to do when I’m at hospital.

I had my phone with me this time for the first time. My auntie gave me my phone because all the other times I’ve been sectioned, my mom never gave me my phone because she wouldn’t want me to talk to every anyone because Nigerians are extremely private. This time when I got sectioned, because my mom had passed away, my auntie didn’t really know what my mom does, so she gave me my phone on a visit.

When I got back to my room, I remember looking at my phone thinking, “What am I going to do with this?” Everything just came to me. It was like, “Take videos while you’re here. Show people what it’s like,” because people don’t know what it’s like in there, what it even looks like. I took pictures, I took videos. That’s where I got the idea for my book, A Section of My Life. That’s where I wrote most of it.

When I came out of hospital, I ended up getting a book deal. Everything’s just been amazing since then. I got the book deal. The book came out. I performed at a place called the National Gallery. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s a place called the National Gallery over here. I’m the first artist to ever perform there. That place is older than me and you. I did a documentary with ITV. There’s a big channel called ITV over here. I did a documentary that I was screened on that channel. It’s just been amazing ever since. That’s my story in a nutshell. I hope I didn’t take up too much time.

Generational Divide: Perceptions On Mental Health

Shocka, you could take up all the time you want, number one. Number two, I thank you so much for being open and sharing all of that. I know my readers. Something in that will resonate with them. I’m listening and I’m thinking a few things. Number one, I want to talk a little bit about how mental health is in London and how it compares to say the United States. There are some differences. Certainly, I want to talk to you more about your shift that you made, it sounds like since this last hospitalization and even a little before, to become advocate. I think that there’s clearly something in you that wants to heal and help others.

Let’s talk a little bit about the comparison because I think that out here in the States, I would describe mental health as an epidemic with young adults in particular. The anxiety and depression levels, eating disorders, substances, ADHD, etc., are just skyrocketing. The suicide rate is higher than it’s ever been. Yet at the same time, there’s more and more discussion about mental health I would say compared to years ago.

It’s way more open. I’m constantly amazed when I talk to young people how comfortable some people are talking to each other about it. It’s a journey. It’s a process to help people understand that there is definitely healing that takes place when you open yourself up and recognize that what you are going through, a lot of other people are too. Does that make sense?

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental Health

 

Yes, definitely. What I want to say is that mental health has always been there. What has happened was my parents’ generation, so the older generation, they didn’t deal with it. They didn’t deal with it not because they didn’t want to, but they didn’t have the luxury to deal with it. Their life was so fast paced. My mom came to the UK at such a young age and had me at a young age. I haven’t even had my first kid yet. By this age, my mom had had me and I had a full-on life. They didn’t have time. When people would die in her time, they would just get on with it. They would mourn for like a day and then just go back to work and get on with it.

I remember when my mom first got her cancer diagnosis, she worked for like a week or two until we told her like, “No, you need to forget work and deal with this at hand.” That generation was so used to just like sweeping it under the rug. What’s happened with this generation is that now we’ve got the luxury to actually look at things. We’ve got a lot of time to talk to each other and do podcasts. That generation couldn’t do podcast. Sitting down and talking at a podcast?

There’s racism. They’re trying to kill us. That generation was the it is what it is generation. It is what it is. Just continue. This generation is just keep moving forward. That was it is what it is generation and this generation is the let’s finally deal with it and put us up to a generation. If this generation doesn’t deal with it, what we’re going to do is we’re going to lay out enough blueprints and enough information for the next generation to have all the tools they need.

That’s a great segue. I want to ask you about that because I think that my audience, some of them are going through their own journey and those that maybe aren’t have people around them that are, and you just talked about your journey. Let’s talk about where music fits into that, the healing side of your lyrics and your performances and your music. Talk to us about that.

Using Music As Therapy & Finding Purpose In Lyrics

As you can see me nodding my head, music played a major part because I’ve never gone to therapy and people are so surprised. They’re like, “You’ve been sectioned four times and you’ve never seen a therapist?” I’ve done similar things to therapy but not actual full on therapy because my music has served as therapy for me.

My music was so deep at a point that I forgot it was music. My friends started telling me like, “You’ve got to start putting choruses and picking nice beats because it still is music because it isn’t becoming full under depressing.” That’s how much I use it as a tool for healing. Now I’ve got the perfect balance. Now I’ve got a perfect balance of having a beautiful message using it as therapy and still something that you can listen to and vibe to. It took years to get to that balance.

Before, I used to just dump. I don’t know if you’ve listened to my albums, but the first one I have was called Vent. I’m on vent four right now. The event started by me just venting. That’s what vents are about. If you listen to every vent, it’s a reflection of where I am in my life. My last vent is me speaking about my mom’s cancer because that’s what was going on.

This vent, vent four, that’s on this new album, Vulnerability Is The New Cool, I’m talking about the money I’m making and what life is like. I’m talking about Palestine. It’s always a reflection of the time. I look forward to my next vent five whenever I do it. I’m so happy I’ve got something like that. Having something like that is important. Even if you don’t have a recorded vent version like what I’ve got, you should have a diary vent version. Every month, vent out.

You read my mind. I talk to a lot of young people about journaling and some of your lyrics remind me of journal entries.

They are, definitely.

By the way, you’re a fantastic songwriter. I’ve listened to a lot of your music. You’re an excellent songwriter. I think there’s so much passion in your words. I listen to a lot of different music and I feel like as a listener, sometimes you can feel the passion and sometimes you can’t. Do you know what I mean?

Definitely.

It sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of therapeutic value out of songwriting and, as you said, venting.

Yeah, definitely venting is extremely important. There’s one thing about seeing your words in a paper, then there’s another thing about hearing your voice, saying what’s in your mind out loud for the world to hear it. That’s what I love. I love like certain things that’s bothering me in my head and then recording it and then listening to it and then dissecting it and realizing that it wasn’t even that big of an issue. Our biggest fear is that if we say it to someone, how are they going to respond? In most cases, they respond in a way that you generally not thinking they’re going to respond.

That’s right. In our head, it feels bigger, right?

The Power Of Vulnerability & Encouraging Open Conversations

Yeah, it feels bigger. That’s why I made Vulnerability Is The New Cool because like Jay-Z’s got an amazing saying that he says you can’t heal what you don’t reveal. It’s true. If you don’t heal it, you can’t reveal it. It’s like if I can make vulnerability cool, it can give people more of an initiative or incentive to want to reveal and realize that there’s nothing really there when they reveal it. What they’re afraid of is not really that scary when they reveal it.

There’s so many ways to be vulnerable. I always list five ways. You’ve got the spirituality where being vulnerable, where you can talk to your creator in the place of your comfort. You’ve got therapy, which we all know about. We’ve got venting to our friends or our partner. If you’ve got a wife or a husband or best friend, you’ve got that way. You’ve got journaling. You’ve got your art like drawing. I can see paintings behind you. That was obviously therapy for that person. You’ve got the way that I use, which is recording. There’s so many different ways. People think there’s only one way which is talking to a person. That’s actually the hardest way.

That’s the most difficult. That’s the last option I’ll pick out of the six. There are so many other ways, but the whole point of it is getting it out of you. You can burn it. That’s another way. You can put it on a paper and burn it. You just have to get it out your system and just see it. The problem is it lives inside of us. I think the longer it stays inside you, the more chances it can turn into poison and start to poison you, the more you keep it inside you. When you keep it out, when you get out of you, you can look at it and you can play with it.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental Health

 

What’s fascinating, Shocka, is so much of your music, the stuff you write about when you do get it out and you do put it in song resonates. At least I found listening to it, I can understand those things because either I’ve experienced it or know people that have. I definitely think that’s one thing that music does. It really brings us together more because when it’s up here, it’s only in our head we feel like we’re the only one experiencing it.

Some people’s voices have healing components, genuinely.

I’ve been told mine does not.

There are certain voices that need to be spreading across the world. It’s actually good for humanity. There are certain voices that you need. There was a woman over here called Jenny Francis. She used to be on late nights. There’s a radio station called Capital Xtra and Jenny Francis. It’s called Capital Xtra now, but it used to be called Choice FM. Jenny Francis used to be late night at Choice FM. She made a name because we all know her for how soothing her voice was on late night.

Everyone remembers Jenny Francis’ late night show. There are certain people that have gifts like that, their voices are just healing. It’s meant to be spreading across the world. I feel like if you’ve got that voice, you should use it. You should do voiceovers. You should talk to people more. You should become a motivational speaker if your voice is healing. There are certain people that they just talk to you and it just lights up your day.

The Influence Of Social Media & Mental Health In Young People

You’ve been so passionate about the topic of mental health. I think you’ve figured out, and many artists have now, that when you speak, people are listening, you know.. People admire artists. People admire people in the entertainment industry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen video clips or been at concerts myself and the musician stops for a moment and lets people know that it’s okay. Shocka, let me ask you this. In the States, the scene with young people is in terms of statistics is moving in the wrong direction. Anxiety and depression is up. I’m assuming that’s the case. Where you’re from as well?

That’s the exact case.

Let me ask you, because I think everyone has an opinion on this, why do you think that is?

I think it’s social media. It’s something we’ve never had before throughout history. No one could have given us advice on what to do. This is unique to our time. We’ve never had Instagram like this. Like we’re dealing with a new problem. They’ve got to give us time to figure it out. We’re going to have problems. There’s going to be deaths. Unfortunately, there’s going to be anxiety, depression, suicides and there’s going to be all this stuff. We have to figure this out. Unfortunately, some people are going to be casualties until we figure this out. It’s not always going to be like this. It will come down when we start to really figure out and get a hold of it. Right now, it’s the Wild, Wild West. It’s new to all of us.

We’ve never had like our follow accounts. People with 1 million followers, getting 1 million likes. Going viral., you can trip over in the street and next thing you know, you’re on to news. Everyone’s talking about it. Imagine how that person feels like. Imagine how Will Smith must have felt like seeing a mistake he made with the slapping. It’s everywhere. You’ve been healing in public. It’s a new territory that we’re in, so we’re dealing with it

I really feel like there’s a positive edge to it and a negative edge to it. As you said, we’re still trying to manage the negative edge.

If it’s a lot to deal with for adults, imagine for kids. When I was in school, we didn’t even have phones in classrooms. It’s a whole different world we’re living in.

They’re plugged in all the time. The term influencers is used a lot in the States and there are positive influencers and there are negative influencers. To your point, when I was a kid, we were exposed to certain things on the news or the TV. Now kids are exposed to like, you know Yes.

Information is important, especially positive ones because they’re the ones that’s going to bring the control back because where else are the kids going to get the information from and how to deal with all of this? Kids aren’t really listening to their parents, which is sad, but it’s the truth. These influencers have more power than some of the parents of these kids. We’ve just got to make sure that our kids are listening to the right influencers. It’s so important because what put me on this path is that I had the right reference points. I don’t know if I can show you this, but on my shoulder I have a Bob Marley tattoo. Can you see that?

Yeah, sure.

I see that every morning and it always slaps me into gear of the positive impact he had on the world and like the messages he put in his songs and the life he led. It’s like your reference points and your influencers are so important. They just put you in line. Whenever I do something that’s distasteful, dishonorable, obviously he wouldn’t care, but it’s just a thought of would he do something like this? It’s just a respected act. It snaps me back in line. Pick the right reference points because 95% of the time, you do become your reference points as well. You actually turn into them. If you’re listening to them every day and study it, you’re going to become them. Pick the right ones.

I admire his career and everything he stood for and all of the influence he had certainly down in Jamaica and around the world. Certainly, I say to you, Shocka, you are an influencer. You are a person who is creating a full effect with your lyrics and your message. Keep doing what you’re doing. We appreciate it. I appreciate it. I just want to let you know that. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Passing The Torch: Who Shocka Recommends For The Next Interview

I want to put you on the spot for just a sec. Part of what I do in the show is I ask that people nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative, because I want the conversation to keep forward. Do you have any in your world who you think would be helpful for me to interview next?

I do. There’s a guy called Ben West. He’s a mental health advocate too. Give him a DM or message me afterwards. I’ll send you his Instagram. The same way you reached out to me. Hopefully he sees it. If he can’t get Ben West, there’s a guy called Hussein Manuel. He’s amazing too. He’s a poet. He’s amazing. He’s got mental health books. He’s amazing. He helped me out a lot. I’ll send, so hopefully we keep the conversation going forward.

Thank you. Let me give you a little bit of space for a minute and tell our readers about your new album.

Shocka’s Upcoming Album

My album is Vulnerability Is The New Cool. If you haven’t heard that album, please listen to it. It’s an album that could heal you. You’re going to hear topics that you’ve never heard rappers talk about before. I’m speaking about them as such a beautiful way. Please listen to it. Reach out to me on Instagram. As you can see, I’m very accessible. I try to get back to all my messages. The day I don’t get back to my messages means that I’m a full-on superstar and that is too late. Before that time comes, I’m trying to hang on to what I’ve got left. I’m trying to respond back to everybody. Yeah, let me know your feedback on the album and we can talk about it.

You’re a grounded, honest and open human being, Shocka, and for that, I appreciate it. I, too, tell everybody to take a listen. I’ve listened to your new album. I think it’s great. Thank you for your time and your energy. I really appreciate you being so open and honest with everybody.

Let’s do it again.

I would love to. Shocka, have a great day. We’ll talk soon.

Pleasure.

Thank you.

 

Important Links

 

About Kenneth Erhahon (Shocka)

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Shock | Mental HealthKenneth Erhahon better known by his stage name Shocka, is a rapper and mental health advocate from London.

He gained recognition for being one/third of Grime collective Marvell alongside Double S and Vertex.

After dealing with mental health issues himself, Shocka became a Mental health advocate to help those with their own problems with his music.

He has since aimed to raise awareness of mental issues ….

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental Resilience

Basketball Icon On Mental Resilience And Well-Being With Rebecca Lobo

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental Resilience

 

Mental resilience is crucial for navigating the challenges of any high-pressure environment. In this inspiring episode, host Marc Lehman welcomes basketball icon Rebecca Lobo to discuss its pivotal role, particularly within the world of athletics. Rebecca, known for her standout career at the University of Connecticut and as one of the WNBA’s original stars, shares her insights on navigating the challenges of competitive sports and the importance of prioritizing well-being. This conversation delves into the pressures faced by athletes and explores strategies for building mental resilience to achieve success both on and off the court.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Basketball Icon On Mental Resilience And Well-Being With Rebecca Lobo

Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have  Rebecca Lobo here. Rebecca, how are you?

I’m good. Thank you.

Rebecca is a basketball icon, a broadcaster, and an advocate for mental wellness. She was a standout at the University of Connecticut. She led the Huskies to their first national championship back in ‘95 and was named the NCAA’s Final Four most outstanding player. She went on to play professionally in the WNBA, becoming one of the league’s original stars with the New York Liberty.

Following her playing career, Rebecca transitioned into broadcasting, becoming a respected analyst for ESPN, where she provides insightful commentary on women’s college and professional basketball. Beyond sports, she’s been a vocal advocate for education, wellness, and the power of perseverance. She joins the show to discuss mental resilience, the pressures of high-level athletics, and the importance of prioritizing well-being. Welcome. How are things?

Things are good. It’s funny as you read some of my bio, and I think about a text that I got maybe a week and a half ago from one of my daughter’s college-aged friends. I was, “Mrs. Rush, and I’m hanging out with some friends, and your name came up, and I told them to be a family. One of my buddies said, I didn’t know she was still alive.” I am still alive. I am at the point where my oldest kids who are in college have college-age friends who know how to just jab one right in.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental Resilience

 

Makes us feel old. Look, we’re wise.

That’s right.

The Changing Landscape Of College Athletics

That’s got a lot of experience. I’m reading through that and I’m thinking, “Much has changed.” Landscape, certainly in college for these kids. Back when we were in school, it just felt less intense, less stressful, and certainly, from the athletic perspective, less intense and less stressful. I guess I just wanted to ask because you’re around now a lot of the players and you see and talk to and hear a lot of what they endure. I guess I just wanted you to compare out loud for us. What do you see?

What’s so crazy is when I was in college, if I wanted to seek out something that had been written about me, I had to go and find the Hartford Courant and purchase it and see what somebody may have said about our game the day before. At least, and I still feel this in life, people don’t generally come up and say to your face something, but they’re completely okay doing it on social media.

People are more likely to say mean things on social media than to your face. Share on X

I think that’s the thing that has changed so much, other than maybe occasional heckling on a road trip somewhere in a road arena. I don’t even think that happened in those days. You never really had negative stuff as an athlete in your face about you. It is your coach’s job to point out all of your shortcomings, but not the noise from the outside. That’s the thing that has changed so completely.

You hear a lot of athletes talk now, professional level, college level, to prove people wrong. I’m like, “Who are those people?” They’re the ones actually who don’t matter. They’re the social media. People on social media saying negative things. I don’t think people of my era came up trying to prove others wrong because those others weren’t really in your world. Maybe you got cut from a team, and you were trying to improve yourself and that thing, but you didn’t have that constant narrative of proving people wrong.

Just like a mirror being held up to you all the time. As you said, so many individuals, quite frankly, being negative.

It’s mean.

It really is.

We’re in my world of women’s basketball. It really got pushed to the forefront over the course of the past year with the phenomenon that is Caitlin Clark and the rivalry or whatever that she had with Angel Reese and, like, online, at least the toxicity that now follows, especially the WNBA, and studies have been done. It is the most negative place as people talking about these women’s basketball players. It’s really a scary place to be, especially for some of the younger women who are finding themselves immersed in that world.

It occurred to me recently, I was interviewing a lacrosse coach from IMG Academy down in Florida, and of course, high school level. She was talking about how they feed so many kids into college. I thought, “I wonder how much of this they’re prepared for. Like how much discussion occurs on the high school level. Like here’s what college athletics have become.” I feel like in many cases, kids are surprised, not in a good way. They’re given that opportunity to say, “Wouldn’t it be nice if that didn’t happen?” You go to college, and it does happen. It’s like, that takes, I think, an internally strong individual to be able to tolerate all of that.

That’s interesting to me, and maybe it’s the difference in someone my age versus. This is your area, younger kids is, again, I hear professional athletes talk about it, WNBA, whatever, about some of the real strong negativity that is on their social media feed. You never hear any of them considering stopping going on their social media. I understand especially a big part of that for college athletes and NIL is they’re compensated based on how much they post and that thing. What if you don’t look at your at replies? That’s not a world in which they’re willing to live. It’s almost like there’s all of the negativity exists there, but I’m still going to take a peek.

That’s the thing. I have colleagues and I who have like, “We’re off of X. We’re never looking at mentions again on X.” We might go in post something, but letting negativity be dropped at our doorstep. That months ago, something was sent to me on Twitter, and I read it to my husband, and he’s like, “Rebecca, would you allow that person into your living room?” I said, “No.” He said, “Why are you allowing them into your living room?” It was perfect. I was like, “I’m off, I’m done.” Younger people cannot, for whatever reason, avoid going to those sources and almost in some ways, seeking out feedback from people that don’t even matter in their lives.

The Mental Strength of Elite Athletes & Overcoming Setbacks

It is really interesting. I remember last year with Camp Spencer at UConn, he refused to be on social media. That became part of the interview every time someone approached the guy. It’s like, “Good for him.” He’s figured out like, I don’t need this. My life’s less complicated with it. I wish more kids would do that because I think, in all honesty, it would simplify things. Maybe that’s a good segue to talk about internal anxieties, because I think not only are athletes nowadays facing social media pressures, but they’re facing just general pressure. Here’s a huge question, but I’m curious about your thoughts. How would you say a star athlete in college these days is different from a star athlete in college when you were there?

I think the core of what they are is probably the same. There certainly was zero conversation about mental health when I was coming up. There were times in my career where I tore my knee a couple of times early on in my professional career. In hindsight, I was probably dipping into some areas of, I wouldn’t say depression, but just feeling really cruddy and not easily being able to crawl out of that. I didn’t know it because people weren’t talking about those. I do think that there’s a lot more attention given to athletes’ mental health now.

The conversation around it is good, obviously, but I also think some of the highest-level athletes are the ones who can focus and bust through all of the nonsense. As the pressure gets heavier, they still look unbothered and perform in that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with those who are going through the peaks and valleys, but I think you still find the tippy top of the athletes who have this incredible mental strength wherever it comes from, whether they’re born with it or they’ve trained it where they have a great ability to block out all of the noise and all of the tough times that they’re facing in that moment.

You had mentioned before we got on Diana and so many other great women that have come through the UConn program over the years. I got to imagine there are expectations. The next big player that comes through, everybody’s expecting that person to score X number of points and win X number of games. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. I think in athletics, as I always say to my students that I work with, you’re bringing your brain with you on the court, on the field.

You’re either going to rise to the occasion, and your production is going to go up, or you’re going to have a hard time, and your production is going to go down. As a simple fan, I always felt for a basketball player, certainly in the waning moments of the game, when there’s a fall call, then you’re on the line. It’s like, “Rebecca, you’re going to either sink these or you’re not.” You’re smiling.

You’re going to sink.

You’ve been there. That’s right. It’s going to go one way or the other. The whole place is going to either cheer you on or come down on you. To me, it’s like, I don’t ever remember that amount of pressure when I was that age in college. I think college athletics has definitely taken off. As you said with the NILs, it’s next level now where there’s a lot of finances involved and good for athletes in my opinion that that’s happening, but does equate to a lot of pressure.

The UConn Program & Building Mental Toughness In Athletes

For sure. One of the things though, like Coach Auriemma, a lot of great players have come out of UConn, one of the best programs in the history of all women’s college basketball of all of sports. There’s no coincidence. People will say he gets some of the best players. Yes, but he also forges the best players and the strongest bodies and minds.

One of the ways he does that is put his players in sometimes impossible positions in practice, especially when they’re physically fatigued, because that’s when you start making poor decisions. Year after year after year, he would do that, and it’s hard on athletes. There are plenty of times I left practice, went back, and was crying and just feeling like I’d underperformed. Why is he yelling at me? Why is he so hard on me? I know there are a lot of athletes who have felt that way as well.

All of us, later on in our college career playing for him and then afterwards, just have a different level of mental fortitude that helps us get through the hard things in life. What’s interesting is the delicate balance of it for him because as a coach, you have to be demanding, and you have to expect really hard things from your players. You have to put them in situations where it’s hard physically, where it’s hard mentally, where it’s hard emotionally, so that you can help them become stronger in those moments. At the same time, do it in a way where it’s not any mental or emotional abuse.

That’s the wizardry of him.

Yes, 100%. It’s the fine line that he has been able to walk almost impeccably for the course of the last 40 years.

Just amazing. For those individuals that follow Yukon, it’s amazing how long that’s gone on for the length of time and the success that they’ve had. Rebecca, let’s do this. Let’s take off the athlete hat and put on the mom hat for a sec. You’ve got kids in college. You’ve got kids in high school. You’re around athletes often. You’re around, I’m sure, your kids’ friends often. These days, it’s hard being in high school. It’s hard being a young adult. I think it’s hard being in college. I guess I’m curious your viewpoint on, like, where do you see the large amount of stresses coming from for young people?

Parenting & The Role Of Pressure In Youth Sports

From their parents, of course.

We get the blame.

The expectations and plenty of people said that, but they have said this, but like the ones who ruin youth sports are the parents. It’s not the kids. Kids are out there. They’re trying to have fun and whatever the weight of expectation is from the sideline or the yelling at the referees or the yelling at the coaches. Oftentimes, you don’t often see kids, whether they’re youth sports all the way through high school or college, say yell at the coach or yell at the referee, their behavior tends to be good.

It’s the parents who’s not. I think you always have to take your kids’ lead. My oldest daughter, who’s a junior in college now, played basketball her freshman year in high school, got to tryouts for sophomore year, and a couple nights going to her room and she was just upset. She said, “I’m not enjoying this. I don’t want to do this.” I was shocked by that. It was a hard thing for me to say because I loved watching her play basketball.

It's often the parents, not the kids, causing problems in youth sports. You have to take your kid’s lead. Share on X

I thought she was 6 foot 3 inches and long and had all of this potential. I was like, “Don’t play basketball.” I think sometimes, for parents, it’s about us. I’m going to miss watching her play. That was a decision. I remember at the time thinking, “She’s going to regret this.” Mark, she has not regretted that decision for one second in her life. Probably, she had made it a year earlier, but that can be hard for us because we see the time that they put in when their kids to different sports, and we might see a potential there for something in the future.

She made it clear. She’s like, “I don’t want to play sports in college.” When she had told me that, I was like, it opened up a whole new world to me because I had never considered the possibility that there is a kid on earth who wouldn’t want to play sports in college because I want it so badly. Like, “What?” That’s informed how at least we parented her younger three siblings, too. It’s like always asking them, “Are you still having fun?”

Ultimately, this isn’t the means to an end. This is the end. Let’s enjoy the sport that we’re playing in the moment that we’re playing it without any expectation that it’s going to be something else in the future. Sometimes, for parents, it’s a really hard place to find yourself and to settle into. We still have to remind ourselves of that frequently, but it is the truth. Let them enjoy the moment as a parent enjoys the moment and not project what this is going to mean for them in terms of an athletic career down the road.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental Resilience

 

Well said. Great example. I can see. I can imagine that being really a challenge for you. I remember when my son who played baseball the way through stopped and it’s like, “We’re shifting.” I was coaching for a bit. I get it. It’s such a great time to spend. You cherish those memories, but they end. I love what you said, and I think it’s very true. Many parents, unfortunately, equate that path to happiness, like eventual happiness. When you ask your kid, “Are you happy?” You almost ignore their answer. If she looks at you or my son looks at me and says, “I’m not happy,” it’s our job to pivot and help them find other things.

Yes, as their parent, we have to think, is this a decision that they’re going to regret in the future? We also have to, if they tell us, “No, it’s not,” we have to listen and believe them. My whole thing, as long as everything you’re doing, you’re working hard in, and as long as you’re doing the right things as a person and as a student, whatever, I also have to trust that you’re doing the right things. Making this particular decision might be breaking my heart.

The Competitive College Admissions Process & Its Effects On Students

Look, just to shed some light. We live in a very competitive world. When we were at UConn, the amount of applications they would get annually was 15 or 18,000 applications. They were at 58,000 applications this past year. That’s the world we live in where there’s just so much more competition, which makes it even harder for kids to even get into a college or a university. I think that that’s a delicate balance with a parent of like pushing your kid but pushing them in a way that we know that they’re enjoying and there’s some happiness involved.

One of the interesting things with the college application process, when our kids were maybe early on in their high school career, our oldest, and we asked a friend, “Where have your daughters applied to school?” They immediately said, “We’re not telling anyone where our kids have applied because it’s gotten so competitive. Their friends are always asking, “Where did you apply? Did you get in here?” The parents are asking these things too. I remember thinking, “Really? That’s a thing.”

We tried with our kids, like, their tour in college and have very different interests and where they wanted to go, “Which schools are you interested in?” It wasn’t like Ivy League or bust like, where are you going to be happy? Part of that, I think, is informed by my own experience. I could have gone and played basketball at Stanford or Notre Dame or Virginia or whatever. My parents, as teachers and educators in Connecticut, didn’t want me going to UConn.

UConn’s a safety school. Why would you turn down an opportunity to go to an elite academic institution? I know I got an incredible education. I trust that my kids are going to get out of it, whatever they put into it, wherever they end up going, as long as those reasons aren’t, “Maybe I’ll be able to make this team or that team.” No, go to the school that’s going to be the best fit for you. I have to trust that you are going to get a great education out of it.

I was shocked when those parents said it has become such a high-pressure environment for kids applying to schools. Tons of pressure coming from their classmates, tons of pressure coming from other people’s parents, or maybe it’s their own parents, I don’t know. I certainly didn’t want that to become the narrative for my kids when they were trying to decide where they wanted to spend the first four years out of our home.

Good for you for being aware of it. I think there’s a degree as parents that we can control, and there’s clearly part outside of us in terms of social media world we cannot control. To our point from earlier, kids can make those decisions to say, “I’m going to take a three-month hiatus from all social media because that’s just going to be pressure.” I’m going to hear about all of the early decisions and all the kids going doing this and all the kids doing that.

I may be that kid who hasn’t heard back from my colleges. I see that as a therapist every year, which is a tough place, I think, for a young kid to be. We, as parents, we catch the brunt of some of the reasons why kids have lots of anxiety. Let me ask you this. Kids on campus, again, I feel like that environment has changed in some ways dramatically. There’s an intensity, I think, to classes and grades and whatever’s next.

I laugh sometimes that my daughter, who’s finished school, was a freshman. She was a freshman, Rebecca, in her first semester of college. She had a professor come in, and they were talking about grad school. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” As a freshman, I’m learning at a time like she was like, this kid is just come on, like, just give him a chance. That’s always the mentality of what’s next versus, like, let’s enjoy what’s right in front of us. I’m curious about your thoughts on this because, as a therapist, I see the statistics, unfortunately, moving in all of the wrong directions. The suicide rate is up, which is terrifying to everybody.

Second leading cause of death in this age bracket. Ten years ago, is number twelve, just to give you a reference. Anxiety is way up. Certainly, since COVID, both anxiety and depression are statistically way up. Now, really the majority of kids in college environments are suffering with something. They’ve got something going on. I guess I’m curious, like in the world of parenting, like we’re offsite in some ways at that point. We’re home, they’re at school. What are some of the things kids are dealing with that might be contributing to that at school from your point of view?

How Parents Can Support Their Kids’ Mental Health

I don’t know. I would imagine, and there’s probably plenty of documentation about the effects of social media on all of this. It always blew me away. Our kids, they got their phones once they graduated eighth grade because there was really no time before that that they needed a phone. We were driving them everywhere. their coaches always communicated to the parents.

It wasn’t through the kids. I was always surprised at how few of my kids’ friends were in the same boat. Our kids knew the rule. Once they got the phone, responsibility, meet friends the old fashioned way at high school, then you can get some social media. Hopefully, that was an appropriate timeframe and plan for them. I can only speak to the experience of my own kids. I know that, like my children, who might have some anxiety, we’re born with it.

They come by honestly because I’ve got children who have it, and I have children who don’t. It’s hard sometimes as a parent because I’m not an anxious person. I’ve never been a super anxious person. I’ve even had conversations with one of my kids where she’s worked up and talking to me about things. My response is, you cannot worry about things that might not happen. She’ll say to me, “Mom, that’s the definition of anxiety.”

Yeah, it is.

I’m like, “How can I be a better mother to you? I’m here to listen to you.” There any strategies I can help with, like this is one in college? How can I help you? I cannot. This isn’t part of my fabric. What can I do to help you with this? I didn’t grow up an anxious kid. It’s hard to relate. It’s hard to know what contributes to things, those anxieties.

It’s very much a helpless feeling as a parent because when your kid comes to you and they’re sick, you’re like, “I’ve got this medicine for you. That’s sore. Let me look at it. I think I can diagnose that.” When they come to you with something like this, it’s the worst helpless feeling in the world as a parent because you’re like, what do I do? All I want to be able to do is help my child get through this moment or moments. You feel so helpless with it. Thankfully, we have people like you who can share their advice with the world.

When kids come to you with anxiety issues, it's the worst helpless feeling in the world as a parent because you don’t know what to do. Share on X

I’m thankful that you went through that example because, honestly, I think a lot of parents are in those shoes. I do. I think a lot of parents come at this from either the perspective that they have no history of anxiety or depression. If they did, it wasn’t called that when we were kids. It wasn’t labeled, it wasn’t diagnosed, it wasn’t even treated.

Much of this, I think, for the parents that are out there nowadays, it’s the next generation. Kids, thankfully, are getting help some, which is great. It leads me into the topic of wellness because I think wellness is one of those areas that means lots of different things to lots of different people. Wellness includes ways to reduce stress and reduce anxiety. One of the biggest things I talk to my students about that are at school is how are you doing with sleep habits?

How are you doing with eating habits? How are you doing with exercise? Hardly ever do I have a kid who’s doing all three well. Usually, they’re focused on one, and they’re getting good rest but just eating terribly and not getting a lot of physical activity. Wellness, to me, is one of those cornerstones that really anchors people, not just kids, but people in terms of mental health. What does wellness mean to you, Rebecca?

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental Resilience

 

The Importance Of Wellness: Sleep, Exercise & Mental Health

It’s interesting because when you talk about those three things, those are three things that are staples for every high-performing athlete’s life. You’re getting your exercise sleep, especially in the last decade has become paramount for high level athletes. They understand when they monitor their sleep, they understand how important it is to get enough sleep. The diet portion of it has become a huge conversation. I think like that’s one of the things that’s always been a part for me. Even sometimes if my kids are feeling a certain way, it’s like, “Do you notice do you feel better when you exercise? If you do, let’s make it a priority for you to find time to exercise.” Sometimes like especially in the meat of my busiest times of year, whether that’s March men or WNBA playoffs, if I say something like, “I wish I had time to X, Y, or Z. I wish I had time to read.” My husband will look at me and say, “Make time. You make time for the things that are important to you.” I think that’s probably a lesson to try to teach kids is, when do you feel best, what are the things that you do that make you feel best, and prioritize making time for those things?

I like that. Steve is wise.

Yes, he is.

He’s one of my suggestions. I like that. It’s a great concept because I think both for kids and adults, we use those excuses of I cannot possibly do that out of the time. Some of those things, like exercise in particular, is vital. It’s really vital to those individuals who have anxiety to get through the day and feel balanced. A good suggestion. I really appreciate it.

Someone should do a study on marathon runners. I would bet many of them have some level of anxiety, and that’s how they started dealing with it. It’s an interesting point. I’m just thinking, as you said, that over the years, I’ve definitely treated many. It is a go-to for a lot of people. An exercise on any level, as long as you’re moving, I think exercise on any level is just simply good for us.

As we get older, it becomes really critical because it is the difference between stagnation and really developing health issues versus not. I think kids look at it maybe differently than adults do, but we all need it. Certainly, something we all need. That’s for sure. You referenced it before. I know your schedule is super busy, so I appreciate you making the time to come on to the show. Those of you who don’t know, this is actually part two because we had an interview several years ago before this show even started. You were kind enough to give me some time.

That was a lot of years ago.

It was a while ago. You’re always so much fun to talk to and interview. I think you have some great insights. Again, so much has changed, I think, with the landscape of athletics these days. I think you offer a really great perspective on both having been an athlete and now being around them and watching them all the time. Again, thanks for your time. Thank you for making the time. I have one last question for you. Can I put you on the spot?

Sure.

Passing The Torch For The Next Interview

One of the things I do with the show is I ask for people coming on to nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative, really to keep the conversation moving forward. Didn’t know if you had anybody in your world whom you thought would be good for me to interview next. What do you think?

I don’t know. This person is much busier than I am, but perhaps one of the members of the UConn coaching staff would be good to talk to. Morgan Valley is an assistant coach there who played who has young kids of her own that she’s raising. She might be one that would be good to talk to.

I would love it. You guys heard it here. Rebecca’s calling you out. We’ll get them on the show and definitely get their perspective. I would love to hear from them. Thank you again. I appreciate all your time and energy, and good luck to all of the teams as we approach March Madness, coming soon.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rebecca. Take care.

 

Important Links

 

About Rebecca Lobo

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rebecca Lobo | Mental ResilienceRebecca Lobo is a basketball icon, broadcaster, and advocate for mental wellness. She was a  standout at the University of Connecticut, she led the Huskies to their first national championship in 1995 and was named the NCAA Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. She went on to play professionally in the WNBA, becoming one of the league’s original stars with the New York Liberty.

Following her playing career, Rebecca transitioned into broadcasting, becoming a respected analyst for ESPN, where she provides insightful commentary on women’s college and professional basketball. Beyond sports, she has been a vocal advocate for education, wellness, and the power of perseverance. Today, she joins Normalize It Forward to discuss mental resilience, the pressures of high-level athletics, and the importance of prioritizing well-being.

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Jim Kuczo | Kevin's Afterglow

Kevin’s Afterglow: Shining A Light On Youth Mental Health With Jim Kuczo

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Jim Kuczo | Kevin's Afterglow

 

Looking to make a difference in the lives of young people? Join us for a heartwarming conversation with Jim Kuczo, president and co-founder of Kevin’s Afterglow, a non-profit organization born from tragedy and dedicated to fostering hope and resilience. Discover the inspiring story behind Kevin’s Afterglow and how they’re teaching kids the power of kindness, empathy, and mental health awareness. Learn about their innovative Buddy Bench program, a simple yet powerful tool that encourages peer support and helps kids develop crucial social-emotional skills. Plus, hear Jim’s personal journey of navigating grief and loss while making a positive impact on his community. This episode is a testament to the power of human connection and the importance of creating a supportive environment for young people to thrive.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Kevin’s Afterglow: Shining A Light On Youth Mental Health With Jim Kuczo

In this episode, we are welcoming in Jim Kuczo, the President and Cofounder of Kevin’s Afterglow. Jim and his wife, Kristen founded Kevin’s Afterglow after their son, Kevin, took his life on February 4th, 2021. The mission of Kevin’s Afterglow is to teach kids, kindness, empathy, and the ability to listen to each other and give to others, educate parents and children on mental health, help address the pediatric mental health crisis, and plain get people talking. Thank you so much. Jim, welcome. How are you?

It’s good to see you again. I’m doing well.

It’s good to see you as well. Thank you for being here. I so appreciate you taking the time. Maybe one way to kick things off would be for you to tell us the story behind Kevin’s Afterglow.

Kevin’s Afterglow: A Story Of Hope And Healing

My wife and I founded Kevin’s Afterglow about a year after our son, Kevin, took his life. We lived in Fairfield. He went to Fairfield Warde High School and died on February 4th, 2021. My son went away on this trip. It was called the Appalachia Service Project. He did that when he was a junior and they went down to Appalachia, West Virginia. It’s one of the, I’d say, poorest places in America.

They go down to make houses warmer, safer, and drier. He came back on that trip. He did good and met a lot of people. He said, “Dad, I don’t know what I want to do with my life.” He was a freshman or sophomore. He said, “I want to help people.” We’re trying to honor that desire to help people by understanding mental health.

 

 

I didn’t understand mental health. Even when we knew Kevin had depression, for people of my generation and my parent’s generation, it was something you didn’t talk about. You kept hush-hush. Kevin’s Afterglow is here to try and teach kids at a very young level empathy and look out for each other. We want to help people and educate parents and children on it.

The stuff that I didn’t know, I’m a quasi-expert on this now. I wish I had known. I know it’s not the subject that everyone wants to talk about but it’s here. It’s real, treatable, and beatable. There are doctors for this. If you have a problem with your heart, you go see a cardiologist. If you have a problem with your eyes, go see an optometrist. There are psychiatrists, psychologists, and people who are trained to help you with this.

It’s a brain problem. It’s not a “you problem.” It’s an imbalance. It can be treated and it’s beatable. It’s like any other disease. That’s the message that we’re trying to get out here. We’re trying to get out that there are many resources out there on the internet and so forth, whether it be the North American Mental Alliance or NAMI. Even in our government, the CDC and NIH have great websites out there. Those are all for you to see on KevinsAfterglow.org.

It’s a great website. I’ve been on it several times. Jim, I so appreciate and admire what you do. I’ve had the opportunity to present with you and talk with you in the past. You are an incredible individual. You’re warm, caring, and considerate. Most importantly, though, you’re a human being and you realize that we’re all built the same. We’re all susceptible. When a parent thinks their kid isn’t, guess what? They are.

I can tell you that I’m not a perfect person, father, husband, son, or brother but I thought I was doing things right. I check in the boxes. I got a house and a mortgage. I’m working, stable, and everything. I never thought it was going to happen to my family. I’m not perfect but if it can happen to my family, it could happen to your family.

Suicide is not a word people like to use or a topic that people like to talk about. Neither is depression. There are presentations I do where I avoid using the word because it’s such a turnoff to people but yet it’s one of those things. The suicide rate is as high as it’s ever been in young adults. The depressive rates and the anxiety rates for high school and college-age kids are higher than they’ve been in years. You and I talked about this a bit but the thrust behind what we’re doing is, “Let’s talk about it.” If we can offer tips and suggestions, make mistakes, and other people can learn from them, fantastic. That’s what life is about.

Social Media’s Impact On Mental Health

I heard a psychiatrist on the news call it a modern-day weapon of mass destruction and how social media could be cruel. Even if people aren’t trying to be cruel, people can perceive it like, “Mark was in Turks and Caicos. They were in Florida two months ago. How come they get to go on all these vacations? Look how big their house is. Look at that car. How come they’re at that party and I wasn’t invited?” It’s things like that. It’s simple things where you get left off of texturing and you’re gone for a while. You add the normal things of trying to get pressures of getting into college if that’s what you want to do or sports specialization and other things. It’s very tough for these kids. Everything’s magnified because of social media.

It's very tough for these kids, and everything's magnified because of social media. Share on X

You and I both know this as adults. The sad part is that social media is one-dimensional. It doesn’t tell a story at all. I’ve had people in my office crying in the afternoon and posting in the evening.

COVID’s Lingering Effects On Children’s Mental Health

It’s a rush. I know it’s past but I always say that my son didn’t die of COVID but he died of COVID. We’re talking about connecting with people. We took away all the connection and almost every student went through that in some form or another. It’s gone but it got a lasting effect on kids.

You look at even 2023, for example. There was a variety of students who missed graduation because of the encampments on campus. It occurred to me that that’s the same class that missed graduation because of COVID in high school. It’s how that affects kids.

Kevin had depression before COVID but it bumped it up at another level. Right after Kevin died, I read something from the Pediatric Mental Health Alliance. It’s something very official. Self-harm in the Northeast around 2020 to 2021 rose to 333%. I say to kids, “Where are you?” “We’re in the Northeast.” It’s crazy. This was my son’s 2020. The school goes remote. At first, kids are like, “Yeah, no school,” but you have to sit in your bedroom, look at a screen all day, and try to pay attention.

I still have an undiagnosed ADD problem. I have three screens and I don’t know what to do with them. The cross gets canceled and any type of dances or proms and that trip I talked about. The service project to Appalachia was canceled. This beautiful sunset in Eastern Maine and the Canadian border, where my family goes, we couldn’t go because it is in Canada. They weren’t letting people in.

That’s where some of Kevin’s ashes are spread up there. That’s why I have it. Cancel. Everyone’s going to die. What do you have to look forward to? I get it. There are words that people hear. I try to not be on Facebook so much but something came up on my feed and she was called The Good News Girl. Those were positive stories. I subscribe to it because there’s too much negative stuff out there.

Hope And Healing: Empowering Kids Through Education

It’s good to hear that stuff. You tap into an important word that I want to ask you about, which is hope. COVID took away hope for a lot of people. One thing that I find is that kids who are applying for college get turned down for the prom. They don’t get into a particular job that they want to get into. They feel like they have no hope. You and I both know as grown adults that this too shall pass but a lot of those kids can’t see over the horizon.

Their brains aren’t fully developed yet. I was laid off in May 2020 so I’m still looking for a job. It is tough being mid-50s looking for a job but I know it’s going to come. Kids don’t see that. I use the power of social media. When I was in sixth grade or seventh grade, I got my first girlfriend. I’m not going to say her name. We held hands down the hall during the third period. In the fifth period, I got a note from her friend saying that we were broken up.

If that was now, she could have broken up with me on Snapchat, Facebook, and in front of the whole world. I would feel like the biggest moron ever. How do you recover from something like that? It’s a holy world for these kids. That’s the feedback I have been given when I’ve given my presentation and I talk about all these things. I’ve heard, “That is the way I feel.” It was coming from kids crying and shaking in my arms. They’re like, “I can’t believe someone else feels like the way I do.” We tell kids that there is hope of seeing a doctor and also medicine. There are many things that can help you out there.

You hit on something important that I want to emphasize. Part of the way we need to learn out a parent is we have to listen more. We’re not going to, as a parent, jump in and fix these things. It’s not a project to fix. It’s our job to listen and find support out in the community, whether it be an ally in school or a therapist, pediatrician, psychiatrist, or whomever, even a group, for kids to begin to feel good about themselves and look at the opposite of depression and anxiety, a world of peace and calm. I’ve had kids join gym groups, meditation groups, baseball groups, you name it. It gives them that sense of like, “I am good at something.”

Belonging to something. Kevin was on the Warde football and lacrosse teams. He wasn’t the star. He was pretty good. He was a great teammate. He’d rather not go in and see someone else do better and cheer them on or see someone who hasn’t done well do well. That’s the kind of kid he was. He loved the team. I have examples of headlines from a young boy in Maine and another boy in Chicago. It’s unbelievable. Both are football players. They could have taken their names out and put in Kevin’s. Once football got canceled, he felt removed from his friends and disconnected from this, that, and the other things. They took their lives as well.

The Buddy Bench Program: Fostering Connection And Support

Jim, forgive me. I can’t remember the exact language but there was a period when you were promoting and establishing benches outside of school. Tell my audience about that.

Kevin’s Afterglow is a 501(c) nonprofit charity approved by the government and everything. We do two things with the money that we fundraise and donations. It goes to our Buddy Bench program and Pediatric Mental Health Scholarship Program. My wife is a second-grade teacher in Darien. Her teaching colleagues donated a buddy bench to Jennings Elementary, where my two boys went.

I had never heard of it. We went to a dedication. I was like, “This is neat.” There are rules around the bench. If you’re feeling sad, lonely, or not included on the playground, you can go sit on the bench. Kids are taught, if I was on the bench, to go over and help them. “Do you want to come play with me?” If you’re sitting on the bench, you have to go play with that person if someone asks you to.

I thought this was neat because I was trying to figure out some way. I know kids were affected by the COVID thing at a very high level. I’ll go more into that. I didn’t ask for help from anyone until Kevin died. I needed help then. It’s a hard thing for an adult to ask for help, let alone a kid. If we can teach a kid at a very high level to ask for help and then receive help, that’s pretty cool. “What if I do reach out to a doctor or somebody who can help me like a counselor?”

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Jim Kuczo | Kevin's Afterglow

 

This teaches them at that young age. If we can get a hold of the depression, anxiety, and feelings, and they are overcoming us and we’re feeling sad, we can go talk to somebody. There is hope. We’ve been placing Kevin’s Afterglow Buddy Benches. There are nineteen public schools in Fairfield. By the end of November 2024, we’re going to have them in two more elementary schools. We have them in the middle schools and high schools, too.

At first, I was going to do the elementary schools. When we go in, we give them instructions, curriculum, and books. We don’t plot down a bench and say, “Here, figure it out.” These kids are being taught. What a nice reminder when they go to middle school and high school. You don’t have to necessarily sit on it like you would in elementary school but it’s a reminder to check in on people and look out for others.

No doubt. I love it.

What’s cool is we also have local businesses. We do fundraise events with them. It’s a connection through town. They see the kids here and there at school. At Osborn Hill Elementary School, my wife and I usually do a dedication. We talk about what the bench is for and then tell a story about Kevin. We tell them that he passed away but he was a kid who looked out for his friends. “Let’s do that.”

This sums it up perfectly. A mother wrote on Facebook, “I’m not a big post person but sharing as I want if I knew and love Kevin. My daughter, who was a first grader at Osborn Hill, came home talking excitedly about Kevin’s Afterglow Buddy Benches around town. No one will ever be without a friend. I asked her if she knew what they were named after and she said Kevin was a boy who was kind and friendly to all always.”

She said whenever anyone was upset or alone, he would invite them to play and cheer them up. She knows he died and that he left behind friends and family who shared wonderful things about him and loved him very much. That is his afterglow. She knows the benches are a way of spreading that love in Afterglow. If I were Kevin’s mom, I’d want to know that some little girl somewhere inspired by this was talking about this wonderful life to her mom in their kitchen over dinner.” That’s exactly what I want to do. It makes me cry every time I read it. It’s amazing.

Thank you for sharing that. That was awesome.

Investing In The Future: The Pediatric Mental Health Care Provider Scholarship

The other thing that we’re doing and what I want to impress upon people that we found is that we have a pediatric mental health care provider scholarship. We were going through trying to find a counselor so I got a counselor to talk to Kevin and tried to get a psychiatrist to dispense medicine. The rates are skyrocketing. There are a lot of people looking for these doctors and there’s not enough out there. It’s very hard.

I would encourage any parent who’s going through this to go on sites like Miami AFSP. You’ll see the ten different times types of mental health conditions that your child might be exhibiting. There are not enough doctors out there. What we want to do with those people who are studying to be licensed social workers, counselors, or psychiatrists is give them money and help them. We’ve given out about $20,000 worth of scholarships over the past few years.

Congratulations. That’s awesome. I have to say congratulations on the benches too. What an amazing project. Thank you for reading that email. That’s what brings it home. When a person says that, that’s truly amazing. You work so hard to promote wellness and kindness. You may not always hear those emails.

Everyone has their phones but I had this camera where I would take sports pictures of my kids. I just press the button and it would take about 100 pictures. I know 1 or 2 of them will come out good. That’s what I get when I’m talking to an audience. “I know I’m going to get through 1 or 2 kids.” The stuff that we’ve done, I know for a fact that we’ve helped save two lives in Fairfield through talking. We teach people to act, acknowledge, care, and then tell a trusted individual.

There was one girl who had taken some pills and vodka and told her friends. They knew what to do. They saved that girl’s life. There was another boy who was acting strange and was complaining about things. They were trying to text him but he wouldn’t text back. They told his brother to go into his room and his brother saved his life because he was in the process of hanging himself. It’s crazy.

Don’t Ignore The Signs

Thank you so much for sharing those stories. These are hard stories to share. If I could ask my audience to go to KevinsAfterglow.org. Please go over to that website. It’s chock full of good information. Most importantly, what I want my audience to take away from our conversation, both parents and kids, is don’t ignore the signs.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Jim Kuczo | Kevin's Afterglow

 

If there are things going on and there is a general sadness with a young person, whether you’re their friend or parent, or you simply know the kid, do not ignore that because that could very well be the sign and symptom of that person getting ready to do something tragic. A lot of times, as you know, these signs and symptoms can be subtle. Sometimes they’re overt but regardless of how they present, we know that these are issues with young people, and in many ways, they rely on adults to respond and assist.

People from our generation think that it’s the kid out in the corner, maybe dressed weirdly, or something like that by himself. My kid has something we call high functioning or smiling depression where we were concerned and we saw stuff at home but he did not act that way at school. We asked the guidance counselors and teachers and they’re like, “No, he’s smiling. He’s high-fiving people. He’s part of the mix, if not stirring the mix.” There was something about him that he felt he didn’t fit in. The brain is very powerful in making what seems different.

The brain is very powerful in making what's real seem different. Share on X

The after-effects are immense for everybody who knows people like Kevin. One thing I’ve recognized and I feel is starting to change in the last couple of years is people are asking more questions. People see someone sad. They’re less unwilling to keep walking. They ask the question. To me, that gives me hope that those individuals aren’t necessarily being ignored and overlooked. That comes from these kinds of discussions, Jim. I applaud you for your efforts. It’s immense. There are many people that you are helping that you don’t even realize you’re helping. Thank you for all of your efforts and all of what you do.

Thank you.

You’re welcome. The concept behind this show is I want not only for us to have an open conversation but I want it to keep going. What I normally ask is when I interview someone, if maybe you have someone in your world, a friend, a coworker, a relative, or someone who you think would be good for me to interview next to keep the conversation going. Any thoughts? Anyone you have in mind?

Unfortunately, I know other people whose parents of their sons took their lives. There’s a gentleman who has a foundation called Believe Your GRReatness. His son died who was very much into music so they have a music-type scholarship and music therapy. There’s The HT40 Foundation. Hayden Thorsen was a young man in Darien, Connecticut. He was a hockey goalie. He took his life about a year after Kevin did. They have something pretty cool. It’s called the Shoulder Check Initiative. You normally shoulder checks no one in hockey but this is more like, “I’m here for you.” I can certainly give you some names. I know a bunch of wonderful people who have some great foundations.

I appreciate it. My interest is I want to keep the conversation moving and give everybody an opportunity to talk. Everybody has a different perspective. We continue to grow and we share those perspectives. To me, it’s having an open conversation and dialogue, showing up, and being supportive of people. Thank you so much for your time. I know you’re busy. I appreciate you taking the time.

Anytime.

We’ll talk soon. Have a wonderful day.

Let’s get a bench up in Avon.

I would love that. I will propose the idea. I didn’t even tell you but I’ve been at a prep school in Avon in 2024. I’m consulting. It’s time for me to bring the concept up to them and we’ll talk to them.

The biggest ones were all 900 students at Fairfield Prep. That went well. I could put you in touch with the main counselor there, Robin Bellotto. Sometimes, you have to have those serious conversations.

Let’s make it happen. I appreciate the offer, Jim. We’ll talk. Thanks for coming. Take care. Bye bye.

 

Important Links

 

About Jim Kuczo

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Jim Kuczo | Kevin's AfterglowJim Kuczo is the President and Co-Founder of Kevin’s Afterglow.

Jim and his wife Kristen founded Kevin’s Afterglow after their son Kevin, took his life on February 4th, 2021.

The Mission of Kevin’s Afterglow is to:

-Teach kids kindness, empathy, and the ability to listen to others…give to others
-Educate Parents and Children on Mental Health
-Help Address the Pediatric Mental Health Crisis
-Get people to TALK

Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time Management

Time Management And Mental Health With Tyler Ganus

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Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time Management

 

Baseball player-turned-coach Tyler Ganus shares valuable insights about time management and how it can lead to achieving peak performance. Discover various strategies on using your time accordingly to strike the right balance between athletic and academic success. Explore the importance of having an unbreakable mindset and positive work ethic during your college years. Learn how to navigate failure without getting stuck and maintain a positive outlook. Plus, discover practical self-care tips to elevate your lifestyle and save you from anxiety that often leads to self-sabotage.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Time Management And Mental Health With Tyler Ganus

Introduction

My name is Marc Lehman, and this is Normalize It Forward. We are here welcoming Tyler Ganus. He is a baseball alumnus from Harvard Westlake, the University of Oregon, and Northwestern University. He’s left a legacy in each of these programs, embodying the phrase do it with passion, or not at all. I love that. He has enjoyed being an energetic spark plug on the field. On the field, some of his accolades include Team USA Silver Medalist, 2023 Pac-12 Champion, 2023 Rawlings Batting Title Awardee, and currently, he is going into his final year of collegiate ball at Northwestern. In the classroom, he has attained summa cum laude from Oregon and Northwestern.

Congratulations, that’s huge. Being a six-time Dean’s List honoree, he successfully earned his undergraduate degree in music in three years and completed his first graduate certificate in sports communication this past year. He’s excited to continue helping young baseball players with his own ten-week coaching course while pursuing another graduate certificate in technology and entrepreneurship. Welcome, so nice to have you here, Tyler. How are you?

Thank you so much for having me. I’m pumped to be here. Let’s get going.

Awesome. We were chatting just a few minutes ago, and I was just explaining to you a little bit about Normalize It Forward. As a family therapist, having worked with so many young people, and also as a coach to my son who played baseball for years, I counted once, I coached nineteen seasons of his baseball over the years from very little to high school. I’ve just been around athletes and athletics really my entire career.

I would really want to get your perspective on athletics because athletics have really changed a lot, even in the last couple of years on the collegiate level, in many different sports. I’m curious about your thoughts around athletics for young people. I know it’s a huge topic, but give me your thoughts. What do you think?

 

Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time Management

 

I think that’s a great starting point. Athletics for young people, I think it’s everything. For me, being able to jump into baseball when I was pretty young, around four years old. My dad also coached me early on in my career, and it’s been awesome. Just to meet friends, number one, number two, to have someone to compete with and be united under a common goal. From a young age, you learn what that’s like, collaborate with other athletic kids and try to go win games. I think it’s really fun. Also, I think big for work ethic too. I think from a young age, especially in this age, there’s so many talented athletes across all sports.

I think the earlier that you get into it, the better. I think you find out pretty quickly that you need to work really hard, have a great work ethic, and have a really good mindset in order to stick with it, continue to improve, and eventually get to the next level, whatever that may be. Whether it’s a travel team early on, middle school team, high school team, college ball, and so on, I think it’s great to start young for sure.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I think with athletics, there’s a formula of you’re blessed with some talent, you’re blessed with some work ethic, and then you put all the energy into it. I see some kids that have the goal of just wanting to be on the field. I have some kids that want to win. I have some kids that want to get to the next level, but I think there are so many things you get from sports. I’m really glad you mentioned that ethic piece, because I think that ethic piece translates to other things off the field.

A hundred percent. It’s interesting too, as a student-athlete in college, I think you really get to experience that because you’re playing a sport in college and you have to be great in the classroom as well. That’s something I work on a lot with my mentorship programs, where I’m able to coach a lot of young athletes, specifically baseball players, and just say, “You’ve got to be good on the field, but you’ve got to be good in the classroom too.” You’ve got to understand what it takes to get an A or B in the class, be super professional, and get your work done. It’s definitely translated to a lot of different areas in my life, personally, just starting with athletics from a pretty young age. It definitely can relate to a lot of areas, like you said.

That’s awesome. Let me ask, because this year, one of my new adventures is consulting in a private school, Avon Old Farms, in our area. It was George Springer’s school back in the day in high school. We were chatting about him. Often, I meet kids that are going to these schools in high school, and they’re very talented kids. They’re clearly going to go play college baseball. I guess I’m curious because you’ve done it. Any thoughts, any suggestions for those kids?

I could go on for days on this. I think that the work ethic piece we’ve already touched on is number one. When you’re in high school, one of the best things you can do to prepare for college athletics is create a really strong work ethic. Paired with that is also an unbreakable mindset, what I like to call it, this unwavering belief in yourself as a player and student-athlete, and not letting comparisons of other players or what coaches, other players, or scouts think of you creep into any of that and break that down.

The two pinnacles for me are definitely that mindset and the work ethic piece. I think when athletes can start there and really work on that in high school and they get to college, things are as easy as they can be. When you come in as a freshman, it’s that whirlwind year, and you’re figuring stuff out. In the midst of getting your bearings, I think if you have a little bit of that foundation built, it makes it a lot easier.

I think I asked you a tough question, but you gave a great answer. That is a tough thing to consider. I was just thinking, I’m a huge fan of baseball, and baseball in particular is a sport where the greatest player ever had a batting average of 400, and so that is less than the majority. In many cases, you have to learn how to fail. You have to learn how, and how to come back from that.

I think if I could just jump in, I think that’s an awesome little mini segue because I wanted to touch on that in our time. I think that’s a huge piece. Any baseball player out there, if you’re young and you’re listening to this, it’s a game of failure. At the college level, I’ve had success, some of my teammates have had success, and we’re still failing 60%, 70% of the time, which is crazy. You do that in class, you fail. Anywhere else in life, it’s unheard of. You’ve got to just keep going and stick with it, continuing to just improve and grow and understand that failure is a part of the process. Everyone goes through it, and the more you can embrace that, the better off you’re going to be for sure.

Failures are part of the process. Everyone goes through it. Learn to embrace it and you will be better off for sure. Share on X

I’m glad you compared it to the classroom, because even this past week, I found myself talking to my freshman students that have gone off to college. Some of them are like, “I just want to get A’s.” I’m like, “I get it. I know you want to do well, but realize that at this age, you are going to fail in order to grow. That’s part of the process.” If you think about it, going way back to tying your shoes or anything else we did when we were little, you always fail at first in order to grow. Some kids will eliminate that. They’re like, “I want to start off,” then they have to deal with the difficulty that comes along with not starting that way. I really appreciate that.

I think in many ways, one of the reasons why I love athletics is that athletics really do parallel life. It works for young people, certainly schoolwork in the classroom, and then eventually, occupation. I’m guessing too, Tyler, two big topics, but time management and self-care must go into being a college athlete and being a young person to balance that, because the amount of hours that you spend with workouts and practices and games in some ways is more than that. How do you balance that in terms of time?

It’s a great question. It’s ironic too, because I don’t know if you know my whole background, but that’s probably the number one question I get asked the most in interviews and podcasts and from whoever. Growing up, I was born into, like, an entrepreneurial mindset. I had a ton of different passions that I really wanted to pursue at a young age. It took a lot of time management. Obviously, in college, just being a student-athlete takes a lot to begin with. When I grew up in Los Angeles, I started acting professionally when I was two years old. I did that all the way to the end of high school, super intensely on the side. I also studied classical piano, music production, the recording artist life, if you will, did a lot of competitions with the classical piano stuff all the way through the end of high school.

On top of that, you obviously have baseball and a really rigorous school program too, at Harvard Westlake, which was the school that I went to. That’s really tough for people that know that school, and so it’s a lot, for sure, to manage. I say that as a preface for how I manage my time. It’s all about preparation. It’s all about the night before, the week before, the month before. The more you can prepare and block out your days of “I’ve got a test on this day, that means I’ve got to study a day before, maybe a week before, and make sure I have this assignment done.”

The more you can get ahead with your communication with your professors, your teachers, directors, whatever it is, to be like, “This is my schedule. It’s crazy, but I want to stay ahead of the curve. Here’s what I’ve got. I wanted to make sure you’re aware of this before we dive in this week, so we can all be on the same page.” Little things like that go a very long way in terms of professionalism and in terms of stress levels, especially with mental health in general. Instead of figuring out your days on the fly, where you don’t know what you’re doing, that can cause a lot of stress. In order to combat that, prepare an extra night before, on Sunday, before your week starts. Plan out your week, whether it’s with a pen and paper or with an online calendar. I prefer the online version.

 

Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time Management

 

Plan out your week, what do you have scheduled? That way, as you go about your days, everything’s already done for you. You can go throughout your days with less stress and really know, “I know this comes next. I know when I’m eating. I know when I’m waking up. I know when I have my free time. I know when I’m going to hang out with my friends. I know when I’m going to do my assignments.” In general, I think to tie it all back together, the biggest takeaway is preparation is everything. Plan ahead as much as you can, and it will give you less stress on the back end.

I love it, and I want to highlight for my young people, listen to Tyler. He knows what he’s talking about. The simplicity of organization reduces anxiety, having a plan. Many of my students go into the week with no plan, and they’ll walk out of a class midday on a Monday with no sense of what they should be doing. They’ll either take a nap, go smoke some pot, or go goof off. They don’t really have a plan. For them, because there’s no plan at 12:00 noon, if they goof around for a few hours, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, until later when their buddy’s saying, “Do you want to watch Monday Night Football?” and they can’t because they’ve got to go do work. I love what you’re saying.

I think that if there’s any one thing, I’d love young people to really hear loud and clear is plan the night before. Have a plan for that next day and get a good sense. I even heard you say plan for some free time. Fine, if you’ve got three hours in the afternoon and you don’t have anything planned, that’s fine. Just have that sense of “I’ve got some free time. I can go hang out. I can do this. I can do that.” I love that. I think there’s a distinct connection between good time management and less anxiety. I think what you said was really wise. As an athlete, there are so many kids progressing into college athletics, as an athlete, you have no choice.

Self-Care

You either get really organized, or you’re going to get super overwhelmed, and then, of course, your productivity will go down. We don’t want that to happen. Great suggestion. Mixed into that, I’m curious about self-care. Self-care is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot. I have my own definition of what I think of when I hear that, but I’m curious, when you hear the term self-care, what does that mean to you?

Great question. I think it’s putting yourself first. I think that’s a great way to put it, for me personally. It’s making sure that you’re okay before you give to others, before you interact with others, before you engage with others. It’s making sure that you’re good. For me, I’ll just piggyback off of that. Self-care is huge for me. Meditation, mindfulness, visualization, journaling, all of that stuff has been really big from a young age. My parents taught me that when I was pretty young, which I’m very grateful for because I’ve made that a staple of my life. It’s really helped me stay calm and manage my time, in a sense, be able to give back to other people, but really, more important than anything, just keep my mental health steady and keep it healthy.

Make sure you are okay before you give or interact with other people. Share on X

I think that there are so many tools out there that you can use to make sure that you’re doing okay. Whether it’s literally buying a journal, writing in it for a couple of minutes a day at the end of the day or something like that, or in the morning, maybe writing some gratitudes down, or doing a meditation, or taking a walk and just observing things around you. As simple as that, a few deep breaths. There are so many different things that you can do that don’t take a lot of time, truly. Every single day, just building that habit out to where you’re constantly framing your mindset in a way that’s more positive than negative, and constantly just making sure that you’re good. That’s the key. I think if you check in with yourself at least once a day and do something quick like that, it’ll go a long way.

I think those are all awesome suggestions. One thing that I pull out from what you said is you have to actively do something. That’s not going to just happen. Taking a few deep breaths before you go to bed will help a bit, but if you set aside a little bit of time, it doesn’t even have to be a lot. Nowadays, everybody’s carrying one of these. Lots of people have earbuds. Sit down for five minutes. Listen to a meditation. If you’ve never meditated before, listen to one. Some great apps out there, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Calm or Headspace or any of the others. A lot of the young people that I talk to use those. I think the journaling concept is awesome. Really amazing.

This is great because I think it ties into something I wanted to ask you about. That is, in my career, I’ve been doing this for 25 years, I’ve seen trends. Unfortunately, some of the ones I’ve seen in the last 5 to 10 years have been trending in all the wrong directions. Anxiety is way up. Depression, way up in young people. The suicide rate is also way up. These days, it’s reported around, I think it’s the second leading cause of death in young people. It’s a scary word no one ever likes to talk about until there’s a tragedy, and then you can’t help but talk about it. I think that most people I’ve talked to your age, they’ve been around. They’ve known people that have either taken their own lives or tried to.

It’s just a reality of our world in that I look at the severe side of mental health as it involves that. I guess I’m curious in general, Tyler, this is your age bracket we’re talking about. I guess I’m wondering, when you hear anxiety and depression are way up, why do you think that is?

Putting me on the spot here.

It’s a big one, I know. There’s a lot of reasons, but I’m just curious.

Social Media

Good question. Honestly, I think a lot of it is social media. My brain goes to that first. I think a lot of people are spending time on screens more than ever, unfortunately, and not necessarily outside or taking care of their mental health. If you’re watching things that are entertaining, that are maybe dark, that are more negative, even if it’s slightly negative, you’re constantly reprogramming your brain, your subconscious mind, to attract that. Unfortunately, that leads to more negative thoughts. It leads to more negativity overall, and it’s not good for anyone. Unfortunately, I think social media, as great as it is in a lot of ways to stay connected and to stay entertained and to have another method of communication, if you will, on there, I think that’s great.

If you are watching mostly negative content, you are constantly reprogramming your subconscious mind to attract negativity. Share on X

There are definitely some scary sides of it. I think the more people can be a little bit more aware of how much time they’re spending, maybe setting a reminder. I know Instagram just put in, over the past couple of years, basically a reminder function where you can set a reminder ten minutes after you use an app, like ten minutes straight, they can pop up and say, “You’ve been using the app for a little bit, maybe time to get off” or something like that. I think utilizing tools like that will be really powerful to maybe help combat something like that. I think that’s where I’ll leave it for now. I think that we don’t need to get any more in-depth into it. It’s just to be a little more aware of your social media time.

That’s a big one. I think social media, you hit the nail on the head. There’s positives and negatives, and I think that I’m fascinated by the whole algorithm thing in that you go, and you look at one of these videos that’s a little dark, and you don’t even have to work to find more dark videos. They just get sent to you. Not even really a whole lot of thought, you’re pushed in one direction or the other. One of the concepts I talk about a lot, and it certainly has some athletic backdrop to it, is the defensive side of someone just defending their day, meaning no plan. They hop into TikTok scrolling and YouTube scrolling, and their day goes, like they don’t get their work done.

They’re not really on top of their mental health versus being offensive-minded, having a plan, and really saying, I’m going to take control of my day. I’m going to get good rest. I’m going to do one thing different this week than I did last, so that this week I’m feeling a little more human, a little bit more in control, even if it’s just drinking more water. Just making that one decision to say, offensively, I’m going to grab the bull by the horns and do this, because guess what? If you don’t, no one else is. As you get a little bit older, you start to realize, like Tyler’s the one making decisions for Tyler, and so is Marc’s making his own decisions. You have to take that and realize, like, it’s up to me as an adult in this world.

A hundred percent.

I agree. Social media is a tough one. There’s a lot of real negative things on there. One of the biggest reasons, Tyler, I created Normalize It Forward is I really felt like because of the statistics and the way mental health is for young people in particular, it really helps to get open conversation and dialogue like this. I appreciate, number one, you taking the time to sit with me and have this talk. You’ve made some great suggestions and given, hopefully, our listeners some really good ideas of things you’ve used or other people that you’ve known have used, and just really good thoughts in terms of easy things to consider. Those that haven’t considered journaling, pick up a journal and just give it a shot.

 

Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time Management

 

Start writing some of your thoughts out and see if that helps, and guess what? If it doesn’t, try something else. There’s a lot of options and opportunities out there for us. At the end of the day, our mental health, it’s ours. It’s ours to maintain and have some conversation about. I like to try to encourage young people beyond listening to a podcast like this, talk to your friends, find out what they’re doing, and find out what seems to help them and what seems to work, because I think the more we can talk openly about these things, the more we can be successful. Again, I so appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re busy, Tyler, so I appreciate you doing that. Can I ask one other favor of you? I’m going to put you on the spot with this one.

Sure, go for it.

Nominate Someone

Normalize It Forward. The whole concept of it is that I want the conversation to continue. I usually ask toward the end of our interviews if you have someone you want to nominate, a friend, a coworker, a relative, someone in your world who you think could be helpful for me to interview next, to have more of a conversation about mental health. What do you think? Any thoughts, anyone in mind?

Totally. I have a bunch of baseball teammates that I can definitely reach out to, for sure, and get you guys in contact.

Awesome. I would love to do that. We’ll get that offline. I look forward to connecting with them, Tyler. Again, just so appreciate you taking the time. Thank you so much.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Great talking to you. Have a great day. Take care.

 

About Tyler Ganus

Normalize It Forward | Tyler Ganus | Time ManagementA baseball alumnus from Harvard-Westlake, the University of Oregon, and Northwestern University, he has left a legacy in each of the programs. Embodying the phrase, “Do it with passion or not at all,” he has enjoyed being an energetic spark plug on the field.

On the field, he is a Team USA Silver Medalist, 2023 Pac-12 Champion, 2023 Rawlings Batting Title Awardee, and is currently going into his final year of collegiate baseball at Northwestern. In the classroom, he graduated summa cum laude from both Oregon and Northwestern while being a 6x dean’s list honoree.

He successfully earned his undergraduate degree in music in 3 years and completed his first graduate certificate in sports communication last year. In his final year at Northwestern, he is excited to continue helping young baseball players with his own 10-week coaching course while pursuing another graduate certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship.

 

Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College Students

Mental Health Advice For College Students With Spencer Ganus

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Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College Students

 

College students have to juggle a lot of responsibilities every single day, and these go even beyond schoolwork. Some have extracurricular duties, while others have side hustles to focus on. Such hectic schedules push them to set aside self-care, and their mental health suffers the most. Marc Lehman sits down with actress Spencer Ganus, who guides high schoolers through college admissions. Talking all about her wellness blog and her own college experience, she discusses how young adults should handle the pressures of social media and the adverse impact of the pandemic. Spencer also explores the importance of time management, self-care, and being open-minded to exploring different passions.

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

 

Mental Health Advice For College Students With Spencer Ganus

Welcome Spencer Lacey Ganus, who is an actress and voice actress. Two of her roles that she’s known for are through Comedy Central’s South Park as Ike as well as Elsa in Frozen. We are particularly interested in talking to Spencer about Spencer’s wellness and lifestyle, social media blog that she runs. Spencer, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Spencer Wellness

Thanks for being here with us. We’d love to touch on a number of different things, but Spencer, and in many ways, love to hear a little bit more about Spencer Wellness, your blog. It sounds so fascinating.

It sounds great. I grew up in a very wellness-oriented family. I have been drinking protein smoothies since I was like three years old, and I was raised in more of a health-conscious, wellness-oriented household, which inspired me to want to live my own healthier life. That particularly came to fruition when I was in college and as I was graduating college and living on my own for the first time, on my terms, when I had the opportunity to either continue on the path that I was so lucky to be raised on or do the thing that a lot of people do in their twenties, which does not prioritize their wellness maybe prioritize other things in their life.

I was excited about the opportunity to take life into my own hands and continue going down a path that I thought was intentional. In doing that, I decided to share my journey. It started by posting recipes that were healthy or desserts or smoothies or fun things I was making in the kitchen, honestly over the pandemic when I had some extra time. It has since evolved into a much more balanced lifestyle. It’s now what I like to talk about, and the biggest value that I embody with wellness is finding realistic wellness and balance as a young person. I’m not giving up eating cake and like, I have a whole cake business, ironically enough, that I post about on my wellness Instagram page. That’s not healthy at all.

 

Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College Students

 

It’s like real butter, real sugar, all the things but it’s a creative outlet for me. I love being able to think for people and beyond decorating it, it embodies my value of having your cake and eating it too, and balance and living in a way that encompasses wellness and intentionality, but also not giving up the things that you love because I would be happy doing that for the rest of my life, and I don’t think promoting that is positive.

That’s where the idea for my blog came about. I have an Instagram page called @HealthyWithSpence, and then on my TikTok, I started posting more. It’s a little sillier. My Instagram is probably more intentional with my content, but it’s been super fun. I have had some incredible opportunities to work with brands that I align with, whether it’s clothing brands and workout clothes, food brands, or going to some fun events in Los Angeles where there’s so much happening in the world of social media. I have made so many friends and amazing, real, authentic connections through this blog with other girls and boys and everyone who shares the same values as me. It’s fun.

Intentionality

I have 1,000 questions for you. First of all, your cakes are amazing. You are very talented. They are beautiful. I love how you said that. The word “intentional” is such an important word. As a therapist, I run a virtual practice called U Are Heard, and and my therapists, I see students all over the country with mental health needs I get asked all the time What is the hang-up of getting assistance from a young person getting help when they need it?

I find myself saying that all the time to young people If you need assistance, get it. If you know all that stuff. The intentional piece is so important because young individuals often aren’t very intentional, and they go with the flow, even if the flow isn’t healthy and I don’t mean to judge when I say that. I mean that sometimes that path takes a person down a difficult trail. I have seen students, for example, not getting enough rest. I have seen students not get any physical activity. I have seen students missing classes regularly, and you know where that’s headed but being intentional is such a big part of specifically directing your journey and pushing it in a positive fashion.

I graduated from Duke University a few years ago, and especially at a school like Duke that had so many incredible opportunities, it was easy to not rest. It was easy to say yes to so many things when you have multiple interests, like someone the way that I do. There were times when I was going down that path, I wasn’t the kid missing class, but I was the kid missing sleep to go to class and to go to other things, and my mental health fluctuated, whether it was being anxious or stressed or overwhelmed, and not being in my best functioning, mentally healthy headspace because of things like lack of sleep or even my eating habits, too. Throughout college, fluctuated. It was in the post-grad years that I feel I have been able to cultivate a lot more mindfulness and intentionality, given that it’s always a journey. We are always growing, but I understand, and that was and still is me as a young twenty-something post-grad student, for sure.

Self-Care

It is a journey. Let me ask you about an interesting topic, self-care. When you think about the broad topic of self-care, about eating, sleeping, exercise, but it’s when I say the phrase self-care, what do you think of?

I think of all those things, and I think of it even more so encompassing what fulfills me. For me, self-care isn’t the physical eating, sleeping, drinking enough water, taking care of myself in that way, but it’s in the way that I have gotten to know myself, where for me, self-care at times is being alone, recharging, taking time by myself and recharging that social battery, but I’m extroverted and for me, more often than not, self-care looks like cultivating a group of friends who recharge and fill me and making time in my schedule to see my friends but it sounds so silly, but when you are busy and you might have been careers the way that I am, whether it’s with my relationship or with my friends.

Self-care is not just about addressing the needs of your body. It is also about being alone and recharging yourself. Share on X

I feel like blocking that time in my schedule. It’s something that is an act of self-care. Finding a balance between my entrepreneurial freelance artist life and having a normal life of seeing my friends on the weekend, most of them do have 9:00 to 5:00s. That’s been a huge piece of self-care that when I sacrifice too much social time or too much alone time, I think my mental health suffers from that.

For me, self-care is building a life of things that fulfill me, whether it’s time alone, or time with friends, and then personally, creativity is a huge value of mine as a creative person, whether it’s making cakes like you said, or writing, or I’m a dancer as well, and moving my body is something that fulfills me, too. For me, self-care is not about eating, sleeping, or drinking water, but it’s about booking a dance class and going for a walk.

Doing something physically. Moving my body is important to me. Often, that is coupled with something creative that gets my brain stimulated in a way that’s fulfilling beyond what I do for work. The last piece of self-care for me is grounding and being in nature. Getting sunshine is important for my mental health, and for having met gray in Los Angeles. I will go touch some grass anyway.

Connecting with nature, I’m so lucky to live close to the beach-ish, and for me, going to see the ocean and being in nature, seeing trees, getting fresh air is something as simple as going on my patio for even ten minutes in the middle of my workday. Self-care for me encompasses beyond the physical things you think of when you think of wellness and well-being, but also building that life of things that you know recharge you and fulfill you, whether it’s friends, alone time, being in nature, creativity, or moving your body.

You’ve learned a lot over your teen years and developed into a person who knows what she needs and like you said, life is a journey. It doesn’t matter. Are you continuing to learn all of that? From young adults, I want to highlight what you said, recognizing what you need and so for you, it’s creativity for someone else, it may be a workout, but recognizing you as a person and saying, “What is it that Marc needs? What is it that Spencer needs?” Making it happen. Even if it’s simply getting outside, getting some fresh air, getting a walk in, and recognizing, “If I don’t do this somehow I’m impacting myself negatively.”

It builds up, and you don’t have time for certain things, and then you realize. For me, like even something as simple as “I haven’t seen a friend all week. Why am I sad? Why am I feeling lonely?” I will call a friend up. If I can’t see them in person, like make a connection with someone if that’s what feeds me and that’s what I need. Do it. Take the time and make the time to do it, but sometimes it’s easier said than done, and at all the different times your needs can change as you said. For me, my needs changed too, and checking in with yourself and being on that journey, figuring out what you need at this present moment is another factor of self-care. It’s like spending time with yourself and getting to know yourself what you need and what’s best for you in the present moment.

Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College Students

Young Adult And Mental Health

You had an interesting age in that you are out of college, but I can still consider you a young adult twenties and approaching, getting into your career spreading your wings, and getting into that age bracket where people start thinking about relationships and families and all that stuff and I’m wondering, when you think about young adults and the mental health of young adults, so anxiety and depression in particular. Anxiety and depression right now are at an all-time high. Anxiety in young adults and depression are the statistics that are through the roof. I’m wondering, when you hear me say that, why do you think that is?

Being a young adult and someone who also has dealt with and still sometimes deals with anxiety, I go to therapy too, and I have, but a lot of time working on myself to be the stable person that I am, but everyone has their days too. Someone who’s not an outsider and what you are talking about. There are so many factors, and I hate to say it because I work in social media, but I do think a factor not be factored, but a factor is the age of technology and the accessibility we have to seeing what we may not have, comparing ourselves to other people, comparing ourselves to even, for me, past versions of myself that I have posted about online that I have to live up to. That’s a very niche thing for me, but that affects my mental health, is living up to the standard that I have seen created online of this person who embodies wellness. What if I’m not feeling so hot one day?

Suddenly, if I am not embodying this thing that I’m promoting am I inauthentic and spiraling in that way? Technology has a big effect on all of us in some capacity, positively, connecting us to incredible sources of information and being a creative outlet. I have seen more positives than negatives from social media, being in the field that I’m in intentionally, but I do think it’s taken a toll on my mental health many times, I do think the pandemic also had an effect on us.

I didn’t walk across the stage when I graduated from Duke and all my hard work. I got lucky that I even sat at a graduation, but we sat in masks, 6 feet apart, on the football field. They never called my name. They never shook anyone’s hand, and my diploma was mailed to me. It didn’t feel like the same level of gratification in a silly way for all the work that I put in, and that was a big bummer and that’s not to say that your anxiety is a product of a particular event like that.

Living in the age of the pandemic, post-pandemic, combined with technology, combined with my generation especially, there’s a shift with Gen Z of people who are more entrepreneurial, and it’s more acceptable to be a full-time freelancers, to be balancing multiple jobs, to have a side hustle. It’s a common language among my generation, and as someone who does have a lot of different jobs, I’m busy. I have my hands in a lot of different things, and it’s like maybe it’s my circle in Los Angeles being a more artist and entrepreneurial-oriented city, but in this city, there’s a lot of pressure to have more than a 9:00 to 5:00. If you think you have a 9:00 to 5:00, that’s all you have a 9:00 to 5:00. Do you have a side hustle? What do you do with your free time? Do you have a hobby? You don’t have a hobby? It’s like you go from 9:00 to 5:00, or what else do you do? At this age, with, again, social media, there’s this pressure to monetize your free time, monetize all your hobbies.

The age of the post-pandemic made Generation Z more entrepreneurial. It is now more acceptable to be a full-time freelancer, balance multiple jobs, or have a side hustle. Share on X

I have put this pressure on myself, and that’s been a huge contributing factor to my anxiety, is that standard? I have stopped for myself the pressure I feel from my generation to constantly be achieving and doing and leveling up, and it’s positive and if it’s not taken too far, and when it’s taken too far, it can take a toll on mental health. That’s why my generation is suffering.

College Admission

I would agree. As a therapist, one of the things that I see is the measuring stick has become social media. Right now, with young people, social media doesn’t exist. You were compared to the people next to you, the people you heard about. Now, you are compared to 100 million of your closest friends on social media. It’s never enough. Someone could be working a zillion hours, and in some ways, it feels like, why aren’t you working a zillion and one? When you look at the definition of mental health or happiness, that takes away from your happiness. You have to go. I see it. It’s funny. I see it mentioned, Duke. I see it when kids are applying to college.

I work in college admissions, one of my million jobs, and let me tell you. It’s crazy.

Essay writing and all that stuff. For me, 4.0 used to be the highest. Then it went up to 4.3, and now it’s 4.6. I’m like, what does it stop at? At some point, you say, “This is a person who’s intelligent, obviously doing well in school, but they are not at the top of their game and everybody seems to be trying to get to that top,” which is a pressure cooker.

The funniest part is when kids get out of college, and you probably know this to be true because you’ve been out for a while now, everybody has a degree. When you get out of college, you are sitting in a room. Everyone’s got no one cares at that point. Are you this or that? What they care about is what kind of person you are, what you bring to the table, and how hard you can work. Social media has been harsh. COVID has been equally harsh. It makes me sad to hear that he didn’t get to walk across the stage because everybody who works hard like that deserves that. They deserve that attention.

That’s a silly thing to bring up as a thing that I don’t think cuts it off every day but that’s like a microcosm of college being like everything about the hard work and everything about the product, and the college admissions process too. Working with these students, there’s pressure. Do you think it’s the parents often? It’s the students even putting the pressure on themselves, and the friends leveling up next to them? “My friend got in here, and why didn’t I get in?” It’s breaking up friendships.

The list could go on about the college admissions process and I feel like I’m grateful. I work with a company that has strong, amazing values, and that’s why I work in this space. It’s because we do a lot of free essay reviews and amazing resources we offer for people who are underprivileged and I work with students on scholarships as well. The only reason I get excited to work in this space is to feel like I’m making an impact, even if it’s on a small scale, with students who either would have access to these resources and also students who wouldn’t and that’s helpful for me as someone who always wants to align with work that is aligned to my values, because that’s part of living intentionally. Even for you to be able to have a conversation with someone a couple of years younger and remind them, “You are supposed to be pursuing this to be happy.” That’s supposed to be part of the process. Let’s not lose that. I could see you doing that and doing a good job of that. I love you hearing all that.

Thank you. Teaching at a school right now in person, is my first day. There are big kids, and they are all awesome. I get to teach in person. It’s such a treat. I’m like, “The connectivity versus Zoom. It’s not the same.”

How old are the kids you are teaching?

These are mostly rising juniors and some seniors, so all college prep work, but a little bit more broad writing skills and writing a personal statement and what it’s like to learn to express yourself more in an essay over the course of the next two and a half weeks. We’ll be working together. It’s a pretty long time to get to know each other and hopefully make a real impact on their writing abilities and their lives.

Time management

Another area I wanted to ask you about in terms of wellness that goes, it’s not talked about nearly enough, is time management and I always feel like the students that I work with going into college, most of them don’t use calendars. Most of them don’t even use email, believe it or not. To introduce them to that and then to link it to, “The more management you use, I believe the more you can drive your anxiety down because you know what’s coming.” I’m curious, what are your thoughts about time management? Has that impacted you?

I agree with what you said about minimizing anxiety. If not for my calendar I use the iCal app because it’s on my phone and my computer I cannot imagine what I would do without my calendar. Having as many jobs as I do and still trying to have a social life and still trying to take time for myself, I could truly not function without my calendar and honestly, without reminders, I feel like I’m the person where, even talking to you about scheduling the Zoom interview, if I don’t respond to a text right away and I open it, I’ve forgotten about it and that’s the truth about myself.

The more you get to know yourself, the more you know what tools you need. For me, I use my notes app religiously. I always have a to-do list, and I check things off every day. What I’m doing if I didn’t have my notes app where I was writing to-do lists every day, I would not know what I was doing. If I wasn’t able to mark emails as flagged or unread texts that I haven’t responded to yet because I’m in the middle of something, I wouldn’t get to it. Some people are better at micromanaging little things like that, and maybe they have more capacity in their brain to multitask in that way, the way that I don’t but learning about myself, I have learned what systems help me with these little things.

The more you know yourself, the more you know what tools you need. Share on X

Those little things are a huge contributor to overall time management when you feel more organized and you are able to block your time and your week, that’s when you have the time for self-care. That’s the only way I could function doing all of these different types of endeavors that I’m doing. I have even imparted some of this idea of organization to the students that I work with. I use organizational platforms. It’s like an online software that is like a Google Drive meets the Notes app shared feature, like a co-work space. Monday is similar, or Asana like all those kinds of workspaces, but I use Notion to help my students stay organized. They always have a to-do list and know what our Zoom link is and when we are meeting. They know what their homework is and what my homework is for them. Organizational systems like that for all of my businesses to manage my time are crucial.

It’s a work in progress for me. I’m still a work in progress in every way, and there are days when I do get stuck scrolling. Sometimes I start looking for inspiration and then I end up on my phone for an hour, and I’m like, “That wasn’t part of the plan. Let’s readjust.” Time management is key for efficiency, trying to do multiple things, and minimizing your anxiety. To do those things efficiently you have to have time management.

You juggle a lot. You are an excellent example of that and as you mentioned, the entrepreneurial attitude of young adults nowadays, there are many more people out there doing that and doing all things.

In college too, I can’t imagine not having a calendar in college, because it’s the first time that your class schedule isn’t eight to three. Your parents drop you off and pick you up, or you drive yourself and drive yourself home, maybe a senior year of high school. In college, I was part of two dance groups. I was the vice president of the Buddhist Meditation Club. I did like everything I could do on campus because I was like,” I wanted to soak up the juice. I wanted to take advantage of my time there.”

If I wanted to go to a party with my friends but I had a midterm due, I wouldn’t have known my midterm was due if it wasn’t on my calendar. Finding those organizational structures sooner rather than later, in high school, I even had a calendar. I had a crazy agenda. My mom, luckily, helped me in doing that and was like, “Make your doctor appointments.” I made my appointments and I could drive when I had races. Those are the things that I was lucky to learn from a young age, learning sooner rather than later if you are learning for the first time in college, is a little tricky, but it’s still better to learn in college than when you are 25, you get the real job.

Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College Students

First Weeks At School

I don’t know if you remember your first couple of weeks at school. Do you remember your first couple of weeks? What was one of your big surprises that you got to school and you were like, “I didn’t see this coming?”

I did an amazing pre-orientation program that Duke offered. It was an arts camp. It was like a student. All my counselors were older students. It was all freshmen incoming, and they divided us into small groups. I had this opportunity to get eased into the college experience, and that was the first surprise. I thought I was going to show up and it was going to be first-day-of-school vibes, where I’m a little fish in a massive pond, where I knew nobody. I flew across the country. My parents said bye to me at the airport. I got on a plane and went from Los Angeles to Durham, North Carolina very differently. I didn’t know anybody, and I was at first surprised with how excited I was and not anxious, as someone who usually does run anxious for new experiences out of my control.

Instantly found people who I shared values within this art space, who I could connect with over things like music, dance, and acting. It felt like a safe space and that was a very unique college experience. A unique entry to college that not all students are offered, but that a lot of schools have orientation programs to ease freshmen. I recommend taking advantage of that and finding people who you vibe with, whether it’s through a particular part of that orientation like maybe there’s a part of the orientation that’s geared towards a particular interest of yours. Maybe you play a sport, and there’s a sports orientation.

Going to the orientation with what might be your people not to say they are going to be your best friends. I didn’t even end up staying friends with most people from my program, but I did find some of my best friends through that program. It was surprising off the bat to find people across the country amidst this massive environment. We are expected to feel so anxious and isolated, but I found people who I shared things with. Looking ahead, it was surprising to see I didn’t say that about all of them. It was like I had my freshman week friends, and some of them were freshman week friends.

I would say hi to all and that was it.  I was surprised and I wish I had been a bit less presumptuous of expecting to feel a negative way and a little more open-minded to knowing I might not feel anxious at all. I could get there and feel instantly comfortable and not feel like I wanted to run to the bathroom and throw up. That was not something that I ever thought would be an easy transition, and had I been more open-minded, the plane ride over would have been a little bearing.

Advice For Incoming College Students

That brings me to the last question I want to ask you. If you are talking directly to an incoming student, an incoming college kid, eighteen years old. All sorts of thoughts. Do you have a piece of advice?

Something that people told me that I didn’t believe when I got to college and this is specific but your major doesn’t determine everything, and what you choose to study does not determine your career. If you change your major, it’s not the end of the world. Every school has different protocols for certain applications that require you to pick majors in certain programs or are more competitive than others. Not saying it’s easy to go from being an engineer to an English major.

I do think that the pressure I felt to make a 5-year plan when I was 17 years old was pressure that I never needed to feel, with anxiety that I never needed to feel. I graduated. I studied literature, cultural studies, and philosophy. I co-published a book on the study of ethics, and now I’m working as an actress, a dancer, and a college counselor. I’m on your show. I’m doing all of these random careers that, frankly, mine are using my brain, talking to people, and learning to express myself. They have nothing to do.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, but for me the specific answer would be don’t stress so much about your major, or your five-year plan, all those little things are so insignificant in the grand scheme of your life. If you are going into a field that is technical, like learning how to do computer science to be a software engineer, try it, and if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to do that for the rest of your life. You are not married to that but be open-minded with what you want to study.

Take it on a little bit of a larger scale generally being open-minded and knowing that things are going to work out, and things are not going to work out. You might think you met your husband during the first week of school, and then you realize you don’t think you like him at all. I think being open-minded, if I could go back in time and give my younger self advice, would be to roll with the punches and relax a little bit more. Enjoy it. People say it’s the best time of your life. Take those classes that you are like, “Maybe I want to study this. Maybe I don’t.” If it’s not that serious, if you don’t have it all figured out and that’s something I felt like I had to have a lot of things figured out because suddenly I wasn’t a kid anymore I was living across the country, and the pressure from the investment of the money and the investment of all the things that they make college out to be in the movies.

Enjoying it and remembering it’s supposed to be fun and educational. The last thing I will say is to take the opportunity to use college as your growth journey, battlefield, or frankly, you are going to get hit with a lot of things but using it not as a place to learn but as a trade school opportunity, but as a chance to learn about yourself and to grow. If the best thing out of college you get, besides your degree, is people skills and learning about yourself, then it was a successful college experience.

Use college not just as a place to learn but also as a chance to learn about yourself and to grow. Share on X

It’s not bad. It’s great advice. In many ways, you are saying, “Be willing to try new things,” and, “Attend new classes. Expand your horizons.” Most kids are going to school in different areas. Embrace that a bit. It sounds like a nice journey, and as you said, honestly, no one has a 100% lovely journey through college. There’s going to be tough days.

I call my parents more than once.

Episode Wrap-Up

In many ways, that’s typical. I always tell kids, I’m like, “You’d have to have a pretty awful house to not miss it at all when you go to college.” You are going to have some of that but the opportunity to open their world up in those ways is immense. I appreciate your time, Spencer. You are fantastic.

I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. You’re awesome.  I love your mission and everything you stand for, so I’m happy to support you.

Can I put you on the spot for one second? Part of what we are doing in the show is asking people that we interview to nominate another individual so that we can continue the conversation. You need to talk about wellness, and I didn’t know if you had a friend, a co-worker, a relative, or someone.

Not to keep it in the family, but my mom nominated me. I have so much admiration for how she raised me, and the intentionality I live with is such a byproduct of the house that I was raised in by both my parents. My brother is someone who embodies the same spirit. He launched a business called Collegiate Mind Mastery. That’s all about baseball players going on the professional track who are any age, from elementary through high school, and even some college students he’s working with now too. All about everything and what it takes to be a collegiate athlete from mindset and mental health to physical health and nutrition and everything and he built such an amazing brand and program with that. He’s such an asset to chat with.

That would be great. What’s your brother’s first name?

His name is Tyler Ganus. His Instagram is @TylerGanus. If you want to check it out there. He’s a whole brand there too, but maybe that would be a nice conversation.

I appreciate you nominating him. I will reach out. Spencer, thank you so much for your time. You’ve been amazing. I love the fact that you represent both college as well as post-college, and you’ve been very honest about things. I want to just make a point of saying this there are so many times that I will interview someone and they give me this glossed-up version of everything is perfect, and we all know that the normalcy of life is that we have our ups and downs. The way you put it out there, that just works. Thanks again.

I’m so glad. Thank you so much for your time. You are not an awesome interviewer. I appreciate it and good luck with your show. Hopefully, you get in touch with my brother.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Take care. Have a good rest of your day.

 

Important Links

 

About Spencer Lacey Ganus

Normalize It Forward | Spencer Ganus | College StudentsSpencer Lacey Ganus , who is an actress and voice actress. 2 of her roles She’s best known for are the Comedy Central television series, South Park As Ike as, as well as teen Elsa in frozen.

We are particularly interested to talk about healthy with Spence wellness and lifestyle social media blog that she currently runs.

 

 

Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental Health

Normalize Asking For Help: On Mental Health And Wellness With Kami Evans

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Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental Health

 

Normalize that it’s okay to ask for help. In this episode, Kami Evans, community leader and Republican candidate for State Senate in District 26, joins us to discuss the critical role mental health plays in building a stronger, healthier community. Kami shares her passion for advocating mental health, supporting families, and fostering open conversations about emotional challenges, especially for young people facing the pressures of modern life. From the importance of listening to small moments to taking steps toward self-care, this conversation offers practical advice and inspiration for creating a supportive environment where everyone can thrive.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Normalize Asking For Help: On Mental Health And Wellness With Kami Evans

Welcome to Normalize It Forward, the show that openly talks about mental health and wellness. We are here to welcome Kami Evans, a community leader and the Republican candidate for State Senate in District 26. Kami is not only committed to local control, public safety, and fiscal responsibility, but she’s also a very passionate advocate for mental health. She understands the critical role mental health plays in our community’s well-being and is determined to ensure that our schools, our families, and public services are provided with the necessary support they need. With a focus on supporting families with additional needs, enhancing education, and making sure every voice in District 26 is heard in Hartford, Kami is here to share her vision for a stronger and healthier community. Kami, welcome. It’s nice to see you. How are you?

I’m doing well. Thank you so much. I appreciate that wonderful opening. It’s incredibly important to me. I’m looking forward to this discussion.

Mental Health Of Young Adults

I am as well. This is such an important topic to be talking about, as both you and I are parents of young adults. Nowadays, there are so many young adults out there with mental health issues and struggles. I always point out as well that, as a therapist, there are young adults out there who have symptoms, even if they haven’t had an actual diagnosis, but they’re struggling with day-to-day stress and day-to-day doings. Let’s face it, it’s hard to be a teen nowadays.

When everybody is watching every move and sharing every post that has been filtered and managed, I wish there was an opportunity for there to be a campaign of like, “This is the real me. This is what I look like,” and normalizing that. I love what you’re doing because you’re getting the word out to have a conversation.

That’s so important.

 

Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental Health

 

It was wonderful the way the Olympics tackled mental health this year with Phelps and Simone Biles. People need to know that it’s okay. It’s okay to be okay. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to ask for support. Conversations need to be had before it’s too late.

It's okay to be okay. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to ask for support. Conversations need to be had before it's too late. Share on X

I love that genuine side they were able to put out there. Unfortunately, our community was touched by a tragedy. We lost a young adult. It’s a not-so-gentle reminder that we’re talking about these things for a good reason. When a young adult passes away, they’re permanently missing from our community. It’s that message of “This is why we do what we do.” There are people out there that are struggling.

There are people out there that aren’t saying anything and they need to be because you know what? There are plenty of good people out there who will help them and will understand, at the very least, simply listen. One of the biggest reasons why I named this podcast Normalize It Forward is I want people to understand that it is very normal. Statistically speaking, it’s normal to have emotional issues as a young person.

A lot of times I speak to my daughters about growing up in Stanford and the struggles and challenges I had. I’ve gone through them. I survived them and I managed it. I want them to know that the challenges they have or are experiencing, “You will get through them. Let’s give you better tools to cope. Let’s support you.”

I even tell them, “If you have a friend who needs to talk, make sure you’re available to talk.” If they need a grownup but don’t feel comfortable, I welcome them to come speak to me if they’d like to, or find a grownup that can help guide them. It’s a lot of trust to allow them to be vulnerable and share information that they’re not sure they can share. When we start sharing our stories and our conversations about things that we had success with and things we had challenges with, they realize, “Wow, really?” So far, they only have 16, 18, or 20 years of experience. That’s it.

We forget sometimes as adults that they don’t have a history in their heads of a time when phones didn’t exist or social media didn’t exist. We do, but they do not. The advantage in some ways that we have is we can see the impact of some of these things. I love what you said. All adults can make themselves available to young adults. You don’t have to be a therapist. You don’t have to be a skilled professional. If you can listen, which we all do, you can make yourself available. If more adults did what you said, we would have fewer kids suffering in silence.

I always tell my friends, “You have to listen to the small stuff.” Sometimes our kids are sharing things that may be a little random or things where you’re like, “Why are they telling me this?” It’s the gateway to share the big stuff, the heavy stuff. They’re trying to test the waters. You can’t just jump in the pool. You have to test the waters. Sometimes when my children or even their friends are talking, I’m listening. I’m not sure why they’re telling me that. Twenty minutes into it, they’re like, “By the way, this happened.” I’m like, “Okay.” I always tell my co-parent, myself, and my ex with my kids that we have to listen to the small stuff to get the big stuff.

Self-Care

I like the way you said that. One of the things I talk to a lot of young people about is self-care. I look at self-care in a certain way. It’s a topic that I feel people have access to, and people can choose to treat themselves properly or not. When I throw out the phrase self-care for a young adult, what does that mean to you, Kami?

For me, it’s taking a moment and looking inward. There are so many things we have access to in the state of Connecticut. There are so many things we have access to in America. If we take a moment to be grateful for those things to remind us of everything that we have, and then acknowledge that there will always be challenges. I never want to minimize somebody’s challenge or something that they’re going through, but if we do a little spot check like, “Okay, this is what’s going right. This is where I want to improve. Who can help me get there? What can I do to make myself feel good?”

I posted about going and seeing the horses just to get out of my head. With my campaign, there are a lot of moving parts. I’m not invincible. I’m human. There are days when I’m taking my dog for an extra long walk. I’m going to go. This poor dog’s going to be fit as a fiddle. We take that extra loop so I can put some space between myself and whatever is occupying my mind.

That’s such a great suggestion, take a moment. In this hustle-bustle world, you and I are always so busy, and so are most people nowadays. Take a moment. I’m watching kids that I work with. They’re moving into college, their schedules are changing, and their classes are picking up. Just like we do, they have the opportunity to take a moment and take that breath. If horses are your thing, great. If you like to go for a walk, go for that walk. If you like to do yoga, go do that. Take that moment because our brains need it. Our brains require it in many ways. Here’s the thing, Kami, and I know you know this. If we don’t do it for ourselves, nobody else will.

 

Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental Health

 

I tell my kids, “No one is going to love you more than you. I love you more than anything, but no one is going to look out for you more than yourself.”

No one's going to love you more than you. Share on X

That’s so important. In the world of young adults, certainly on the college level, anxiety and depression are at an all-time high these days, and so many kids aren’t able to pull back. As you said, Kami, take a breath, take a moment, and recognize that, in many cases, this too shall pass. This is a moment in our world. It may feel like a large moment. It’s a moment in the movie of our life. It’s a square and it’s going to pass.

Mental Health Care Tips

For young adults, that moment may feel anxiety-provoking and very depressing. As a parent and an advocate for mental health, when you think about things kids can do to help themselves, whether it be to relieve those symptoms or put a smile on their face, what’s your go-to? What do you recommend? What do you suggest?

Journaling is so important. This is one concept that I like to do with a lot of people. When I’m working, I always like to write everything that I’ve accomplished. That can even go as far back as learning to walk at eight months old or playing the flute. It could be anything. Sometimes we move so fast that we forget everything that we’ve accomplished. Rode a bike. I don’t care if you were 5 or 15 when you learned to ride a bike. You learned to do that.

Sometimes we move so fast, we forget everything that we've accomplished. Share on X

Put that all down on a sheet of paper and then you could even think about people who have motivated and inspired you. We’re on LinkedIn. There are a lot of very inspirational people on LinkedIn. Every now and then, I will comment on their posts. I’ll tag them or I’ll email them. Surprisingly, they get back. I’ve been communicating with Lydia Finette, who is an auctioneer. She’s written two books and she’s quite inspiring.

Even one time, Ariana Huffington. I was like, “When I grow up, I want to be on it.” She commented back. We’re all interconnected. Everybody that has had success, it’s not overnight. Everybody wants to help other people succeed. Why wouldn’t I want someone to succeed? I want everyone to do well. To be a part of that journey is incredibly exciting.

Your suggestion of writing is awesome. In some ways, it’s a lost art to put a pen to paper and be able to do that. I recommend it all the time to young people to get out of their heads. If young people aren’t interested in writing, they can always use their phones and dictate a journal. There are some great opportunities through apps to do that for a young person. I love that. It untangles the difficulties that the person might be dealing with. In addition, your comment about what we’ve achieved, big or small, is so important because we’ve all achieved something. We tend to overlook our achievements and wait for the next thing. It’s like, “Okay, I did this. Now what?”

Perfect examples are in the Olympics. When they were getting gold medals or whatever medals they were getting, people asked, “What are you going to do next?” I was so proud of them for saying, “Can I enjoy this?” Thank you. I would say, “I’m so proud of you for doing that,” and sit in that for a minute. We are so efficient. We are so fast. We’re able to do a lot of things in a very short amount of time. Because we have that capacity, we should indulge in self-care moments and opportunities. I have one friend who calls me about once a week to check-in. That inspires me to check in on other people too. It’s like, “I see you. I hear you. You are heard. I’m letting you know that I’m here.” It’s quite important. Check in not a text but an actual call. It’s perfect.

We live in this hustle-bustle world where we feel like we don’t have time to do that, but we do. We have time to do that. We have time to check in on people. Whether we’re a young adult or an older adult, that concept of checking in means the world to that person. You never know when we’re going to be in that position or where we need people to check in on us. That’s what makes the world go around, that human, that kindness piece. We can give kindness. We can give that. I feel like that’s part of wellness. I feel like being kind and giving that spirit off to people and realizing we can make the world a better place by checking in on others.

I always tell people, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” That’s all. If you do good, I do good. We’re all doing good. It’s great.

Approaching School

It’s hard to be a young person. I think it’s in what we’re doing in many of those cases. Let’s say I’m checking in on you or you’re checking in on me, Kami. We’re role-modeling for our kids to say, “Adults know how to do that. Kids can too.” It’s easier because they’re checking in through text. You can check in on your friends, especially if you know a friend is having a hard time. I see it all the time in my office. Hard times are being had by all. It’s difficult. It’s difficult being a young adult. We’re fast approaching the end of summer here. We’re fast approaching the beginning of the fall. How are your kids approaching school? How are they feeling about school starting up?

There are a lot of things that they need to do before school starts. Everybody has their summer reading and wrapping up. I told them, “Set up your rooms so you’re ahead of the game. Get into the rhythm of having things organized and peaceful for you.” I understand that a lot of times there’s comfort in the chaos for some reason for some kids because it’s more creative and there’s comfort. At least have a section to set up to have peace.

I moved to a very small house. I’m in an apartment. It’s 850 square feet, a cottage in Westport. I love it. It’s good because every single piece of this home has a purpose. The one thing I always tell my kids is, “Go with purpose. Make sure that everything you’re doing has a reason.” We lived in that 6,000 to 7,000 square foot home, with 200 pairs of shoes and everything, which is great. That’s beautiful for the people who have access to that. This is quite impactful here. I’m looking around because I’m in my house.

 

Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental Health

 

There’s one thing I can say about you, Kami. I was so excited when I heard you were running for District 26 because you represent change. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years, and I haven’t seen someone go after change like you do. You tackle it. You have a spirit about you, and you care about people. I want to highlight that last one because not everybody does, and you do. You care about how other people do, whether other people are smiling or other people are doing well. If they’re not, you try to think of ways to help them. For that, I compliment you. I admire that aspect of you. For those voters who are tuning in, I want you guys to know who Kami is. You must understand that side. Kami, that’s unique and special. That’s important.

Thank you. I appreciate that. A lot of that has to do with having the opportunity to be on both sides of being applauded for whatever I did and also being isolated for whatever I did or whoever I am. To understand both sides of that spectrum is not lost on me. Running for State Senate is a heavy lift, but I’m doing what I continue to do, keep an eye on and look out for my communities. I appreciate that. Thank you. Hopefully, I get up to Hartford, and you and I will meet up.

I would love to. This has been awesome. I know you’re busy. I appreciate you taking some time out for my audience and talking about this vital topic of mental health and wellness. It’s something near and dear to me, and I watch people go through difficulties. I truly believe we’re all susceptible. Life is a bit of a roller coaster. We go through it sometimes, and there are times when we’re feeling stable.

I wanted to share that the kids are all going back to school, especially going off to university. I would like to encourage them to register to vote, but also get their support plan, especially going off for their freshman year. Get your support group of people. Find out how you can take care of yourself when you’re away from home. Even if you’re a star at home, you need to make sure you have that same level of support when you go off to school.

Good suggestion, Kami. It is so huge. Regarding the concept of the roller coaster, we can predict that people have difficulty at times when they’re away from home, and you don’t know when that’s going to happen. It could happen the first semester, it could happen later on. But you’re 100% right. Having a go-to, knowing where you can go when you experience some difficulties and need assistance is probably even more important than knowing your go-to.

It’s like rolling it back to the first step of being willing to ask for help because so many kids aren’t for lots of reasons. Let’s face it, we all need help from time to time. If students can get that concept and realize, “You know what? If I need help, here’s what I’m going to do. Here’s my plan.” What a great thought going into college because so many kids end up needing to use that plan. It’s important to have one in advance. 

In that vein, Normalize It Forward is a concept that I want to continue the conversation. I know that you’re always willing to have future conversations, Kami. I typically ask people to nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative, or someone who they think would be helpful to have on the show and continue to talk about mental health and wellness. Do you have somebody in mind that you’d like to recommend?

I think the woman who runs the gymnastics and training academy works with a lot of young adults. I think she has 250 coaches who work under her in three locations. Darcy Riehl Appleby, I will send her info. She’s phenomenal. I think that she is a good person to have a conversation about.

Certainly, someone who’s around a lot of young adults. I appreciate that and look forward to having Darcy on. We’ll talk about how to connect with her offline, but I appreciate your recommendation. I appreciate your time and energy. Kami, I’d like to wish you good luck with the process. We’re rooting for you up here in Northern Connecticut.

Thank you so much. I feel like I’m already winning because I’m in. You’re already winning. I appreciate that.

Have a wonderful day. Good to talk to you.

Take care. Bye.

 

Important Links

 

About Kami Evans

Normalize It Forward | Kami Evans | Mental HealthKami Evans is a community leader and the Republican candidate for State Senate in District 26.

Kami is not only committed to local control, public safety, and fiscal responsibility, but she’s also a passionate advocate for mental health.

She understands the critical role mental health plays in our community’s well-being and is determined to ensure that our schools, families, and public services provide the necessary support. With a focus on supporting families with additional needs, enhancing education, and making sure every voice in District 26 is heard in Hartford, Kami is here to share her vision for a stronger, healthier community.

Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self Care

Embracing Life’s Challenges Through Self-Care With Randy Spelling

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Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self Care

 

Self-care is not selfish. It’s essential. In this episode, life coach Randy Spelling joins Marc Lehman for a candid conversation about self-care and mental health. They dive deep into how self-care is more than just indulgent moments; it encompasses setting boundaries and finding simple joys like a refreshing walk to clear the mind. They discuss the challenges faced by today’s youth, including rising anxiety levels and the impact of digital communication on real-life interactions. Tune in for insights that inspire a healthier, more fulfilling life!

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Embracing Life’s Challenges Through Self-Care With Randy Spelling

Introduction

We are meeting with Randy Spelling. Randy, thank you so much for joining us and taking the time. How’s the weather out your way?

It’s beautiful. It’s probably in the high 70s. It’s going to be in the low 80s. I can’t complain. What about you?

It’s a little warmer than that. It’s about 95 out here. A little warmer than I would prefer but that’s okay, indoor and air conditioning. We’re all good. Out this way, we usually get those temperatures a bit in the summertime. Randy, let me introduce you a bit and I’d love to hear a little bit more about who we are and what you do. Randy is a life coach. I know you’re a former actor. Randy, I have just to admit, I turned on to your show which I love, by the way. Randy runs a show with Brian Austin Green and I believe Brian’s fiancé, Sharna Burgess. It’s called Oldish. We would love to hear more about that and other things that you’re up to you.

I’ve known Brian for what feels like 30 years, but we’ve known each other a long time. He called me out of the blue and said, “I’m watching your videos on Instagram and I’m inspired. Would you do a show with me? I have this idea.” It was to make an impact, reach people, and answer questions that at this age, we say that it’s not an age but it’s seasoned in life that you get to where you start to ask, what is this all about? Why am I here? Is this it? Can I make my days better? Can I do something to feel better?

A lot of what I’m sure we’re going to talk about is normalizing things such as having a bad day, being down, and is there some form of depression. We’re not diagnosing anything but we’re bringing on experts. I’m helping people to have the conversation, ask the right questions and also have some fun and entertainment value while doing it, but to start to tackle like how do I feel better on a daily basis? We know that if we feel better on a daily basis and we get more exercise, if we do some of the things that we know we should be doing and we check those boxes. It adds up no matter what age you are living a better life.

 

Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self Care

 

Self-Care

No doubt. I couldn’t have said it better and you’re right. What brings us together is the topic of mental health and wellness. No matter how old you are, everybody is susceptible and impacted in some way. Our challenge literally every day in our world is, what are some of those things that you can do? Even small things that you can do to take care and to let yourself feel better and ideally have a better path toward things. That brings me to my first topic I want to ask you about self-care, which I know you know a ton about. I wanted to ask you just your thoughts of like, when you hear the phrase self-care, what do you think of?

When I hear self-care, I think of ways to love myself more. I think of setting boundaries because boundaries are a huge form of self-care. It’s like self-care luxury getting in a bubble bath or getting a massage or getting your nails done. Self-care could be anything. For instance, I came in from work and jumped in to do dishes and dinner with my family. There were about four questions coming at me at once.

 

Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self Care

 

At some point, my daughter was trying to make this new dish that she wanted to make. The kitchen was a mess and she said, “We don’t have this ingredient.” I said, “That’s okay. I’ll go to the store.” She said, “No, you don’t have to do it.” I said, “I want to do it. I need a walk.” I walked to the store and that four-minute walk was myself there because I could feel the tensity and the stress rising in me. I knew that that wouldn’t end.

It’s free and simple. I walked to the store but I used that for a minute to decompress, to take a look at trees. It sounds like a platitude here, but it’s amazing how getting out of your walls, prompts and voices can connect you to something different. That’s all we need, a rain change, a focus change, or a perspective change and that works wonders.

It’s amazing how getting out of your walls, prompts, and voices can connect you to something different. Share on X

You’re 100% right. As a therapist, I talk a lot about the five senses. The way we make sense of our world is through those five senses. If we shift and we change one of them, that’s why listening to music, going for a car ride or a walk and doing those things can make us feel different and oftentimes, better. Self-care comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Some of the little things that you just talked about, it was overlooked a lot by people.

 

Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self Care

 

Simply setting those limits because like you, sometimes people will come home and they just simply want to be with their family. They don’t want to answer business calls or respond to emails. They want to have some time with their family. In order to do that, you have to go back to setting those limits. It becomes important.

It’s so funny when we talk about these self-care moments, whether they’re small things of going for a walk. It’s something I was saying to my daughter is just talking and saying how you feel is a form of self-care. Saying, “I’m struggling with something.” That’s huge to get out and you see this in your work. Writing is important. Talking is important. Getting anything out of your head and onto drawing, painting, or writing. Getting it out in some form is so incredibly impactful because otherwise, it’s like a pinball. It keeps going round and round and creates this pattern of pressure cooker.

We are self-caring but it’s like you can self-care in the wrong way and you can self-care in the right way. What I mean by that is reaching for your phone. We’re trying to self-care and self-soothe at that moment. It just might not lead to the feeling that you want. Vices and addiction or things like that. People reach for a drink or a cigarette or something.

That, funny enough, is someone trying to practice self-care. “I’m stressed.” “I had a hard day.” “Let me pour myself a cocktail.” That takes the edge off. It’s the way that we talked about it. After a while, when someone’s reaching for a drink and there’s no judgment here. It’s like every single day if you’re reaching for a drink to take the edge off. There can be other ways to do that. It just becomes the habituative.

Very well said. It’s important for people to think of it that way. As you said, there are things to reach for that are healthy and maybe aren’t but I do agree. Anxiety level is in everybody. I treat young adults. Anxiety levels in young adults are so high these days. Way higher than when we were kids. It becomes important to do what you said. It’s to figure out what works best for you.

I have some kids on college campuses. They’ll throw their earbuds in and they’ll walk further. Great. It clears your head. I have some kids that will smoke pot. Again, as you said, not the greatest option but they’re reaching for something to try to figure out a way to care for themselves. Ultimately, what they’re trying to do is to relieve stress.

Youth Anxiety

I want to ask you a question because I’m seeing this, too. I think everyone is starting to see this explosion of anxiety kids. It is amazing to hear the conversations, which I’m thankful for in one sense that there are these conversations happening. It’s more mainstream that kids can say, “I’m feeling anxious or I want to fidget with something or something’s not right.” It’s happening so much. It’s so prevalent. What do you think this is from?

It’s funny. It’s one of the questions I want to ask you.

We’ll ping pong.

I would answer by adding to it and then answering the question. That is, this generation is growing up with so much more around them. Here’s a great example. If you said to most people in their 40s and 50s, “When you were in high school, did you know of anybody who either tried to hurt themselves or completed taking their own life?” They would probably say no. Nowadays, if you say to a kid in their teams that same question. Not only did they know somebody. They’ve got several people on that list. That’s just the reality of their world.

They’re growing up around a lot more extreme depression, extreme anxiety, and extreme anxiety. I certainly don’t think phones have helped. In many ways, phones have created a lot of intensity for kids that isn’t necessary. Quite honestly, I would say to you, right back at what you said earlier. The fact that kids don’t interact this way as much as they had when we were younger has created a tremendous amount of stress and strain.

If I say to a kid, “You’re sixteen, let’s talk about going into a store to apply for a job or you’re nineteen, let’s talk about going back to see a professor for office hours or you’re 21, let’s talk about networking with someone in business.” Kids will frequently push back at me because they don’t like that direct interaction. They’d rather Snapchat or text. They like indirect interaction. Unfortunately, that creates a lot of pressure, stress, and strain. In life, you just simply need to be able to have that interaction. There’s certain things that require it and when those scenarios come up for kids, it’s hard.

Do you think that there’s anxiety and angst around having to have those interactions and it feels so uncomfortable that they’d rather just not engage at all?

I see it all the time. Here’s a great example. Kids go to college. You have a random roommate. That’s terrifying to some kids. You have all these random people in the hallways they don’t know. They’re going from a group of kids they knew in high school to nobody. That’s terrifying to most kids. Believe it or not, Randy, when I treat kids that go to college. They’re more worried about that than they thought about their classes.

I’m not surprised. Do you know how the whole introvert and extrovert thing became popular? You see phases. It’s like gaslighting. In the last couple of years, it is like all the rage and narcissism. I started to watch these trends having done this now for a long time. Introvert, extrovert, and empath became big thing. It’s interesting because this always existed. You have people who are more introverted. People who are more extroverted, but because of phones, the way that kids are communicating through text and not picking up the phone and talking and sitting in person.

It blew my mind. I was telling the story. I was talking to a teenager and she was showing me Snapchat. I wasn’t that familiar with it. I was asking these questions and she said, “This is how we hang out.” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “We’ll be at a coffee shop. My friends and I will sit in a semi-circle or a circle all on Snapchat.” Their snapping. Whatever you call it, snapping each other in the circle. That isn’t mind blowing, so I wonder.

In terms of normalizing conversations, normalizing the fact that it can feel normal to be anxious about social situation. I feel anxious about social situations sometimes. I don’t like small talk. I can connect with people well. When I’m in a big party, the idea of going up to anyone and talking, I don’t love but I thought there was something wrong with me. I created a story around it and then narrative. Now, I made a deficit.

In terms of normalizing conversations, we should normalize the fact that it can feel normal to be anxious about social situations. Share on X

I’m not going to want to step foot at a party for a long time because I was like, “There’s something wrong with me.” I’m bad or I’m not enough or I’m comparing to other people. Having more conversations like this and being able to say yes. For some people, this is easier. This is a skill. It takes practice. Other people are feeling this way and kick up the dust a little around this. We can normalize it and say, “Hey.” Not only is it normal. There’s tools for this.

You use the right word, skill. There are a lot of kids out there. I find most kids out there have to work at this. It’s not a natural thing to do. I’m still thinking about that example you gave. I picture a kid with like five phones at a table. We were groomed as kids to go out and play in the neighborhood and interact. Kids don’t do that anymore. When they get to a situation like a high school or a college. That is terrifying because they don’t have a lot of experience with it.

Here’s the cool thing. If they’re able to hang in there and give themselves and practice it, if you will, each day and have a willingness to join a club or join an activity and say hello. Even small little things instead of someone walking by you in the hallway. Say hi. Interact with them. Take those small steps. You start to see that kid begin to build that skill set, which is amazing. It’s truly amazing.

I have an idea. I think we should do a social experiment and have some tech that pops up emojis. AI is all the big rage. I would love to see the social experiment of kids who feel uncomfortable engaging in real life being able to communicate with emojis and they can talk. I wonder because everything is through text and there’s so much emoji and abbreviations. If that were a part of live interaction, would it make it more comfortable because it brings some of the comfort of the screen and the hiding behind in the way of communicating in real life?

It’s an interesting point. I certainly have kids with their parents. I’ll say sometimes, “Communication is important even if you have to start with text. Let’s start somewhere.” That becomes a pathway. You may be on to something. There are a lot of kids out there with social anxiety and just a resistance if you will to that connection.

You might be onto something. You might be a good link for some kids to be able to be able to make. I will say this, Randy, without something like that. Those kids that just walk by a kid in the hallway will literally sit down next to a kid in the classroom and not say a word. Those kids aren’t building that skill set and remain unhappy. You can see why a lot of young people struggle with that.

Post-COVID Wellness

Another interesting topic. You talk about trends. People talk about post-COVID constantly. I get it. That turned our world upside down and it affected things. Many individuals were in their homes and isolated. Many people lost family members and their jobs. It was a topsy-turvy time for the entire country. World, in many cases. When you think about wellness and you think about how wellness has changed from your perspective since COVID?

The landscape has changed a lot. I went from doing a lot of things in person, speaking gigs and whatever to doing mostly online. That has changed. Here’s how I see it. It’s like if you hear loud noises, if you’re around someone who yells a lot and you don’t like it. You might not know how it’s affecting you, but after a while even when there’s no yelling anymore. When you hear a loud noise, your nervous system flinches. Is it going to be someone yelling? Is it something bad? Am I in danger?

We all have enough information some more than others about trauma because that seems to be such a hot topic. It’s like there’s this trauma response that got activated through COVID. It hasn’t stopped because once it gets activated, then you have the political landscape. You have all of the polarization in everything. You have wars. You have live direct feeds of people being attacked or murdered. All these things, unfortunately, that are happening but the live feeds of seeing is just reactivating the fear and the stress response.

I feel like everyone is walking around like this, but the sun’s out. It’s just like we go back to life as normal. There’s all of these things happening in the background that are causing so much static. If we’re looking for solutions here, I tell people weekly, there’s no shame in turning off the news feed. You’re not a bad human being for not watching 24/7. Some people are like, “I’m being silent.” No, you’re taking care of yourself.

If you’re not taking care of yourself, it can be very hard for you to take care of those around you if you’re a parent or you’re a partner or you have to do things in the world. That’s okay. We talked about self-care. Go out and go for a walk. Unplug if you need to. Say no to things more. Say yes to things that fill you up and light you up. We have to prioritize this and put it like this. When you have a health crisis, you prioritize things pretty quickly.

I’m not labeling here. I think to a degree, we all can contend with having a health crisis. Some are more on the spectrum than others. Some are more in dire need, but if we look at it like this, I am having a health crisis. What do I need to do to care for myself better? What do I need to do to lower the threshold of stress because there is just too much? Even if you can’t see it, it’s not invisible. It doesn’t just go off and eaters. It has Innovative affecting and you will start seeing health things, unfortunately, in the coming months or years. We have to lower this threshold of stress because it’s too high for most people.

I would agree. I’m thinking about that. You mentioned the election. As I mentioned before, I treat a lot of kids on college campuses. In the last few months before their semesters ended, there were encampments popping up all over college campuses and talk about unpredictable. One kid said to me, “I didn’t see this on the tour.” These are scary things that are in their world that they have no control over.

Advice For Young People

To your point, trying to figure out something they do have control over and ways to manage that becomes critical. It just becomes so important. Probably a good segue. Let me ask you this. I feel like for many adults, our journey in life has involved a lot of suggestions and advice from people. I know, for me, I had several important mentors along the way that guided me well. Randy, if you were talking to young people directly. Is there a piece of advice that you’d want them thinking about and considering?

There’s so much. I think talking and expressing yourself cannot be overestimated. It just can’t. Daily, I have people of all ages who I’ll ask a question. They have probably thought about the answer a million times but saying it and hearing themselves say it out loud like we talked about. It gets it out of their head. Once it’s out, then they have the ability to go, “Do I want to read and digest that or not?” It’s like regurgitating something and going, “That’s what was in there? I don’t know if I wanted to do that.” Please don’t overestimate the power of speaking in witness of people.

Talking and expressing yourself cannot be overestimated. Share on X

That can be a mentor, a therapist, a coach, friends, or family. Friends and family are always the best depending on how support is and non-neutral or neutral they can be but still, it is so vital. Another piece of advice I would say is just from growing older and yes, I have the show called Oldish, things change by decade. They do. I have two daughters and I will tell you what they go through as a kid and in middle school, coaching people and watching teens 20s or 30s. What you care about in high school, in your twenties starts to change as you change and grow.

There is a shedding like snakes and lizards when they shed their skin. You do shed skin over time. I hope to instill hope in the fact of waiting in the idea that if you can get through, if you can navigate through, learn some tools, regulate yourself, and navigate things better things can and will usually do get better if you’re just practicing a little awareness. Putting your head in the sand and not dealing with anything that you have to deal with yourself. You’ll have to deal with it at some point. Practicing a little awareness like we’re talking about and moving through. You will get to a different rest and then a different raft. All of the sudden, you’re on an island and, all of a sudden, you’re on land. You’re like, “I’m building a house.”

Moving in a good direction. I love that. That was a tough question I asked and you handled it well, Randy. The power of conversation is so important. I just find so many young people tend to hold everything up and in their hearts. They don’t let it out. What they often find, especially in my office, is when they do, now we can massage it, work with it, talk it through and come up with solutions.

It doesn’t have to be a therapist. It can be a coach. It can be as you mentioned a family member or a friend. It could be a lot of people, but find your person. Finding your person is so important. Randy, let me ask you this because I don’t want to take too much of your time. Part of the conversation what normalizes it forward is I hope to continue the conversation. I hope to help normalize mental health and wellness and give people an understanding of we are all susceptible. We are all dealing with these things. The more we talk about them, the easier they become. I often will ask for someone to nominate a friend, a co-worker, a relative, or someone who you think might be helpful for me to interview next so the conversation can continue. Can I put you on the spot and ask?

I have a friend in colleague and I just saw something that she posted. I thought of her. Her name is Sura Kim. Her handle is Surah Flow. She has been a coach for a long time and she’s moved into the meditation space. What I love about the work that she does is it’s approachable. One thing that I hear literally at least three times a week, “I know I should meditate more.” People always have this idea that meditation is such a staple of wellness, which it should be but the way to approach it feels so daunting. I love the work that she’s doing because it’s approachable and easy. I think it could help a lot of people.

I appreciate it. I find you tremendously approachable. Thank you so much for that. I will reach out to her and connect. Randy, please tell our readers where can they find you? Where can they find your show?

You could find me on Instagram at @RandySpelling. I have many offerings and things on my website. It’s RandySpelling.com and the show is Oldish. You could read it anywhere. We have a website where you can get more footage and different things. It’s on OldishPodcast.com and the first episode of Season Two comes out soon.

I can’t wait. I’ve been watching it. I’m excited to see Season Two. Randy, thank you so much for your time, energy, and your thoughts. I appreciate it.

Thank you. You, too. Good to talk with you.

Thank you. Take care.

Thank you.

 

Important Links

 

About Randy Spelling

Normalize It Forward | Randy Spelling | Self CareRandy Spelling is an American life coach, author, and former actor, best known for his work in helping individuals find purpose, fulfillment, and balance in their lives. As the son of legendary television producer Aaron Spelling, Randy grew up in the entertainment industry but later shifted his focus to personal development and wellness.

Through his coaching business, Randy Spelling Coaching, he guides clients in overcoming obstacles, building self-awareness, and achieving personal and professional growth. His approach emphasizes mindfulness, self-discovery, and practical strategies for living a more meaningful and authentic life.

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

Nurturing Mental Wellness In Adolescents: Melissa Bernstein’s Guide To Supporting Their Growth

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NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

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 with Melissa 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 about Melissa and Doug and then give us a little background on that. Also, certainly a little background on Lifelines, 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.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

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.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

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.

 

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental Wellness

 

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 experts Peter 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.

Take care, everyone. Thanks for reading.

 

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About Melissa Bernstein

NIF - Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Melissa Bernstein | Mental WellnessMelissa 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.