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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

The Shoulder Check Foundation Story: On Loss, Inspiration, And Making Contact With Rob Thorsen

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Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

In a world where genuine connection can feel scarce, understanding the power of empathy and vulnerability becomes essential for mental health and wellness. In this episode, we dive deep into the transformative work of the Shoulder Check Initiative with founder Rob Thorsen, who shares the deeply personal story behind its inception and its mission to encourage authentic human connection. Rob explains how the foundation, inspired by his son Hayden, works to dismantle barriers to vulnerability and promotes checking in on one another as a powerful tool for mental well-being. Discover how their innovative approaches, including a unique emoji and community events, aim to create a world where “making contact” is not just a tagline, but a way of life. Join us as Rob reveals the simple yet profound message that everyone has a hand to give and everyone might need a hand, inspiring listeners to embrace vulnerability and build stronger, more supportive communities.

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The Shoulder Check Foundation Story: On Loss, Inspiration, And Making Contact With Rob Thorsen

Welcome, everybody, to the show. This is the show that talks openly about mental health and wellness. On our show, we’re joined by Rob Thorsen, founder of the Shoulder Check Foundation. Welcome, Rob. How are you?

Excellent. Thanks very much for having me. I appreciate it.

Kicking Off The Conversation: Rob Thorsen & The Heart Of Shoulder Check

Thanks for being here, Rob. I would love to start things off if you could maybe tell us a little bit about the Shoulder Check Foundation that you run.

For sure. It’s just the reason that puts us together here. I give you the context for what we’re up to. Our program is called The Shoulder Check. We’re more formally the HT40 Foundation, where we started, and we’re on a mission to help young men and women make contact with one another. It’s pretty straightforward. The best way to say what we’re trying to do is you never know who might need a hand, but we all have a hand to give. Our thought was that the more people we can get checking in on one another, the more likely we are to catch someone who needs some support and give them the space and permission to say they need it.

What a great way of saying all of that. That’s fantastic. I’ve definitely looked into, on my end, a little bit about your foundation. I’m so impressed with what you guys do and all of what you just said. I agree 100% with absolutely everything you just mentioned. Tell us a little bit about how it came together.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

Unfortunately, a lot of things sometimes take their inspiration in moments of tragedy, and that thing. My son Hayden Thorsen he’s the HT40 and the HT40 Foundation. His number was 40. He was a hockey player. He died by suicide in May of 2022. When he passed, of course, the world turned upside down, and you don’t know which way to go.

As we were navigating that, there were a lot of conversations that were happening at the time, whether it was parents related to us or kids asked us directly, they said, “Who’s going to do it?” Hades did for us now that he’s gone. It just took not very long to realize that what he did was put his hand on people’s shoulders. That’s what he did. He was a hands-on shoulder guy. I happened to be walking down the stairs in my hallway, just like everybody else.

You got all the pictures from babies all the way up to the current moment in time. As I scanned them one day, I looked across them. Since Hayden was three years old, there wasn’t a photograph where he didn’t have people around him within his arms. That’s literally what he did. He put his hands on people’s shoulders.

That became the point of inspiration for what we’re doing here, which is nothing more than I like to think Hades would have been doing himself if he were with us, which is just look after people, put hands on shoulders. What was so striking about that for so many people was like, “There’s a big guy.” He was an athlete, he was all that stuff. He was sixteen-year-old, 6 foot 3, 200-pound guy. He had a presence that most people didn’t have.

You would notice him, but you remembered him because even though he was the big guy in the room, he was the one who was just aware of where other people were. That made an impression on a lot of people, and obviously on me and in my life. He is then, in turn, the inspiration for what we’re doing here. He was the check-in guy, and we’re trying to help spread that and teach other people how to check in.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

First of all, so sorry for your loss. Really, a tragedy. He sounded like an absolutely amazing human being who, in so many ways, as I talked to parents, Rob, reminds me of that adage of like kids teach parents so much. He sounds like he was an inspiration. I heard you say on an interview once that you guys are working at bringing vulnerability and connection closer together, which I think is awesome. I think it’s such a great way of saying.

Selling Kindness: How Shoulder Check Is Shifting Mental Health Awareness

Thank you. I appreciate that. That’s what we started by saying, like there are a lot of great organizations in the world working to help bring mental health and wellness to the fore, and helping in moments of crisis. By career, I’m not a practitioner. I obviously couldn’t identify a moment of crisis when it was right beside me. I’m an advertising guy. My background is in marketing and advertising. I used to run an ad agency.

That’s the path that led to how we got to this idea, and why it’s built the way it is, and what we’re trying to do with it. Another thing that happened around the same time, we were going through the first few months of this, I happened to be working with an organization in my professional life, a national organization that is about health and wellness, empowerment, so on and so forth. I was having a conversation, just looking for what should I do.

The person I was talking to said to me, it sounds harsh, but it took me a second to turn a harsh statement into a positive thing. She’s like, “You need to leave this to the professionals.” I was like, “What does that mean?” I reflected on it, and it was like, “You’re right. I am not a mental health practitioner. That’s not my profession. I’m a marketer, I’m an advertiser, a brand builder.” We just pivoted, and we thought like, “What if we could build a program or a brand that was based on selling kindness and empathy,” for lack of saying it.

There are a lot of organizations out there, and you know the language, it’s starting to come into play, breaking down stigmas and all that good stuff. Saying things like “You are not alone,” or “It’s okay to not be okay.” The thing we realized is that a lot of that messaging is still putting the burden on the person who is struggling to raise their hand and break through that and say, “I need help over here.” That’s that vulnerability thing.

Our thought was that if we could enlist everybody into the conversation, get more people checking in, it’ll make it that much easier for the person who is struggling to hopefully say or to answer that question honestly. How many times in my life, if you’re just saying about “How you’re doing today” like 99 out of 100 times again, “I’m good, man.” There have been a lot of times where I’ve not been good over the last few years, and very seldomly would I ever actually share that. Even that was a personal experience with it, just creating space.

Now I find in doing this like that’s what the Shoulder Check is there to do is get everybody involved to help give permission to be vulnerable. Every time I go somewhere and have a conversation, now I’m amazed by the conversations I find myself, whether it be like between you and I, between me and adults, peers that I’ve known my whole life, or even more powerfully with the young men and women that we’re building this program for. It’s been pretty incredible.

It’s amazing, Rob, and you’re touching lives. I think you’re being vulnerable. I’ve always said, know, “Vulnerability breeds vulnerability.” When you put that out there. I have to clarify, too. I am a practitioner, and I’m the first one to say. The amount of people out there that are suffering is up here. The amount of us was down here. Not enough of us. Guess what? Maybe people disagree with me on this. I don’t really care, but we’ve got to band together.

 

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check Foundation

 

There are things you can offer. I cannot. There are things I can offer. You cannot. I think together, we’re stronger. What you’ve tapped into here, and I’m so glad you have, is that notion that’s being overlooked. Especially men, how many men, when they’re approached, how are you doing, just give that canned response. When the harsh reality is that if you look at the statistics, most people are dealing with stuff.

That tracks back to that it was in 2021 or spring of 2022, then the surgeon general published that study said, “We’re dealing with this crisis of loneliness and isolation.” That’s where we anchored our idea. I think about it in terms of being like pre-intervention or upstream from intervention, trying to catch a few more folks before they slip through the next level. I know it’s been more in your professional parlance than in mine, but like this notion of like paths of despair.

That’s their first step. There’s the sympathy of starting to feel alone or depressed or suffering from anxiety that then manifests itself in different paths. Anything you force in is going to come out one way or another, whether you want it to or not. That could be behavioral. It could be an addiction. It could be all those types of things. God forbid, suicidal ideation, thoughts, so on and so forth. Our thought was if we could just maybe try and lend a hand, for lack of a better way of saying it.

Anything you force in is going to come out one way or another, whether you want it to or not. Share on X

A little bit further upstream and hopefully just maybe clock a few spots where people could use a hand. Of course, the job to do there is to bring in a professional or to get a parent, a teacher, or to get somebody on the phone, all those kinds of things, because we’re not qualified to solve the problems. If we could identify a few of them before they get worse, I think that would be a positive contribution.

Reaching Out Before It’s Too Late: Making Contact & Building Connections

Life-saving, huge. I think you said it well, Rob. For so many of those kids, they’re alone and they’re alone with some monstrous ideas that are way above their pay grade. My feeling is that you said it best when we first started talking, any individual is able to lend a hand. I’ll tell you, when you reach out and you have somebody look back at you and go, “Nobody’s ever asked me that, or I really appreciate talking.” Anything like that. It feels good to help. Many individuals out there all they need is an ear. Someone to listen to them.

Just get that conversation started. Our mission, we would give ourselves as the HT40 Foundation, that of course gave rise to the Shoulder Check, is to create as many ways as we can come up with and put them out into the world to help people make contact. We say, “Reach out, check in, make contact” is our tagline. Making contact is like the most important language we have in what we’re up to.

If we give that as our mission or our brief to ourselves and a very fortunate in all the people that have come out and helped build the Shoulder Check so far, whether it’s my son’s world of hockey, which we’ve got support all the way up to the NHL there to my and my wife’s professional network where we have our previous organizations, ad agencies who’ve been giving themselves to this pro bono for years now. Everybody is just pitching in to create ways to help people make contact.

It’s awesome. Can I ask, because I’m interpreting that phrase, make contact, and I’m thinking in my head, in some ways, both for adults and for kids. I know you mean literally touching base, but I guess I’m wondering, tell us a little bit more about where that space is, make contact. Tell me what you mean.

When this idea first started, I literally had made some notes in a notebook and a little tiny bad sketch because I couldn’t draw anything.

Me too.

There are just two people sitting side by side. One person had a hand on the other person’s shoulder. On one side, it said, “I need a hand.” The other side said, “I have a hand to give.” That idea, that we are both always in both of those roles. We are capable of extending a hand, but also always in need to whatever extent. This idea of a hand on a shoulder, I think, is really powerful and universal. Insofar as a hand on a shoulder can be everything from like, congratulatory, and celebratory, without having to say a word, to encouraging and motivating.

We are capable of extending a hand, but also always in need to whatever extent. Share on X

Pat it back like, “You got this” without having to say a word, to also in a moment of consolation, without having to say a word, meaning I’m here for you. Much can be conveyed in such a simple way without ever having to search for the words, but saying everything that needs to be said in that simple moment. I mean that literally, but also figuratively, of course. Social media, it’s of course a hot topic, and there are so many things that are wrong with it.

There are so many negative, detrimental impacts and effects, but at the same time, surely there’s a way to build a positive community in that space. We can use it to do that. Maybe they’ve built platforms with bad algorithms that take you down rabbit holes that you shouldn’t be going down. Let’s not do that. Let’s find a way to make it turn in a positive way and build a community that way.

Last year, we launched an emoji that we created, which was the make contact emoji, which was just a hand with a little blue heart that would let you start conversations that you could read and see it. It means like, “You’re thinking about me in a more meaningful way,” than a thumbs up or, let’s give that meaning and let’s use that as a way to start conversations.

We’re working on new things now with our creative partners, where we hope to launch new things again this year. We have our flagship, which is coming up. Our flagship event is called the Shoulder Check Showcase. It’s in Stanford, Connecticut. We have about 2,000 people come out, and we have 30 NHLers and PWHLers who come out. We play this charity hockey game, but this whole thing came together originally.

This will be our third year now. The first year, we invited 2500 people in, and it was an experiment. Before the main game started, our host, or MC, was Dave Maloney’s former Raider Great came out and we created this moment where we asked all 2500 people to put their hand on the shoulder of the person next to them and do like a call and repeat. I promise to reach out.

I saw the video. This was great, powerful.

It was. It was a bit of an experiment, but it was a learning for me. We all experienced it in real time together because no one knew that that was going to happen. It changed the mood in the building. Incredible. Even people walking out, they were like, “What?” It was palpable. I think it just proved to just the power of genuinely connecting with someone. Mostly strangers talking to strangers. I cannot tap your shoulders. It was a cool moment.

That’s what we try and replicate in everything we do. As I said, both figuratively and literally. As the check spreads and we’ve touched, I don’t know. I was just making a list because you’re always updating your stuff and you’re emails and website and whatnot. I’ve got a hundred entries now of different programs and organizations. Every one of those programs is touching between a hundred or a thousand people. A lot of people are putting a lot of hands on shoulders.

A lot of shoulders, Rob. That’s great. That’s amazing. Let me just, let me just ask before I skip over it, how can people get involved? You mentioned you’re big.

Our website is just ShoulderCheck.org. We’ve got a section in there. It says, “I want to bring the Shoulder Check to my community, to my team, to my organization, to my school.” Everything that we’ve done is archived there. You can see what everyone’s done in the past. That website is just meant to be a place for inspiration. You can see how other people are using it. There are some downloadables and instructions.

You could bring it to, like I said, whether it’s a team, whether it’s a town, whatever. I say this a lot, like the Shoulder Check, it’s an interesting place to operate. My one point of reference for what I hope the Shoulder Check can be, aim high. It’s my number one. Everybody knows the month of October, the world turns pink and Susan G. Komen raises hundreds of millions of dollars annually for cancer research and health issues.

The other guys from November who took the lead there and said, “Let’s do that for men’s health initiatives in November with the mustache and the color purple,” or whatever that is. Our thought was like, “What if we could turn the world’s blue aqua color of ours in September and let that stand not necessarily for raising money for kindness, but raising awareness for one another.” The Shoulder Check should be the thing where it’s an ingredient, and you can use it however you see fit. Like, “I could bring that to my band. I could bring that to my part-time job.

I could bring that home and talk about it at dinner.” It can go anywhere anyone wants to take it. I talk about it a lot. A story has a beginning, middle, and an end, and an idea has a beginning in that it evolves. This is an idea. It’s not a story. It’s to evolve based on whoever gets involved in it. It’ll go where people are compelled to take it. It’s our job to help support that, not tell people what to do, but rather, hopefully inspire them to see ways they can use this in their own way.

Beyond Words: Emojis, Vulnerability, And Teens Talking It Out

What a great concept. What an amazing concept. I want to go back to one thing you mentioned, Rob, that I think I want to highlight just for a moment for my readers. You talked about creating an emoji. I had the thought when you said that, I’m like, “Many teenagers are worried about their friends.” Yet they’ll come into my office and they’ll tell me about it. I’ll say to them, “Have you told anybody?” “No, you’re the first one I’ve told.” There’s that awkwardness.

There’s that notion of like, “We’re two teens and I’m worried about Rob. Do I say anything to Rob? I don’t want to upset Rob. I just don’t say anything.” Yet an emoji is such a great way to communicate care and concern. I just want to highlight that for my readers that teens clearly communicate differently than we do. You guys have figured this out. In many ways, it doesn’t matter how you communicate. As long as you’re communicating, as long as you’re letting that person know, “I’m here and I’m concerned about you.”

I came to this line of thinking for myself and for what we’re doing here. There’s that duality that exists. You can think your way into a new way of acting, or you can act your way into a new way of thinking. Sometimes I just find myself here doing this, or people asking questions, or like, “Could you come speak to XYZ?” It’s not my goal to be any speaker or to be in front of this, but I do understand that there are times when I have to maybe help people take the first step. That’s cool.

You can think your way into a new way of acting, or you can act your way into a new way of thinking. Share on X

I’m there for that. I had the chance to go speak to a high school about two weeks ago or so. There are about 1200 kids there, which is great. I’m thinking to myself, “What an opportunity to inspire people with this idea.” It also had me thinking, of course, like, “This is a slightly different room than we’ve brought this message.” We’ve done it all over the place, with large groups and small groups and that stuff.

This was the first time it was in this type of high school setting. I got to thinking a bit about like, “What’s different here?” I think the point you were just making is like anything else, communicating in this way or being able to broach this topic, it takes practice, and you have to learn how to do it again. I was thinking, “Now this is a, a learning environment. Let’s practice this. Let’s learn how to do this.”

They had this cool thing going on where I just had 1200 kids turn to one another. I was like, “Repeat after me, but don’t say it to me, say to the person next to you. I could use a hand, like say the words out loud, like practice it, build this skill, and the strength. Just like we study for a history test or we go to a sports team practice or band practice or whatever, like we have to learn these skills.” Of course, for a lot of us, the ability to express oneself is innate.

Just go back to the three-year-old on the ground in the supermarket who wanted the Fruity Pebbles and could not have them. Nothing is holding that kid back from it, just all coming out. Obviously, that’s what we lose over time when we become more self-aware. We worry about what other people think. That’s where this notion of being guarded, not allowing the vulnerability, and that stuff. I was just thinking like, “We just got to relearn those skills. We’ve got to practice them.”

We have a lot of stuff in our toolkit now. We have these little cards that we bring with us everywhere. “Did I check in my loved ones?” This was something we did with PWHL sirens, but now we do this virtually everywhere we go. It’s just another way for people to practice, like saying these things and using these words or getting comfortable stepping into those moments, like you’re saying, like, “Are you okay?”

Like, “I have a hand to give.” Give people different ways, tools, and access points to relearn the skill. That was a bit of a breakthrough moment for us because this idea of like having to relearn something that we intuitively understand, but lose time. Even now, for us, more self-actualized adults, like you, come through that, and you become a little bit more comfortable with who you are and expressing yourself. Even there, it doesn’t always come back easily for everybody.

As you said, it is a skill. It’s something you build up. As a therapist, I’m practicing every day talking to people. I have to periodically remind myself, “Everybody is in a different space when it comes to this type of stuff.” Probably one of the best compliments I’ve heard and it meant a lot was when I first started this show, I got an email from a mom and she was thanking me that we had done a show and she expressed in the email that she was able to talk about the topic of mental health with her fifteen year old because they listened to it in the car on the way to practice one day.

I thought, “How cool is that?” We’re normalizing the conversation. We’re helping people understand the importance of instead of avoiding the subject, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it in a comfortable way. Maybe talking about it means reading this blog. Maybe it means practicing some skills so that they can give a presentation that you did. To me, it can be nothing because life keeps moving, and kids are dealing with a lot of stuff nowadays. They’re just dealing with a lot.

That’s what I think, too. I see it each time we have the opportunity to go and talk to people or share the message. It’s the kids that are carrying our idea forward. Of course, there are a lot of great supportive adults and coaches, and administrators along the way, but equally like I’ve had people in those roles say, “No, we’re not going to do this.” It’s been a kid, not to me. It’s been a kid who’s brought it forward to a coach or an organization, and they’ll know, “No, we’re not going to do that. No, we’ll have to take that to our board next year.” I think to myself, “Wow.” I’m sure that’s not just as it relates to Shoulder Check, but kids who are like stepping forward and saying like, “Here’s this positive contribution I want to make, and there are people stopping them from doing it.”

Imagine that.

I cannot get my head around it. That’s why every time, 99 out of 100 times, I default to wanting to speak to the young men and women who I know will spark to this idea and carry it forward. That’s how what we’re doing will grow, but it’s not meant to be our idea. As a matter of fact, not only was this idea, as I mentioned, inspired by my son, but in the aftermath, we had 40, 50 kids at a time over our house, and we worked on this idea together. I went to I’m in Darien, Connecticut. We have a place called the Depot, which is a place for like community. We’ve been there together and working on ideas and incredible moments that we’ve had, where we’ve just built this idea together pretty powerfully.

Reflections Vs. Regrets: Learning From Loss & Lifting Each Other Up

That’s awesome, Rob. That’s amazing. Rob, can I ask a tough question around this topic? I’m imagining my listeners might be thinking to themselves, unfortunately, you guys have been through a tragedy, and through that has come this amazing, as you said, idea. That has just touched so many. Parents might be wondering when these things do happen or when a child is starting to slide. Whether it be, let’s say, a type of depression or a mild type of anxiety, what are some things that they can look for? What are some things that they can be aware of in their world? Probably most importantly, are there some things they can do?

As you say, that is a tough question. Of course, I can only answer that. I say this all the time from my own personal experience. I don’t know better than anyone else. What is the right answer to that question? Look, if 50,000 people, young men, women, walk a path that leads to that final decision, they’ve walked 50,000 different paths. In my instance, if you made a list of 50,000 people, I think Hayden probably would have been 50,001 on that list, which is its own specific instance.

I suppose it’s also, there are commonalities or archetypes of these types of things. Certainly, vastly better than I. There is that person who struggles in silence and from outward appearances appears to have it all in control, but ultimately is dealing with something that they cannot find the space to articulate, or it’s weighing them down in some way. That was our path with it, just as blindsided as any human beings could possibly be. I’m still left searching for those very answers.

What would we have looked for or done differently? Was there something that we didn’t see? Was something that seemed totally normal at the time, not normal? Again, for us personally, there is no resolution to that question. That might not be the answer that anyone would want to hear, but it is the truth of our experience. I guess, to reflect on that, I think it just means that the thing I would say is that there, you could just never assume.

When things first happen, people send you things, and you get cards, or people find things on social media, which is even them finding ways to reach out. They’re looking for ways to make contact and support, but don’t have the words themselves. Someone at some point sent me this, like a little, maybe it’s an Instagram tile or whatever, said, “Check on all your friends, even your happy friends.” At the moment, it made me really angry.

I was like, “We cannot even trust that people are happy.” I’ve reflected on that enormously. We just cannot assume. I know certainly as will happen. I’m now part of this. I live in a world with this. This is incredible. A lot of people seek support groups, and they go to things like that. I have five personal friends in my life that I’ve known that are having the same experience they were having lost a child, that I’ve just known in my life. We were not brought together by this happening. We were already in each other’s lives. We have this support group amongst ourselves, and each of them has walked their own unique path with it.

Some folks had children who were more overtly struggling. They were on a path towards treatment, and some folks had children who were maybe on paths to addiction and those kinds of things. Every individual that have their own experience with it and my personal experience falls into the, you can never assume camp. Here’s the thing, I know as much about what to look out for as anybody else would have read an article that told them to look out for those kinds of things, or would be counseled by a professional as a parent. My learning and my experience are just, you can. There are some things that you will simply never be allowed to know.

I appreciate you sharing that. I think it really speaks to, I remember watching a documentary years ago called The Mask You Wear or something like that, Mask You Live In or something like that. It was really about males. It was really about how often we probably, as you were mentioning, like toddlerhood, we grow into this sense of not telling people how we’re doing. It’s one of the reasons why I, as a therapist, and even personally, push people to share more, not less.

If it makes a person uncomfortable to say, “How are you? Are you okay? Everything all right?” If it makes them uncomfortable, I’d rather they be uncomfortable than not cared for. That’s my attitude toward it because I feel like we’ve strayed so much the other way that we’re just going to pretend and ignore, and not pay attention to. Sometimes things happen, and you have regrets about not just having the confidence to just say, “Is everything all right?”

That’s a piece of my presentation, or talk track, or whatever you want to say, because when I try and share, like, “Here’s how you would do the Shoulder Check and draw this distinction between a reflection and a regret.” There are times where we’re just not going to get it right. Knowing that we tried means we get to reflect on that and we get to learn from it. Whereas the other side of that coin is maybe not having tried or not having done the right thing.

That’s the path to regret. Regret is heavy, man. Regret is something that’s hard to put down, because I think that’s part of what Shoulder Check is about. Again, I’m probably borrowing. In the marketing and advertising sense, we would talk about behavior change. It’s usually meant to buy a different product as opposed to we’re real behavior change, but ultimately, even if you want to just say Shoulder Check is you, if you need to put it in a box, you could call it like an awareness campaign. It’s ultimately meant to just the smallest bit, change behavior or perception or an idea to get to exactly what you’re saying to make it okay to answer that question or to ask that question.

I had the experience personally when we were going through the worst of it. A friend of mine had reached out via text, and he’s like, “I’m just checking in. Hope you’re doing okay.” You receive lots of those every single day. At this one moment, I needed to put something down, and I gave him back a text. I saw the three dots come up. Three dots come up, go away. Never got a reply. There’s no way this gentleman expected the level I put back on him. I like respect.

He gave me permission to just air some stuff. It was great. It was more than he knew was coming at him. I’m sure what am I supposed to do with that? He didn’t have to do anything. Even there. In the moment of an incredibly acute moment where we were having trouble having that dialogue, but I’m sure it’d be your experience as well. I’m on the other side of that divide, so to speak, now. I live in a different place with respect to my emotionality, my willingness, or my ability to express it.

If only because had I not found a way to do it for myself, like I was saying before, I’m sure you know, like anything you push down is coming back out somehow. This is not the thing that you can suppress what was our instinct in the immediate aftermath. Embrace is not a great word because it sounds positive, but you know what I mean? You just have to do what this is and accept what this is. It’s not easy to do, but I think that’s part of what the Shoulder Check is to us.

Of course, a bit of therapy for us. It’s figuring out your hand to see positive outcomes, or to just like you’re saying, occasionally receive some anecdotal feedback that says, “This gave me permission to speak to my child, or this gave me permission to reach out to a teammate.” That’s the hand back on our shoulder, knowing that that’s some contribution.

The Ripple Effect: How Kindness Touches More Lives Than We Know

It’s amazing, Rob. I have to say, through our discussion and just hearing about Shoulder Check, I, too, hope that perhaps it is September one day. Look, as you said, maybe it isn’t about funding, maybe it’s about awareness, because here’s something that I put out a lot, and I want parents to hear this. Sometimes I’ll hear from parents, whether it be a post that someone responds to, or someone will say in my office, “Why all the attention? Why all the attention to mental health? Why are we even talking about it?”

I thought about that a lot one day, and the difference between our generation and theirs. One of the ways I draw that line is I say, “If you have friends that are 40s, 50s, and 60s, you ask them. If you’re at a gathering one day, ask them. When you were in high school, did you ever know anybody or hear about anybody that took their own life?” More often than not, they’re going to say no. You ask a kid that nowadays, not only will they say yes, but they have a list. That’s how much it’s changed.

I guess both, as it relates to obviously an upswing in total numbers, but then even more so, the ability to talk about it now. My parallel on that one is I think back to the same deal, same generation, when we were younger, and I had a cousin who had cancer. That wasn’t something you talked about as much. Certainly had an amazing family around him.

I’m not suggesting that he suffered in silence by any stretch, but we were not standing up to cancer. We were not championing people who have fought, won, or lost that battle. Now we do. We honor them for what they’re going through, for the heroism that is facing down something like that. That’s where we’re at with that conversation. That’s exactly the parallel for where we’re at with this conversation.

It’s been there all along, but now we’re recognizing it, and we are honoring the people that are struggling, and we need to champion them as well. We need to make them feel comfortable, supported, and all those things. I’m sure ten years hence, our show, The Check, started in the world of hockey. It’s all my son’s network. He was a good hockey player. Hockey as a community is a great community that comes out and supports one another. The NHL has a program called Hockey Talks. It started with one franchise out on the West Coast, and now, like twenty of the NHL franchises participate in it.

It’s about exactly that, breaking the silence around the stigma. We’ve participated in them with a lot of the NHL franchises, the Capitals, the Rangers, the Bruins, so on and so forth. We’re just working up bit by bit. People saying like, “Hold on a second, there is strength in being able to talk about this.” That’s the right way to say it. The strength to talk about it is far greater than the strength to talk about it without saying something. We start to honor that champion that bit by bit. The conversation will just be brought more and more to the fore in a positive way.

The strength to talk about it is far greater than the strength to talk about it without saying something. Share on X

No doubt. Whether this or not, I’m going to say it, Rob. The ripple effect Shoulder Check creates, you probably don’t even know how many people you guys are touching and supporting, and helping. I commend you for all you do, all the energy you put forth. I also commend you for taking this tragic situation and flipping it, and putting a scenario out there to help many others, not only today, but also in the future. Thank you for all that you do. Please, those of you that are reading, please look up Shoulder Check, get involved.

Rob’s a wonderful human being, and there are a lot of other people involved, I know. Please do your part and do what you can to support a wonderful organization. Rob, thank you so much for your time, your energy. One last question. I’ll put you on the spot. Normalize it forward. We’re set up so that we want to continue the conversation, and part of continuing to do that is as I ask people to nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative. That’s how we got connected, actually. Would love to put you on the spot and ask anybody in your world or your network, you think would be helpful for me to interview going forward.

Storytelling For Change: Filmmaker Jake Miskin & Shattered Ice

I’m going to point you towards a gentleman by the name of Jake Miskin, who is a filmmaker. They just recently premiered their film called Shattered Ice. The film is about set in a fictitious town, but it’s based on the town that he grew up in, Needham, MA, that about 10 or 15 years ago went through having lost five of their community members.

He made this film to both tell the story of what happened, but also to deliver on the exact same mission that we’re on, which is to show people how to use the arts, to use film as a means to help people talk about these kinds of things. That film just got reviewed a little bit ago, and it’s off to a really good start. He’s a thoughtful guy who he Shoulder Check is doing stuff partnering with. He would have a cool, different perspective on using, we’re anchored in sports, he’s anchored in sports and arts and film, all trying to just bring the message out.

Love it. I’ll get his info from you offline, but I cannot wait to connect with him. Sounds like he’ll offer a great perspective for my readers. The more we get to talk about this, the better. Keep doing what you’re doing. I appreciate and support you.

I got to say thank you to you for what you’re doing here, and giving us the space and the platform to be able to share our message with you and with your audiences is an incredible opportunity for us. I’m grateful for it. Thank you, bud.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. We’ll talk soon.

Right on.

See you.

 

Important Links

 

About Rob Thorsen

Normalize It Forward - Marc Lehman | Rob Thorsen | Shoulder Check FoundationRob Thorsen is the founder and executive director of The #HT40 Foundation and the creator of the Shoulder Check initiative. Following the tragic loss of his 16-year-old son, Hayden, to suicide in May 2022, Rob channeled his grief into a mission to combat loneliness and isolation among young people. Hayden, remembered as a compassionate individual who wore jersey number 40 as a goalie at Darien High School, inspired the foundation’s name and its commitment to fostering kindness and connection.

The Shoulder Check initiative encourages simple, meaningful acts of support—such as placing a hand on someone’s shoulder—to let them know they are not alone. This movement aims to inspire a culture of peer-to-peer engagement and social connectedness.

Rob’s professional background in marketing and advertising has been instrumental in promoting the foundation’s message. Under his leadership, the Shoulder Check Showcase, an annual charity hockey game, has grown significantly, attracting NHL players and expanding its reach to raise awareness for mental health.

Through these efforts, Rob Thorsen continues to honor his son’s legacy by advocating for mental health awareness and encouraging communities to support one another through simple, compassionate actions.

 

Reading about mental health is hard. Let’s schedule a free consultation.

Normalize It Forward | Jeff Calhoun | Student Athlete

Pressures Of A Student Athlete With Jeff Calhoun

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Normalize It Forward | Jeff Calhoun | Student Athlete

 

Every student athlete is burdened with the task of balancing work and play. They are expected to perform well in their academics and in the court, and most of the time, this pressure takes a huge toll on their mental health. Marc Lehman explores the right way to provide support to student with former basketball player and current coach Jeff Calhoun. Together, they emphasize the importance of normalizing conversation about mental health among young adults and how they should connect with their elders and fellow students about it. Jeff also explains why taking moments of tranquility is extremely needed in this constantly interconnected world that does not seem to know how to take a break.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Pressures Of A Student Athlete With Jeff Calhoun

In this episode, we are welcoming Jeff Calhoun. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Jeff, in your college years in the early ‘90s, I know you had played for UConn for your father for several years and sustained a number of injuries over time. I certainly want to chat with you about that in a bit. Jeff spent the last several years as Senior Vice President at Wheels Up, a private aviation company. In 2023, he co-founded a company. Jeff, what’s the name of the company?

REAL SLX.

It’s a sports, lifestyle, and experience club based in New York City. Jeff also does some work for ESPN as a spotter in the booth during college football games and is the assistant coach of the men’s basketball team at the University of Saint Joe’s. Personally, Jeff is married with three daughters. Jeff, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. How are you?

I’m great. It’s good to see you again. We go back a long way.

Athletic Background

It’s lovely to reconnect and hear about all of the things that you’re doing. Jeff, I started this show to give young people the message of how important it is to talk about mental health and wellness and work at not avoiding the conversation. As you know, there’s so much going on with young people. Let’s go back for a minute to your younger and my younger days at UConn as an athlete coming up through the high school and the college system and your dad as a coach for many years. I want to ask, point of view-wise, what was that like many years ago being an athlete, both in high school and college? Are you able to capture that for us?

I was always very driven to advance my basketball career. I grew up in a basketball home and always had a dream of playing for my father. There’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves to exceed. It’s one of those things. We all tend to focus on the losses, not the wins, which can be challenging, especially at that age. It hits kids at different places.

 

Normalize It Forward | Jeff Calhoun | Student Athlete

 

There was a pressure I put on myself for a long time where I knew I was one of the better players certainly in high school and things like that. As you get to a place like UConn, you’re not just playing, say, college sports but you’re playing the highest level of college sports. The struggles change, the pressure intensifies, and the expectations are difficult sometimes to meet. Balancing those can be a challenge.

Jeff, with the original son-coach combo, over the last few years, we were witnessing amazing things at UConn with Andrew and his dad. I can’t help but think as a fan, I’m excited for the year but I’m thinking about that word pressure. There’s an expectation here of wins and the National Championship. That couldn’t be a higher expectation for those players.

Pressure And Anxiety

It’s an immense pressure and expectation. I got to imagine for a young person, that pressure is above your pay grade at that age. It’s hard to understand. With NILs and everything, there’s a lot of finances involved as well. That’s an interesting segue. We talk about mental health and certainly on college campuses, anxiety and depression are at an all-time high. You’ve got three kiddos and have been through the college years with them as have I. It is a little scary as a parent to hear how intense it is.

Bridging those two points, for me, was always difficult. There was an added pressure certainly growing up in stores as my dad’s son. I was a recruited high school athlete. I had other options to go places similar to UConn. I knew going to UConn that it was going to be difficult. It’s funny. The things I thought would be a problem, maybe relationships with teammates and things like that didn’t end up being the problem. Things I didn’t see coming became a little bit more challenging for me.

As you look at what kids go through, I look back and feel very fortunate in some ways to not have had to deal with social media, some of the expectations, the internet, and all of these things where these kids can’t turn it off and they don’t have solace that I could find, whether it was going home, going to a friend’s house, or whatever it was. It could find a little bit of an oasis of calm and get away from it as best you can. Whether you’re an athlete or non-athlete student, there’s no escaping it. It never stops. It never gives you the ability to turn it off. I certainly have seen it with my kids how difficult it is.

You bring out a great point, which is peace in your day. We can certainly talk about how that happens. For lots of people, whether they’re young adults or older adults, we all need peace in our lives. Our phones are on all the time. We do have the option of turning them off. We just overlooked that option a lot. I try to point out to my patients, at least, the advantages of things that you can get on phones like meditative apps, for example. I can’t tell you how many college students I’ve worked with over the years who use Headspace, Calm, or other meditative apps. It’s great for kids to pop their earbuds in, listen to, and feel that peace. You’re right. It is hard, especially as an athlete. Athletes are constantly moving and always going.

It’s the pressure of a bad game or, “This isn’t going as well.” That’s typical. That happens to everybody, even the best players. Ray Allen and Donyell Marshall, who I played with, had their struggles. That’s not different for them than it was for me. There’s an audience out there who has a voice as to what’s going on with you and how you’re doing. It’s not always a kind or supportive voice. There are those people out there. I don’t want to overlook that but it’s easy to find the negativity.

It’s also easy for these kids to feel the pressure of it all, whether it’s the people they grew up with, their family, or the fans of the team. There are bumps in the road and you’re figuring it out. We live in a society where the results are expected and the criticism comes quickly. It’s challenging for these kids. As you added, also the money coming in on NIL. It’s dialed up where people feel more entitled. I’m sure kids feel much more pressure because they’re getting paid.

We currently live in an analysis society where results are expected and criticism comes quickly. Share on X

I have to imagine the non-athlete or the typical kid who goes to school. I’ve been consulting at a private school in the area and I’m watching as my high school students are filling apps out. They’re transitioning to go off to college. With the non-athlete typical college kid, there’s still a ton of pressure and competitiveness around what school they’re going to. The concept of, “Are you going to be happy there,” seems to get lost. I asked that question. It’s almost like that’s not asked of the students themselves. Is that something you noticed with your kids?

A hundred percent. None of my kids are athletes in college. I feel like that completely. It’s much more of a style-over-substance conversation because they’re seeing other kids go to this or that school. With your age and my age, we were in this bubble where you knew the kids in your town and maybe some people from other places but there wasn’t this pressure of the entire country of kids trying to get in and say, “Look where I got in,” and this battle to get into these competitive schools, which has only gotten worse.

I can’t imagine with all the information that’s out there. To your point about the apps that are on the phone, there’s so much good information that’s come out of this where kids are so much more informed than we were but there is another side to that coin, which is all that pressure and expectation. Sometimes kids feel that rather than saying, “It’s going to work out regardless of where it is because I’m going to make it work out. This ends up being the place that I was meant to be at. Maybe this is the better fit for me,” rather than, “This is the place that looks best on my Instagram posts that I’m going to.”

Self-Care

I’m curious about your thoughts on this. As I alluded to, anxiety and depressive rates across the country are at an all-time high. For parents like us, it’s terrifying to know that suicide is the second leading cause of death in this age bracket. I used to tell parents, “That’s reported. It’s probably the number one because a lot of times it goes unreported.” It’s always terrifying to me when I hear stories like that but unfortunately, every few months, I hear about another one.

It leads me to think, what can parents and kids do? Beyond seeing a therapist, what are those things kids can do tangibly on campus that might be helpful? One of those big topic areas is self-care. Self-care is a phrase that’s been thrown around a lot in the last many years. I’m curious. When you think of self-care, Jeff, whether it’s your girls, yourself, or other people that you know, what does self-care mean to you?

Primarily for me, what first jumped into my mind when you asked the question is certainly when I was their age, I don’t think it was as accepted or normalized to talk about the way how you were doing that way. Not very loving parents couldn’t ask for better parents but I grew up in a home where this was probably me putting it on myself but being tough. Was this ideal that I tried to live up to? I tried to be as tough as possible. To me, I thought tough was like, “Look what I can take.” I’ve since learned that that’s not a way to describe toughness.

Toughness comes in a lot of forms, in much better and healthier forms than the way I had defined it. It’s being able to primarily recognize the way you’re feeling and finding a community, a therapist, friends, family, or a community where you feel comfortable talking about the way you’re feeling and being able to say, “I’m not doing great. I’m going through this or reaching out.” That’s a big piece of it. Getting back to what we had talked about previously, because the world doesn’t stop and it’s not, you don’t have the ability to turn it off. It’s finding that time to turn it off, settle, be at peace, and find some tranquility in this. No matter where you are, it’s always on and buzzing.

Find the time to turn off everything around you and be at peace. Find some tranquility in today’s chaos no matter where you are. Share on X

You made two good points I want to highlight. One is that conversation. It is the crux of why I created this show of people having conversations about mental health issues, whether it’s talked about in those terms or kids are talking about stress. I find it unbelievable that when I talk to college kids and say, “Have you talked to any of your friends about how your classes are going.” They’re like, “No.” No kids do that in college. Kids don’t talk about class.

There’s this huge chunk of stuff going on in kids’ worlds with academics that no one talks about with each other. Kids can feel a ton of pressure from classes not going well. They’re sitting with that alone. The classic freshman who thinks they studied enough to fail their first exam. They don’t tell anybody but they double down in their mind and they’re like, “I’ll do better on the next one.” That’s a formula for anxiety.

Normalizing the conversation and for kids to understand that there are adults, whether it be you and I, RAs, RDs, coaches, assistant coaches, teachers, or other professionals on campus that would understand, lend an ear, sit down, and have a conversation. It may not be able to help them solve things but they’ll certainly listen and be able to offer that to them.

Your second point, which is spot on, is for kids to find a place and a time in their schedule regularly to create some peace for themselves. As strange as it sounds, if I’m seeing patients all day long, sometimes I’ll go and have lunch at a park nearby to clear my head and get out of the office. Certainly, exercise is a big one for me in terms of clearing my head and getting the clutter out. As you can imagine, I might hear a few things during the week.

I’m sure for yourself as well, everybody’s got these busy schedules. Why should college kids’ lives be any different with creating that peace? I encourage kids regularly to find that, whatever it looks like for them. For some kids, working out is great. Other kids hate it. It’s finding something else that they might enjoy to help bring that stress level down. It’s a great suggestion.

I wish the kids knew. I had a conversation with one of my daughters about something like this, where it’s one of those things. It’s the burden of youth, thinking that if you’re going through it, you’re the only one who’s going through it. I’m trying to have that conversation with my daughter, “I promise you if you’re feeling this way, almost everybody around you is feeling this way too. Sometimes it’s not easy and I get that but sometimes, be pleasantly surprised if you had the vulnerability to tell somebody else that this is how you were feeling.”

A lesson I learned later in life is sharing the way I was feeling about things and finding that these people that I was very close to were going through the same thing on a parallel path. Neither one of us had ever talked to each other about it but finding that other person and finding that me telling my story helped them and me. Also, building a community of people who do listen, are there for you, and can understand what you’re going through.

Statistics support what you’re saying. One of the advantages in some ways to the majority of kids being anxious is you can say to yourself, “I’m not in the minority anymore. There’s a lot of kids out there.” It’s super good advice. It’s important for kids to hear that and realize it. You used the keyword vulnerability. If you can lean into that conversation a bit and say, “Have you been stressed about this class? I’ve been super stressed about it,” the conversation flows. I’m amazed at how many kids get to school, are super homesick, and never tell anybody around them how homesick they are. They’ll go to social media but they won’t tell kids around them. I joke, “Kids, you’d have to come from a pretty awful home to not miss something.”

Here’s a true story. My dorm room looked at my high school. I could see my high school from my dorm room window. My dad’s office was maybe a quarter mile from my dorm room. I saw him every day. My parents live 6 miles away. I was homesick. If I can be homesick, anybody can be homesick.

Memorable Mentors

That’s funny, Jeff. That’s an interesting transition to my next question for you. For so many adults I talked to, in our college and high school years, we had our mentors and people who would make suggestions. Maybe we’re able to, years later, look back and go, “That was helpful. That person had an impact on me.” It could have been someone that you least suspected in high school, a club coach of something, a friend’s parent, or certainly an advisor. Also, many coaches over the years with athletics, teachers, and all sorts of adults. I’m curious. As you look back as an adult, are you able to pull out one of those statements that somebody made to you that had an impact?

A couple of people but one specifically. We had our academic advisor for the basketball team at UConn. He was a professor of Biology at UConn. His name was Ted Taigen. He was a pretty well-known guy on campus. He’s a great person. As I battled through injuries, it put me in a pretty good depression, which I didn’t know I think what it was. I woke up one day and realized that I was not in a great place. I was having a tough time focusing on school.

He came to me and said that he noticed what was happening to me and lent an ear. He told me at the time, “You don’t have to stay in school if you don’t want to go to college and if that isn’t for you.” It wasn’t the path I ended up choosing but in a bigger conversation, those statements gave me the freedom to realize I don’t have to do all of this. If I do this, it’s because I want to do it and it’s right.

It was knowing that I didn’t have to stay on this path, people were there to help me, and people got it when I thought what I was going through was me. I had built a bubble. We talked about, “I’m the only one going through this. Nobody understands what it’s like to be me and what I’m going through.” “No, everybody has their challenges here and everybody’s dealing with something.” It helped me.

That’s an awesome story. Good for Ted for taking the steps to do that. I feel like for adults, that’s also a vulnerable decision like, “Do I say something? Do I not?” Not necessarily realizing how big of an impact that can have on a kid to say, “I see something’s going on. Here are some ideas and suggestions.” I like the way you put that. It sounds like it was a pivotal moment during your college years. Thank you for telling us that story, Jeff. I appreciate it.

Parenting Challenges

The life of a young person is hard. Equally, parenting young people has become challenging. When it comes to adding in things like mental health but even more generally, pressure, one of the hardest parts that I’ve experienced as a parent is seeing my kid feel that pressure and not being able to relieve it for them. How would you describe one of the challenges that you’ve experienced as a parent over the last many years of young adulthood?

It’s very similar to you. It’s seeing the anxiety that my kids have felt. The three girls each had their very unique challenges. I have felt it for very different reasons in very different ways. I realized that there’s a gap, not just in age but in technology and the world. It’s changed so much. What the world changed from my parents to me is not a fraction of what it’s changed from me to my girls.

 

Normalize It Forward | Jeff Calhoun | Student Athlete

 

With all of that, I was feeling, I don’t want to say helpless but how much can I identify with what they’re going through? I do think having gone through it myself, having maybe the difference between our parents and our generation, was a little bit more understanding of these issues. We all came out of growing up maybe a little bit more in tune with mental health, anxiety, and the challenges. I’ve always made a conscious effort to not forget what it’s like to be their age because it’s hard.

For me, it’s always been important to let them know that I certainly don’t see myself as a finished product. They see me as somebody who has it together, has a job, has had some success, and has done things in their life but I wasn’t always that way. I let myself be vulnerable enough to tell them, “I made mistakes that you haven’t made. I made a lot worse mistakes than you made. I was in a very similar situation to you when I was your age.” I was letting them have the understanding that we’re not the adults who have all the answers and we were also like them.

Advice For Student Athletes

We’re human beings. We make mistakes. For you to be able to be that open and honest with your kids, I’m sure opens doors for them to be able to be open and honest back, Jeff. That’s smart. Let me ask you this. I want to put you on the spot for one second. My audience is not only parents but also students. I’m thinking that there will be athletes who might be reading this conversation. I know that in athletics, not only do you have several coaches but you have a whole bunch of support staff. You got your teammates. I’m wondering. Do you have any words of advice for an athlete going through it? Let’s say they’re feeling depressed or anxious. They’re not themselves. Any words of advice?

 

Normalize It Forward | Jeff Calhoun | Student Athlete

 

Reach out. Coaching to your point, there are enough people, hopefully on a staff, on a code or in support. There are resources for you. The vast majority of people are in coaching. I do it for free. I volunteer at Saint Joe’s. I love being around basketball but more importantly, I love being around the guys that I coach. The reward is the relationship.

For me, it’s being trusted by one of the kids who play for us with the way they’re feeling with what they’re going through. Most people are involved in this because they love being around kids and they want to help kids. Know that that’s there for you. To be vulnerable is not easy. I get it but by and large, you’ll always be pleasantly surprised when you do the way people will receive it. For some reason, you’re at a place where you don’t feel supported and you don’t have those people. I’d probably tell you you’re at the wrong place. There are not many of those out there but they do exist. If you find that, then it’s probably not the right place and you should leave.

If you are at a place where you do not feel supported, it is probably not the right place for you. Share on X

Good suggestion. How’s the team looking in 2024?

We’re going to be good. We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had good players and kids. We started with fifteen freshmen. It was a school that didn’t have men. In the first year, they had men. We had a team. Within three years, we had the number one team in the country. We’ve had good success. We’re trying to build on it but it should be an interesting year.

Episode Wrap-up

Good luck to them and you. One of the unique parts of this show is we ask for the conversation to continue. You and I will continue to talk offline about individuals who perhaps might be good guests in the future, Jeff. I want to thank you for your time. I know you’re super busy. I appreciate you making some space and allowing us to reconnect about such an important topic. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Jeff, you have a great day. We’ll talk soon.

You too.

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