Make Vulnerability Your Superpower (with NBA star Kevin Love)

Not many elite athletes talk openly about mental health, but five-time NBA All-Star Kevin Love is changing that. After a very public panic attack on the basketball court he was told to "snap out of it". But Kevin decided to discuss his "dark moments" of anxiety and depression and show that vulnerability is actually a strength. The sports star joins Dr. Laurie to talk about overcoming generational trauma, the pressures of toxic masculinity, and how speaking up can change the game for all of us. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Laurie Santos?

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• 0:46Laurie Santos?

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• 1:31Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 1:38Laurie Santos?

  As a happiness researcher, I'm grateful to live in 2025, a time when there's been an explosion of conversations about the importance of taking care of your well-being. But we're honestly still in the early stages of breaking the silence around the mental health issues that so many of us struggle with. And in some communities, the stigma against dealing with these issues still runs deep. Men, for example, are much less likely than women to seek counseling or treatment for mental health challenges. And among athletes, that stigma can be even higher. I've seen this firsthand with my student athletes at Yale. Many of them hold themselves to incredibly high standards, both in the classroom and on the field. Many of them worry that admitting to mental struggles could seem like a weakness or proof that they're not fit to play.

• 2:23Laurie Santos?

  It often takes someone accomplished, respected, and at the top of their game to model vulnerability and open these conversations up for others. Fortunately, I'm lucky to have one of those figures here today. Five-time NBA All-Star Kevin Love, who I was thrilled to speak with, even though I'm a Boston Celtics fan.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  I love having these conversations because I get to learn. You know, if you're not so against the Miami Heat that we can have that conversation.

• 2:48Laurie Santos?

  Let's continue.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:50Laurie Santos?

  This week marks the beginning of Kevin's 18th season in the NBA. I should note that even though he was playing for the Miami Heat at the time this was recorded, he was recently traded to the Utah Jazz. I spoke with Kevin about his experiences with grief, anxiety, and depression, and how he went from keeping those struggles private to becoming a public leader in the mental health space.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  So we usually start with an introduction. So can I just have you introduce yourself and tell our listeners what you do?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, last night, we had to describe how we looked. You know, people with disabilities and the blind.

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  It's funny, like, I'm Kevin Love. I'm 36, but I have gray hair and blue eyes and...

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Very tall.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Very tall. Yeah, I was like, I'm 6'8". I literally did say that. I'm like, I'm 6'8", but my contract height once said I was 6'10", and maybe I shrunk, but I digress, sorry. No, I'm Kevin Love, ballplayer, professional athlete in the NBA for 17 years. I'll be heading into my 18th year. I'm not the best at intros, but I'm a father of two girls, one that just turned two years old, another that is four months. My wife Kate and a beautiful six-year-old puppy named Vestry, who is, you know, they say you live longer when you have dogs. So very good for my mental health.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Dogs are very good for happiness.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Gets me outside, and that's what unconditional love looks like.

• 4:09Speaker 04

  So I'm curious to hear how you get started in basketball. I understand that in a lot of ways, it started with your dad.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Tell me about that.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so my dad, he played three years. The University of Oregon was drafted ninth in 1971 by the Baltimore Bullets. Played for the Lakers as well, played for the Hawks, played for the Spurs in short stints. And, you know, he was my first hero. He was like a giant to me. He was a protector and he's 6'9", imposing. I mean, would have been great in today's NBA because he could run, he could jump, he could shoot. I have photos that, you know, date back to 1988 when I was born and I'm in my stroller with a basketball. And, you know, from then on, I'm just kind of looking at everything that my dad did, try to emulate him. And I just wanted to just mimic his every move and just wanted basketball to be a part of my life. It was truly my first love.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  I can imagine that makes you love basketball a lot. I can also imagine that that comes with a lot of pressure.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it certainly did, especially in Portland being not a big city. I was a big fish in a small pond very early and that came with a lot of expectation. And with a father who played at the highest level, competed at the highest level, having gone to University of Oregon, just a little bit down the road in Eugene, there was certainly a lot of pressure. I'm still learning to unpack the weight of expectations for, you know, the last at least 20 years. Because when it came to my early teenage years and primarily high school, there was certainly a lot of that. So there was a lot of pressure and a lot of that I'm thankful for. But on the other side of that, there was an ugliness to it.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  And at that age, I didn't have the language to be able to express what I was feeling. And especially as a young man, I just had the playbook to bury it and compartmentalize and try and be, you know, stoic within my masculinity and my feelings. And that drove me to be pretty emotion phobic over the course of time.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  Which must have been especially hard because I know you've talked about kind of the anxiety you experienced early on in life. You had this quote where you noted that your default setting was often one of dread.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  I'm sure a lot of folks listening right now can recognize the signs of anxiety. But how did that manifest for you early on?

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Well, and when I speak about that, it's dread because My whole entire identity was built up to be just a basketball player. And how am I going to work myself out of this depression or this anxiety? I'm like, if I can just get that, that one more accolade, or we can win one more championship, or I can be not just the state player of the year, I gotta be the national player of the year. We have to win the national championship. And in some ways, it's like masochistic, like it hurts so good. Right? Chase those things. And that's okay. Like, that can be an admirable quality in some cases. But your brain is gonna go back, dopamine's gonna go down, you're gonna go back to that baseline. And I think that's when, when you think that these things are going to, for lack of a better term,

• 7:08Speaker 03

  fix you, those anxieties and especially the dark spells and depression, those, you know, emerge from dormancy, they just come in waves. And in some cases, when, still, when I have failures, it can be a house of cards and just burn down very quickly. So that's what happened with me and maybe even more so with high achievers as well.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  And this is the kind of thing I totally see in my students at Yale, right? I work with a lot of amazing student athletes. I don't know if they're gonna play it for the Heat, but you know, we'll see. But yeah, but this idea that their whole identity is caught up in their performance, that they're, you know, an athlete first, a basketball player first, you know, lacrosse player first, and then a human second, right? And then just this like incredible perfectionism where you just have to be perfect all the time. My students are fond of this DJ Khaled song, "All I Do Is Win." But it's like, if all you do is win, then the first time you lose, it's like the whole world has crumbled down, right? And it seemed like you were dealing with that, but also this super, hyper masculine culture, like where you grew up. But I think also, you know, having your dad in the early days of the sport where this stuff really wasn't talked about.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  And it's generational, too. I mean, there's some generational trauma within my family. I mean, Brian Wilson just died as well. And, you know, my dad was a caretaker and a bodyguard for Brian when he had struggled with substance abuse and.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  And just to be clear, Brian, you're actually related.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  You know, Beach Boys were started in a garage in Hawthorne, California. And it was, you know, the Loves side, their cousins were the Wilsons, and it was Brian, and it was Carl, and it was Dennis, and it was, you know, my Uncle Mike. And they created the West Coast sound. And, you know, he dealt with his share of mental health problems as well as, I mean, the Loves, I think, have always. Been prone to melancholy and dark spells dating back almost a hundred years now. I keep looking back and unpeeling layers of all of that where I'm like, yes, this helps tell the story. It is generational. And that was something that my dad and I spoke about towards the end of his life when he was in hospice. We really finally opened up about

• 9:18Speaker 03

  it. His emotional regulation was never quite there because of his father being a physical father. And so when my dad was in hospice, he started seeing some of those things in his dreams. And a lot of those memories had come up in a very ugly way, but it allowed him to be a lot more vulnerable and face it. But it was him coming to peace with how he lived. The true lesson that he taught me through all of this, as well as our relationship, we were estranged for a number of years. And, you know, he taught me two true wisdoms that were reconciliation and forgiveness as well.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  It's so great that you were able to reconcile with your father before he passed and also kind of come to terms with the fact that he struggled with emotion regulation and it wasn't his fault.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Well, I get it now.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  I get it. Like, it all makes sense. He did the best that he could. And he wasn't equipped. And there's such a stigma. There's still stigma, huge stigma around speaking about mental health and what am I going to do after basketball? What if there's nothing for me after my sport? And my dad certainly fought that as well. And I think he felt like he failed often. But I kept telling him, I go, Dad, all you wanted at the end of your life was your kids to be there when you passed and for mom to be here when you passed and to be at home and to die at home. And I go, Dad, you're successful. You are enough. You're here. Your kids are here. We want to be here. And success is having your kids come home. Like, we're here. We got you.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  So awesome.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  So I'm like, you're successful. You can die knowing that. Like, you're good.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's so cool to hear you say that because it feels like that must have been such hard-won knowledge, right? Like, hearing about how things started off, it really was like, don't talk about your mental health, even as your dad was Dealing with Brian Wilson, it sounds like his kind of way to deal with substance use and mental health issues was like, let's get you on the court. Let's exercise more. And this was something that you I know took on early on too, right? We often talk on Happiness Lab podcast about how exercise is really good for mental health, but it seems like your exercise pushed into like, you know, trauma perfectionism rather than just mental health.

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yes, I think that in some ways I was killing two birds with one stone and I do love to work out, but there is still something there that I'm like, am I doing this because I have to be perfect or I'm doing this because I have to stay in my sport and

• 11:41Speaker 04

  And early on, that was in some ways really reinforced because you got very, very good at your sport. When did you first realize that you could be a professional, kind of like your dad?

• 11:51Speaker 03

  My best friend's dad tells it all the time. First day of preschool, driving us home and, you know, he kind of asked, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I'm just going to be in the NBA like my dad. And he tells a story all the time and talks about how he's like, this kid, there's just something about him where I actually believed, I really truly believed him. I'll be honest with you, I always believed it. There was no doubt in my mind. And I think it helped that, you know, the doctor said, I heard them say when I was young and the pediatrician, they said, well, he's gonna be very tall. He's gonna be a tall kid. I knew I had that. I liked the idea of being tall like my dad and being a basketball player was all I ever

• 12:34Speaker 03

  wanted to be. But it was probably around eighth grade and my freshman year of high school when I, you know, played up with my brother. I was playing two grades up with him and then I was playing against college players and then pro players. Once I got into high school and I thought to myself, if I just keep on this same track and keep this singular focus, I can have a lot of success. And if you have to have a little bit of luck, it's timing, it's culture, it's demographic, it's luck, it's all of these things. But I certainly had that.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Definitely involved some luck, but also involved a tremendous amount of hard work and skill. Yeah, you became super successful early on in your career, you know, All-Star, 2010 world champion, 2012 Olympic gold. But in some ways, I feel like that luck was kind of contrasted with a lot of tough stuff that happened early on in your career. I know in 2013, you had a huge hit. Yeah. So tell me what happened.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  I just never went through the grieving process with My grandmother and she was the cornerstone. She was like the pillar of our family. She lived right next door to us our entire life and she um she was just so special. She didn't need much. She just wanted family. She wanted to volunteer at the school. She wanted to help raise my sister who was a preemie baby as, you know, my dad worked a back breaking job at, you know, warehouse. But she was just the absolute rock and the best woman and I don't think I appreciated it or had the presence of mind to lean into that type of a figure in our life and she was right there. So there was so much regret.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  I talk about it all the time, regret. It's more tied up in inaction rather than action. Like, of course, there's things that I did and especially offloaded hurt on people that were the closest to me or just did not deserve it. So I certainly regret that action, but the inaction of not spending more time with my grandmother and you go to her little cottage and you go around there and you just see photos of like everything that her family had ever done because she understood what really mattered. And I don't think I appreciated that enough. I didn't go back when she, you know, was cremated or get to grieve with my family back home in Portland.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  I just kept on being with the team in Minnesota. I was there for six years. I just kept being with them and lost myself in basketball. I was just running from it. I didn't want to go to the extremities of those feelings. So I never got to unpack that and that manifested in my body in different ways. Again, the body, keep score. Everybody loves to say that, but it's so true. In some way, shape or form, that's going to have to come out. And for me, it was in panic attacks. It was rage fits. It was agoraphobia and not wanting to go out for maybe fear of public embarrassment or felt like I was doing something wrong.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  And that must have been a really awful one-two punch because my sense is like you had her loss, but then you also had kind of a loss on the court. I understand that you suffered an injury pretty soon after that, right?

• 15:35Speaker 03

  I did and I uh I broke my hand and I only played 18 games that year. Year and I was, you know, suicidal gestures, suicidal ideation, didn't ever leave my apartment. It was kind of like how I was often growing up. I remember just being in my room and I'd go to school, I'd go to basketball practice and then I'd just kind of be in there. You know, I looked at my dad as well, not wanting to get out of bed and just kind of lay there, throw the TV on, be in a dark room, sleep often, early and often. You know, go eat at the dinner table and my mom's just finishing up. I would sit there with her and I'd be like, you know, where's dad?

• 16:09Laurie Santos?

  And in some ways, this must have been worse because this is now on the professional stage where you're in your room, not coming out, kind of recovering from an injury. I mean, what was it like going through that? Did you talk to anybody about what you're going through?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  No, no. And my agent, and he always talks to me, he's like, I'm gonna talk to you as your friend, I'm gonna talk to you as your agent, but he didn't know how to speak to me. But he would just say, you know, snap out of it. I'm like, oh, I've never thought of that before. Oh yeah, let me just snap out of it.

• 16:36Laurie Santos?

  I mean, it's just remarkable how little people get, how mental health issues really work.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  Yes, but now it's like, you know, my agent Jeff Schwartz, he has three beautiful daughters who are like, I'm Uncle Kevin now and I love them, that he gets it and they're athletes. So again, he's evolved and he understands it far more. But in 2013, I wasn't equipped at all to deal with it and I didn't have the language to express it and I was just in bed a lot, in a dark room, a lot.

• 17:10Laurie Santos?

  Eventually Kevin found a way to heal and to share his story with others. But as is often the case, things had to hit rock bottom before they got better. When we get back from the break, I'll talk with Kevin about his very public panic attack and the viral article that detailed his experience. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

• 17:32Laurie Santos?

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• 20:14Speaker 04

  And so how did you wind up healing?

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Well, it wasn't until I really started doing the work. And, you know, I, it's not to say I didn't have these like great moments and times when I'd come out of it, you know, maybe it was three weeks, maybe it was three months of these really dark spells and my best friends didn't know. But things got so much worse in our 17, 18 season, you know, that very public panic attack and mental health episode that I know we'll speak about happened. It got a lot worse before it got better.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, so what happened to that season to make things get worse?

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Again, it was unpacking the pressures of and expectations of 15 to 20 years and the weight of, you know, an organization and ownership and the front office putting pressure that we have to win and win now. And while we love that because it drove us to do these great things, we went to four straight finals from 15 through 18. We won in 2016, first major sports championship in Cleveland. But, you know, I was at that time, not speaking to my parents, I was estranged from them, you know, within my, my love life and my personal life, things had, you know, gone wrong, as well as always feeling these things and never facing it head on and not going to therapy or having a trusted confidant

• 21:38Speaker 03

  that I could speak to. I don't think I wanted to admit that there was a problem. I felt like I was a failure of even having these feelings. And that idea of masculinity and showing emotion, of course, I'd get angry and get a technical foul and that sort of thing, but in terms of saying like, you know, I'm at home crying or I'm at home and my anxiety is coming up in a way that is severely unhealthy. I just said, like, everybody else has these problems worse than me. And I was comparing grief, but I was also withholding compassion for myself and not having grace within that. And I believe that nobody benefits from that. But it just all bottled up into a moment

• 22:23Speaker 03

  and it was public and I was on the court. It was on TV. I mean, we were a team that had nationally televised games and, you know, I'd had these feelings before these type of things that happened, but I've always just been able to remove myself from a situation or have like rage fits in my space at home, right? Like it manifested in different ways. I had nowhere to go, so I just ran to the locker room or tried to escape like I always did, but this is around my teammates that were back in the locker room. It was around our trainers. I feel like I'm having cardiac arrest. I can't catch my breath. I can't get oxygen in my brain. I don't, I've never had this type of attack happen before. So

• 23:06Speaker 03

  this is life threatening. I end up passed out on the floor of our head trainer, Steve Spiro's office, and he's the one who finds me there. So I end up leaving after that. They put me on the oxygen. I'm able to, you know, sit back up, think of myself, what the hell just happened? I go and they run several tests at the Cleveland Clinic, who's and still is just so amazing. And everything checks out. Like, there's nothing wrong. But I'm asking the question, what just happened then? Is this gonna happen again? Who's gonna know about it? So it's like this negative feedback loop that I don't know if I'm going to survive professionally. And then how is that going to now impact not only my livelihood,

• 23:46Speaker 03

  but this safe space that was once the basketball court? So it got a lot worse before it got better, but I think there is a lot of good that came from that. It made me say, okay, things aren't adding up. I need to change something. So it was my first time I had gone to therapy and I was incredibly lucky to find a great therapist. He just sent in my medication this morning, so respect. But

• 24:14Speaker 03

  I had finally come to terms that, okay, it's time to start doing the work.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  So amazing to hear you talk about this transition to understanding therapy and being more self compassionate. Because the amazing thing about the oxygen mask that you put on is having put yours on first, you're now able to help others put their oxygen mask on. You know, I know you as an amazing NBA player, but I first got really familiar with you when you became like a huge mental health advocate. Tell me about the article that you put out in 2018, because that was when I first started hearing your name and learning about what you're up to.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  Right, so fast forward, I go to therapy. I was an all star that year. It's my fifth all star appearance and I had a great year. Statistically, very efficient, statistically producing at a very high level. And then a couple of things happened. I had another attack, Oklahoma City, that I am recently just starting to speak about because, you know, I've had to unpack my team kind of at the time, turning on me after that game. I had missed practice the next day and everybody was like, no, no, no, we need to address this. And I just wasn't ready to expose like what I was going through at the time.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  We left for, I think, San Antonio. And again, I felt isolated. My anxiety went absolutely through the roof and I still had to go out there and compete. And so I felt like I was on an island. And in that same trip, we were in Detroit. I broke my hand. So again, the game was taken away from me. I had no outlet. I know where to go. It's like, okay, here again, we're paying this guy all this money. We're supposed to go to the finals. We have no idea what's going on with our teammate. We feel like we can't trust him. I think it was that, as well as our media availability. I started getting questions in front of a group about my mental health and.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  That scared me and I didn't want anybody to tell my story but me. I had to have it be in my own words. And I told my agent, I wrote the same, made, you know, some adjustments. Only wanted to take it so far at that point because I was scared. I was really scared. I didn't know what this was going to do. Is this going to end everything? Is this going to end my basketball career? And what is pressing send going to do? But I think, one, I was just exhausted. I was exhausted and I was playing this character and putting on this facade. I was just tired of struggling and being in a terrible place in silence and in the shadows.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  So press send and then my life inherently changed forever.

• 27:00Laurie Santos?

  The article, published in 2018 in the Players Tribune, was titled, "Everyone is Going Through Something." In it, Kevin acknowledged his mental health struggles, described the panic attack as a turning point in his decision to seek help, and encouraged others facing similar challenges to do the same. The reaction to Kevin's piece was overwhelmingly positive.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  I would have never expected it. I thought in the comments, people are going to say like, you're a bitch. And how are these guys going to be able to be with him out there on the court? When he knows he struggles with this and is he just going to leave another game? And I mean, it's primitive. We're so, it's ingrained in us psychologically, like to perceive threat first. And I think as athletes, criticism is a tax on success. If we do decide to go through the comments and we want to respond to people and we go through and it's all these great things and it's like we're relating to people and there's empathy or there's just like, you know, that rah rah, like, yes, I love this. Like, this is great. And then it's like, you know, you suck.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  And we're like, that's the one. But yeah, overwhelmingly positive. I think we had 10,000 plus emails in the first week. We had to create, I mean, my inboxes were full. My texts were full. And then we had to create a separate email because there was just so many people. There were so many people that had reached out and shared their stories, whether it be their firsthand experience with their own mental health or their child's mental health. That was incredibly eye opening. Press send that morning. We had left for a multiple game road trip and I was back playing at that point. We meet at the plane, 3pm departure, and I remember just sitting in my seat, throwing my hoodie on,

• 28:49Speaker 03

  throwing my headphones on. I'm like, what are my teammates gonna think? What are my teammates gonna think? But I remember Kyle Korver coming across the aisle and shaking my hand and just telling me that there's gonna be something here. You're gonna make a huge difference in people's lives. And that was my first time where my shoulders had just dropped. Like, maybe this is gonna be okay. We had gone through the flight. I slept. And I just like turned to the side towards the window and, you know, acted like I wasn't available. I'm always the first off the plane. I like to just go and get settled on the bus. And I'm just sitting there the whole time, like, just get me to my room. The bus stops, everybody gets off, and then it's, you know, LeBron who comes to me, just kind of shakes my hand in like knowing approval

• 29:34Speaker 03

  and kind of wraps me up in a big hug. And that was, you know, you spend almost more time with your teammates in that space than you do your actual family. So they become family. But that just pushed our friendship and our brotherhood into a new space.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  I mean, you're making it such that any basketball player can be more than a basketball player, right? They can be vulnerable, they can struggle, and also they can have an identity beyond it. And I think one of the amazing things is that now, forever you're gonna be known, not just as an amazing basketball player, but also as an advocate for these important issues. I mean, what does that feel like now to be kind of, to have come from being so scared about talking about this, from such a hyper masculine culture to now being, in some ways, the face of talking about mental health and sports?

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Right. There is a weight to it, but at the same time, just speaking about it gives me levity because I get to be an open book. I'm allowed, I'm empowered to be vulnerable.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  You like open the curtain, you're like, curtain's open.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Here you go. This is who I am. And this is what you get. Honestly, if you don't like it, that's your problem. Because my intention is to help the next person. And it's just authentic to. Who I am and it is who I want to be. And I'm not perfect. Like, I think that's the beauty of it, too. It's like with basketball, you can wake up every day and be like, I'm gonna get better. You can never get too big to do the little things. You can never get too big to refine your skills. And that's how I feel about what we're doing here in this space. It's gonna take a long time, but long term, I think legacy naturally as a basketball player, people talk about that word a lot, legacy. But now I've started to think about like legacy virtues versus eulogy virtues. There's been deaths, obviously, Brian Wilson, my father.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  And I think about what are people going to say when I pass? Are they gonna say, he broke the NBA and ABA merger for double doubles when he played in his third season? No, no, they're gonna talk about how he made people feel. They're gonna talk about his relationships. They're gonna talk about how he made an impact on other people's lives. I mean, like, sure, they'll, they'll touch on basketball. But what my hope is, when I get to that point, if I just be my authentic self and be more comfortable in my own skin by exposing these things, that when that time comes, it's gonna be more about eulogy than legacy. But my hope would be if I keep living my life with that type of intention, that the

• 31:56Speaker 03

  universe will unfold as it should.

• 31:59Laurie Santos?

  So what does living with that kind of intention look like for Kevin today? After the break, we'll talk about how Kevin is trying to break the stigma for the next generation of athletes. The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 32:15Laurie Santos?

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• 32:58Laurie Santos?

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• 33:40Laurie Santos?

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• 34:24Laurie Santos?

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• 34:57Laurie Santos?

  When NBA star Kevin Love finally went public about his mental health struggles, the response was overwhelming. It was clear that people were hungry to change the stigma that so many athletes faced. Enter the Kevin Love Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the next generation develop the skills they need to manage mental health challenges.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  And we wanted to support both physical and emotional well-being. And we wanted to just keep having these conversations to eliminate the stigma, provide resources, educate as well. And I think that education space is where I look back and coming into high school, all of those expectations, athletics, college. You have to consider those things much younger now, but I know I didn't have the language. But I thought if we can learn about physical health and sexual health, why aren't we being taught about emotions and mental health? Why aren't we putting this into the classroom? So I thought it would be really meaningful because everybody's going through something

• 36:01Speaker 03

  that you can't see. How can we implement this into the classroom, starting at that age, and create a curriculum that's modeled around vulnerability? Sarah and Ellie, our educators, have done such an incredible job in rounding out this curriculum and continuing to add to it and get it taught in many different countries and many different languages and continuing to grow it. Right now, we're working on getting it into the third-largest school district in the country, and that's Miami.

• 36:28Laurie Santos?

  Part of this new curriculum involves prompts designed to help students open up about the things they're struggling with. But teachers get to answer first, modeling what a response looks like and showing that adults are vulnerable too. I asked Kevin to tell me about an experience from early in the program's development, one that made him realize just how powerful this work could be.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  You know, the teacher models it. They go around the classroom. And the amazing part about that day was the basketball team and some of the football team was in that classroom. And once we got to them, you know, they were kind of hiding and like, "Ah, I don't want to share," but we just kept going around camera. And then we got to them. And I remember the first share he had talked about, you know, I come to school to get food. And my dad's not around. And my mom's having to work with my sisters and I don't get enough time with her and she has two jobs. And I'm just like, this is amazing.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Like everybody's open.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  In that classroom, right?

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  They can see each other, they can help each other.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  And this is an athlete, like at that age, I was like, I wasn't doing that. But I just want to tell everybody out there, like it's a free curriculum. And so this is something that you can integrate into any school. You know, this is a, you know, has potential to really have a huge impact on a kid's life. And it's just early intervention in a time where, you know, in your early teens, you start to really feel what being self-conscious is like. I certainly did.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  It's early intervention, but it might also be generational intervention.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  You know, those kids on the football team who started talking about how the food insecurity makes them feel.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  That's going to mean that it's easier for them to do it.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  When they have a kid who's on the football team years later.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  And it just goes to show you with what I said, or what I wrote in that article, is that everybody's going through something that you can't see, right? So let's be compassionate. Let's allow ourselves to be a sounding board. Pay it forward if you want to use your voice. There is room for generational healing. This kid brought a sign to a game that said, everybody's going through something. And I told our security guard, like, grab him for me. Grab him and his family for me. And he came back and I just spoke to the family and I started to realize through what they said,

• 38:48Speaker 03

  that you're not just changing the kid's life, you're changing how he's relating with his friends, potentially his team, his teachers, his family, his community. What is changing that one life actually look like? What does it do? I don't know if we can quantify it or it's something that you can measure, but there's a lot of, I think, healing to be had through all that. And it's not just that one person. It has a ripple effect that is just an amazing thing. And seeing it firsthand is, it's inspiring.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  I remember when your article came out and it got sent to me by like tons and tons of my students. And many of my student athletes were like, I'm so happy he said it.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  Because only you, you know, you're an all star. You can say it can't be somebody who hasn't achieved the things that you did, which is sad.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:43Speaker 04

  But it just meant so much.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  We've worked with a lot of student athletes and it's been amazing. And after they come out of college and they they struggle with identity. But how do you help these student athletes and their coaches have these conversations? Because, you know, these colleges or institutions that, you know, now money's involved. It makes it so much more complex. At that age, a kid is even more worried, has even more pressure about, okay, if I expose this or I tell this, like, this college isn't going to want me. They're going to take away my scholarship.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  It's not unlike what I had at the, at the highest level. But also I've already made it like I'm already in this space. I can't imagine the pressures, but also the pain of, of having to feel like you need to hide that with your coaches or with, you know, these people that are potentially going to give you an opportunity of a lifetime. And in high school, that might be the only chance that you have.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  But I think you, you opening up the conversation means that I think college, high school coaches will have the conversation.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  So that's the, it's like, you know, the teacher.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Models it. It has to be the coaches. I'm very proud to be part of the NBA who's backed us so much in this and been a driving force and they'll continue to evolve in this space. But really the Miami Heat, Coach Spoelstra, Coach Spoh, he's so open to these conversations. And sometimes he'll just bring it in and be like blackout day, nobody come in, get some sun, get some vitamin D. It's good for you, right? Spend time with your families, play the long game because we need that. It's an unforgiving league. So when he models that and he's one of the greatest coaches of all time. And we have Dr. Derek Anderson, who's our licensed therapist on staff. He's amazing. So that also gives me hope that that will then trickle down to college athletes as

• 41:32Speaker 03

  well as high school athletes. And there's always going to be exceptions to the rule. There's going to be people that aren't open to this. But, you know, vulnerability is a superpower, strength.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Well, it also raises the question of like, what's actually going to make you play better? And we could say play better on the court that night, but also play better, you know, having a longevity, a career of longevity with no injuries where you don't, you know, blow yourself up and get canceled on social media because you're so angry, right? I mean, I think we really need to have a conversation of whether or not.

• 42:02Speaker 03

  It could be a better product.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  Well, I think even just, you know, in terms of like physical performance, we've figured that out, you know, people get rest days, you know, you take breaks, right? I think we've come to realize that the body's not just this crazy machine that you push, push, push, right?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 42:16Speaker 04

  I think when we come to think about people's mental health, their human performance side of things, we probably need to be a little bit more compassionate there, too. And ultimately, like, the result will be better off. Thank you so much for all the great work that you're doing. And where can folks learn a bit about the Kevin Love Fund?

• 42:32Speaker 03

  KevinLoveFund.org. And thank you as well for being an ally. I always say like, we're tribal beings, we should start acting like it. And we are a part of a tribe together. This is community driven. We all want to be on the winning side of history, but I think it's all hope.

• 42:50Laurie Santos?

  I hope we're finally at the beginning of a mental health revolution, but there's still lots of work that each of us can do to fight the stigma. First, as Kevin's viral article put it, remember, everyone is going through something, and a little compassion can go a very long way.

• 43:07Laurie Santos?

  So if you're a teacher, or a coach, or a parent, or a leader, it's vital that you model vulnerability to the people who look up to you and give yourself a little compassion, too. By doing so, we can help the next generation break the cycle and feel safe having tough conversations openly. The Happiness Lab will soon be back with a spooktacular Halloween episode. We'll be exploring the connection between fear and joy. We'll speak to a behavioral scientist who's studying why certain people just love to be scared. All that next time on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 43:47Laurie Santos?

  Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today.

• 44:14Laurie Santos?

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• 44:59Laurie Santos?

  And that's why I'm such a big fan of rituals. Think about the glassware you use for all your dinner parties, ones that make your events feel right without even thinking about it. And that's why I've been using the Woodstock Tumbler from Simon Pierce. They're hand-blown, one at a time, with the kind of character you only get from a human hand. Something made that slowly has a way of reminding you to savor the moments that really matter. Find yours at simonpearce.com. That's S-I-M-O-N-P-E-A-R-C-E.com. Simon Pierce, made by hand, one at a time.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.