The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Make Vulnerability Your Superpower (with NBA star Kevin Love)

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

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 for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Meaningful connections often show up when you least expect it in those small, surprising moments. So I'm very excited that today's sponsor, Bumble, makes it easier to notice those little sparks. With features like shared interests and prompts, you can showcase your personality right on your profile and connect with people who get your vibe. So if you're curious about who might bring a little more joy into your life, Bumble is a great place to start. Ready to meet someone great, start your love story on Bumble. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health.

I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Adria Health Institute in New York City. On this show, I'll be talking to top researchers and top clinicians, asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life. but even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? The types of symptoms that people talk about is forgetting everything. I never used to forget things. They're concerned that, one, they have dementia, and the other one is, do I have ADHD?

There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids, to sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood, and also to have better day-to-day life. Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin 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. 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. 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. Let's continue. Yeah, okay. 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. So we usually start with an introduction. So can I just have you introduced yourself and tell our listeners what you do? Yeah, last night, we had to describe how we looked. You know, people with disabilities in the blind. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Like, I'm Kevin Love.

I'm 36, but I have gray hair and a blue eyes. Very tall. Very tall. Yeah, I was like, I'm 6.8. I literally did say that. I'm like, I'm 6.8 plus, but my contract height once said I was 610. And maybe I shrunk, but I digress. Sorry. No, I'm Kevin Love, ball player, 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, too. It gets me outside, and that's what unconditional love looks like. 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's career. Tell me about that. 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 and short stints. And, you know, he was my first hero. He was like a giant to me. He was a protector. And he's six-nine imposing. I mean, it 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 the basketball, and 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. I can imagine that makes you love basketball a lot. I can also imagine that that comes with a lot of pressure. 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 expectations. 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 the last at least 20 years, because when it came to my early teenage years in 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. 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 stoic within my masculinity and my feelings. And that drove me to be pretty emotion phobic over the course of time. Which must have been especially hard because I know you've talked about kind of the anxiety you experience early on in life. You had this quote where you noted that your default setting was often one of dread. Yes. 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? Well, and when I speak about that, it's dread because my 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 one more accolade or we can win one more championship or I can be not just the state player of the year I got to be the national player the year we have to win the national championship in some ways it's like masochistic like it hurts so good right chase those things and that's okay like that can be a admirable quality in some cases but your brain is going to go back dopamine is going to go down you're going to 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 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. Yeah. And this is the kind of thing I totally see in my students at Yale. I work with a lot of amazing student athletes. I don't know if they're going to 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, cross 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 college 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're dealing with that, but also this super hyper masculine culture, like where you grew up. But I think

think also, you know, having your dad in the early days of the sport where this stuff really wasn't talked about. 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, um, and just to be clear, Brian, you're related. Brian is our cousin, you know, Beach Boys were started in a garage in Hawthor and 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 100 years now. I keep looking back and unpealing 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 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 in strange for a number years. And, you know, he taught me two true wisdoms that were reconciliation and forgiveness as well. 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. Well, I get it now. 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 pass and to be at home and to do. 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.

That's so awesome. So I'm like, you're successful. You can die knowing that, like, you're good. Yeah. It's so cool to hear you say that because it feels like that must have been such hard one 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 the 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. 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 early on, that was in some ways really reinforced because you get very, very good at your sport.

When did you first realize that you could be a professional, kind of like your dad? My best friend's dad tells it all the time. First day of preschool, driving us home. And 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 was just something about him where I actually believed. I really truly believed him. I'm being 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. I'm the pediatrician. They said, well, he's going to be very tall. This is going to 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 wanted to be. But it was probably around 8.

grade and my freshman year of high school when I 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. Definitely involve some luck, but also involved a tremendous amount of work and skill. Yeah, you became super successful 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. 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 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 pre-me baby,

as my dad worked a backbreaking job at a 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. I talk about it all the time. Regret, it's more tied up in inaction rather than action.

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. 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 keeps 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.

And that must have been a really awful one to punch because my sense is like you had her loss. But then you also had kind of a loss on the core. I understand that you suffered an injury pretty soon after. that right? I did and I broke my hand and I only played 18 games that 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

often, you know, go eat at the dinner table and my mom's just finishing up. I would sit there with her and be like, you know, where's dad? 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? No. No. And my agent, and he always talks to me as I'm going to talk to you as your friend. I'm going to 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. I mean, it's just remarkable how little people get, how mental health issues really work. 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 and a dark room of a lot. 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. Okay, friends, real talk. You are worth the wait. We've all been there, giving our energy to connections that didn't honor ours, and watching friends do the same. And honestly, we all deserve better. That's why Bumble is built for intentional dating. Safety is such a big deal for us all, especially when meeting new people. And Bumble gives you the peace of mind with options like photo and ID verification. That little extra step means you know the person you're talking to is who they say they are. are with their real photos and they are ready to show up authentically. And once you feel safe, you can actually focus on what matters, finding someone who gets you. With shared interest, it's easy to see right away who vibes with your passions, whether that's true crime podcast, yoga mornings, or weekend hikes. So take a pause, affirm your worth, and protect your peace. Bumble helps you create safe, meaningful connections, the kind that truly respect your boundaries, your energy, and your time.

Thinking about dating again, take this as your sign. Start your love story on Bumble. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. The event of damage this man did is incalculable. It's still damaging all of us. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders, Anywhere You Get, Podcasts.

Binge the entire seven-episode series early in ad-free with a Pushkin Plus subscription, Head to the Revisionness History Show page on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. slash plus to sign up. And so how did you wind up healing? Well, it wasn't until I really started doing the work. And, you know, it's not to say I didn't have these, like, great moments in 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. 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.

Yeah, so what happened to that season to make things get worse? 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 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 confidon 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 if 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, 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, 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 happened before. So is it 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 oxygen. I'm able to sit back up, think of myself, what the hell just happened? I go, and they run several tests at the Cleveland Clinic,

who 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 going to happen again? Who's going to 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, 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. was my first time I had gone to therapy. I was incredibly lucky to find a great therapist. He just said in my medication this morning, so respect. But I had finally come to terms that, okay, it's time to start doing the work. 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.

Right. So fast forward, I go to therapy. It was an all-star that year. It was my fifth all-star appearance, and I had a great year. Statistically, very efficient, statistically producing edit. a very high level and then a couple 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 mispractice 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. 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. So I felt like I was on an island. And 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 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 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 shadow. So press send, and then my life inherently changed forever.

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. 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 core 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. 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 first-hand experience with their own mental health or their child's mental health, that was incredibly eye-opening. Pressend that morning, we had left for a multiple game road trip, and I was back playing at that point. We meet at the plane, 3 p.m. departure, and I remember just sitting in my seat, throwing my

hoodie on, throwing my headphones on. I'm like, what are my teammates going to think? What are my teammates going to think? But I remember Kyle Corber coming across the aisle and shaking my hand and just telling me that there's going to be something here. You're going to make a huge difference in people's lives. And that was my first time where my shoulders had just dropped. Like, maybe this is going to 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 just sitting there the whole time, like, just give 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 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. 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. I think one of the amazing things is that now, forever, you're going to 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 talking about this, from such a hyper-masculine culture to now being, in some ways, the face of talking about mental health and sports? 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. You're like open the curtain. You're like, curtains open. Here you go. Yeah. 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. going to 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 going to take a

long time. But long term, I think legacy, naturally as a basketball player, we'll talk about that word a lot, legacy. But now I've started to think about legacy virtues versus eulogy virtues. There's been deaths. Obviously, Brian Wilson, my father. And I think about what are people going to say when I pass. Are they going to say, he broke the NBA and ABA merger for double doubles when he played in his third season? No, no, they're going to talk about how he made people feel. They're going to talk about his relationships. They're going to talk about how he made an impact on other people's lives. I mean, like, sure, 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 the way,

my own skin by exposing these things, that when that time comes, it's going to be more about eulogy than legacy. But my hope would be if I keep living my life with that type of intention that the universe will unfold as it should. 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. think we know our type in dating, tall, funny, a certain job, but the research shows we're usually not the best predictors of who will actually make us the happiest. As we often say on the Happiness Lab, our minds lie to us about all kinds of stuff, and that definitely

includes the kinds of things we need to be happy in a relationship. That's why it helps to stay curious. On Bumble, features like shared interests and prompts make it easy to notice right on someone's profile initial sparks of compatibility, like a shared love of cooking, or the same nostalgic TV shows. Shared interests and prompts let you showcase your personality right on your profile and connect with people who get your vibe. And with photo and ID verification, you can feel confident the person you're talking to is real, so you can date with a bit more confidence. When you treat dating as exploration, instead of sticking to a rigid type, you open yourself up to happier, more meaningful connections. So maybe your type isn't tall,

dark, and mysterious. Maybe it's Love's Podcast as much as you. Do you do. Stay open. Stay curious and let yourself be surprised. Download Bumble today. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. The event of damage this man did is incalculable. It's still damaging all of us. Listen to Revisionous History, the Alabama murders, anywhere you get podcasts. Binge the entire seven-episode series early in ad-free with a Pushkin Plus subscription. Head to the revisionist history show page on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm.fm.

slash plus to sign up. 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. 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,

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 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 L.A.R. 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.

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 programs develop it, one that made him realize just how powerful this work could be. 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 and kind of right. 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 it's just two jobs and I'm just like this is amazing like everybody's open in that classroom right they can see each other they can help each other 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. It's early intervention, but it might also be generational intervention. Yes. You know, those kids on the football team who started talking about how their food insecurity makes them feel or that's going to mean that it's easier for them to do it when they have a kid who's on the football team years later. 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 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. I remember when your article came out and it gets 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. 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, but it just meant so much. We've worked with a lot of student athletes, and it's been amazing. And after they come out of college and 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.

Yeah. It's not unlike what I had 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 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. But I think you opening up the comments. conversation means that I think college high school coaches will have the conversation.

So it's like, you know, the teacher 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 driving for us. And they'll continue to evolve in this space, but really the Miami Heat. Coach Bolstra, Kosovo, 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 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 superpower, strength. Well, 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 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. It could be a better product. Well, I think even just, you know, in terms of, like, physical performance, we 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 is not just this crazy machine that you push push push right 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 about the kevin love fun uh kevin love fun dot org. And thank you as well for being a ally. I always say like we're tribal beings. We should start acting like it. And we are 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. 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. 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 spectacular Halloween episode.

We'll be exploring the connection between fear and joy. We'll speak to a behavioral science, who's studying why certain people just love to be scared. All that next time on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Lari Santos. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. The amount of damage this man did is incalculable.

It's still damaging all of us. Listen to Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders, Anywhere You Get Podcasts. Binge the entire seven-episode series early and ad-free with a Pushkin Plus subscription. Head to the revisionist history show page on Apple Podcasts or pushkin.fm slash plus to sign up. This is an IHeart podcast.