The Zac Clark Show - Drew Robinson: Former MLB Player's 20 Hours Between Life and Death—and the Mission That Came After

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

In this raw and deeply human conversation, Zac and Jay sit down with former MLB player and mental health advocate Drew Robinson—someone whose story is almost too unbelievable to be true. In 2020, Drew survived a suicide attempt that should have ended his life. Instead, it marked the beginning of a new one.Drew walks us through the silent buildup to that night: the injury that ended his season, the breakup that broke his heart, the isolation of the pandemic—and how all of it slowly pushed him toward the edge. He speaks with powerful clarity about what it’s like to wear a smile in public while fighting a war inside your head, and what happens when you no longer want to fight.But this episode is not about tragedy. It’s about survival. It's about the quiet power of choosing to stay, the radical act of asking for help, and the ongoing work of healing.We talk about therapy, journaling, inner child work, and the myth of “being enough.” We explore what it means to be a man in a culture that doesn't let men feel. And we confront the stigma around suicide head-on.Drew’s story is heartbreaking, courageous, and ultimately, life-affirming. If you or someone you love is struggling, this conversation might be the lifeline you didn’t know you needed.As Drew says, “People would rather hear from you than about you.”Connect with Zachttps://www.instagram.com/zwclark/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclarkhttps://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553https://twitter.com/zacwclarkIf you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release:[phone]releaserecovery.com@releaserecovery

Our next guest is a good friend of mine by the name of Drew Robinson. Drew is a former Major League Baseball player. He is still involved in the league coaching for the San Francisco Giants. And I just want to say up front that this episode has major trigger warnings. We are going to talk about suicidal ideation as Drew in April 2020 while struggling with his own mental health attempted to take his own life. We're going to get into the details of that. the good news is that there is hope and coming out of that, Drew, has really become a mental health advocate and is really helping to desigmatize words like suicide. And so I'm just grateful

for him and his story and this conversation. All right, so welcome back to the show. We are here today, me and Jay, with a friend of mine, someone who I love and admire and has just one of the more inspirational stories that I've ever come across, Drew Robinson. What is up, Drew? A whole lot. Happy to be here, bro. Shout out.

We were talking about how Drew and I met right before we sat down. So my, I played American Legion baseball with a guy by the name of Andrew Bailey, who ended up like, Oakland Athletics, rookie of the year,

had a good career, and then you guys were in the Giants organization together, right? Is that? Yeah, he was our pitching coach for a couple years with the Giants. I've been fortunate to be able to be around the big league team at times, and so I got to know Bales pretty good, and now he's on to the Red Sox doing great things.

But, yeah. It bails is the man. And then I've got to know Shana, Alexander, who works for the Giants, and Drew and Ellie, the support dog who's in the house. So a lot of good people doing good things. For those of you that don't know, Drew, he is a former Major League Baseball player. He's had a long career in baseball. He still works in baseball, and he also had a E-60 documentary made about his story,

which we're going to dig into today. You cool with that? Let's do it. Where do you want to start, Jay? First, thanks, man. Thanks for sharing your story and being so open. And in a way, I know you said right before that it helps you to tell your story. I mean, like that sort of being in recovery, like my experience of telling my story,

to be closer to people and also changes my relationship to this story. I mean, we've had a lot of people that have been sitting here, and one major through line is just how people have turned these painful experiences into, like, great assets, you know, and have allowed it to connect other people and be helpful. So thank you for being here. I've seen the E60 thing, and it's unbelievable. Are you open to, like, going, I mean, I know you told your story, you tell your story.

Are you open to, like, going deep into, like, that period of time? Yeah. I always try to encourage people when I do anything that nothing's off limits. Like, the floodgates have totally opened, and I have to kind of remind people that it's okay to ask sensitive questions, triggering questions. Like, like I said, I've turned this into, like, where you said, an asset. So I'm an open, I'm an open book when it comes all this, and so the more the merrier, if it's helpful for anybody out there. Yeah, I mean, there's an element, and I appreciate you saying that, and I'm sitting here thinking, There's this word stigma that's out there, right, all the time.

And I don't necessarily love it because I feel like stigma sometimes. But we're going to talk about suicide today, right? Like you had a suicide attempt and you lived and you're here and you're a gift to the world and to the behavioral health care community just for your advocacy. I want to start, I think, with this idea that you kind of, Like growing up, right? Like you were a kid that, I mean, look, didn't have it all quote, but like you had a decent upbringing, right?

And like start there. Well, I guess my question jumping off of that was, was there any mental health issues or challenges, you know, in your family growing up? Yeah, I mean, I think like Zach said, we all are, my childhood was in a way very normal, especially in the 90s, but it had its own factors in it that were unique to us and it came out in its own ways. But, yeah, I mean, I think looking back, like the factors within our family's dynamics caused stress and caused some instability from different perspectives,

whether it be my mom, my dad, my siblings, myself, because, again, we're all human and we're all trying to figure out these different factors at different times. And so my mom was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at times. I was a wear of my heart on my sleeve kind of kid. And looking up to my brother and all these things, there was, there was factors that were challenging that would, you can probably consider being mental health struggles from any angle. But again, it was in a way pretty normal, but again, within our own household being a bit of a dysfunction. But nothing was ever, like, diagnosed or like, you know, my mom suffers from depression or, you know, grandma had nothing like that. Nothing clinically.

My mom, I know she would take some SSRIs at times throughout her life. but yeah again maybe a stigmatized thing that it wasn't talked about to where i had i have a clear or i had a clear understanding back then i know now some of the story but yeah it's something that was again hush hush in a way but not because it's like anything different than what normal um interactions were back then with any kind of mental health stuff right but you talk a lot like the one thing i've heard a lot in talking to you is about your brother your brother uh it's Craig? Chad. Chad? Your brother, Chad. Can you, the word that's coming to mind is almost jealousy, resentment. He's older than you, right? And he made the big leagues. And you kind of talk

about this period of your life where he was flourishing and you were not. Yeah, well, no, actually, he's my idol. I was envious of his physical ability. And at times feeling like I was in the background or overlooked, but I was obsessed with my brother in a way. I was attached to his hip. We had the typical big brother, little brother relationship where my mom's always tell him, include your brother, let him be around. I was, whenever I wasn't playing in my games, I was his team's bat boy, just because I wanted to be around, and I was obsessed with sports and wanting to be around my big brother, who was my idol. But yeah, I was a little bit jealous of him being an early spurter and physical ability and me being a late bloomer. And so...

How much older was he? Is he? Four and a half years old. So yeah, he was like in six, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, like six in the six feet freshman, six four freshman being a national prodig at one point. If wasn't for a surgery, he probably would have been like a top five pick, throwing a hundred miles an hour in high school. And me coming into high school first day being like five foot, 95 pounds, like the exact opposite.

Like our high school coach tells a story later on in our lives of realizing, having the like a funny moment like, um, looking for another Robinson boy coming to town. And then me showing up. like, oh, this must be a different Robinson family kind of thing. And so it's all worked out. But yeah, my brother, and the other thing is he didn't actually make the big leagues, but he played professional baseball. But he unfortunately suffered a lot of injuries start his career.

But his physical ability was a clear trajectory to the big leagues. And so that has his own challenges within it. It was like I was a late bloomer, a background thought kind of thing. And so the fact that I made it at one point was a challenge within my brother's mental health journey at times, the little brother who was a backstory, he's the one that makes sense. said of me. But yeah, it's something that my brother was an idol. So there was no resentment. It was just kind of like, man, thank God it hit my gross spurt because I was thinking I was just going to be a nobody most of my life. When you heard that with the coach coming in,

oh, we got the wrong Robinson. Are you already, this is after the fact. This is much later. This is like after I had already made it to the professional baseball. So this is like a fun. He didn't share that with you as a kid. Like, I mean, were you worried about that though coming in? I'm not, you know, they're expecting me to be like my brother and, you know, I'm not right now. At that time, I wasn't worried about the expectation. I was just caught up in, man, I wish I was bigger, faster, stronger, I wish I was better at baseball. And being able to, like, being very aware of my surroundings, like, it was, I knew that I wasn't as good as some of my teammates and some of my classmates in high school.

But I knew I was the story my coach also tells, like, I had all the movements. I just wasn't big enough yet. And so I made the team in my freshman year, but I just wasn't strong enough to play. But I didn't have that expectation or disappointment feelings at that time. It wasn't until later once I hit my ability. Are those the feelings of that you've talked about a little bit where on the outside you have this fiancé, you're a handsome guy, you're playing baseball at the highest level, but still internally or mentally or psychologically, there is something that isn't. It isn't adding up. Yeah.

I mean, most of my life, that was a story. There's just, at any given moment, the internal dialogue was a complete disrupt or separation from what the outside reality was in a very irrational way. As far as you can remember. As far as I can remember, yeah. I mean, like I said, the example of being a wearing my heart in my sleeve kind of kid goes back to when I was very young, just being on top of the world or being in the dumps of the dumps in baseball or just school life, feeling like I was in between being a full-blown outcast or a full-blown cool kid,

like I felt like I was in the middle. And so there's just like this level of irrationality that was happening inside or again, this like internal dialogue that was constantly critiquing myself or picking apart scenarios that kind of caused me to be not at peace within my either myself or my surroundings. And I unfortunately became very good at that self-talk habit that unfortunately followed me and still follows me into my life now at times. When was the first time you remember thinking, I might need some help, I might need some therapy, I might need to tell someone about this. In this phase, it was the first time I reached out to a team trainer when I was still with the Rangers, which is about two years prior to my attempt.

I just said that I had heard that a teammate was receiving some help from a psychiatrist or some of these medications that might be helpful. And I just gave, like, the quickest, like, so I think I could benefit from this, but nothing's wrong kind of thing. And so that was the first time that I, like, kind of openly shared that I think there might be something going on. But, I mean, I was kind of, like, auditing myself my entire life. Like, I can think back to being like a 12-beard. Did you go on meds at? At that time, that was the first time I tried medication back then, an SSRI, and an antidepressant. But it was very something that, again, I would.

was still a part of a stigma so like I was taking it but I also had this like disbelief in it of like this isn't going to help someone like me kind of thing like I don't need this kind of thing it was a very conflicted view just like most things were in my life but I think the other thing that I think that come to mind was the first time that I before this the season before I went and got I went to a doctor to get tested like physically and I remember asking for like a testosterone level check because as a man, that's, like, all you ever hear about internally is, like, I'm more tired. I'm more irritable this season, or I'm, like, more fatigue, so my testosterone must be down.

So I remember I went and got checked, and everything came back completely normal. So that just added more confusion and more, like, critiquing. Like, everything's fine. Quit being such a baby. Like, you're fine. But I was, I went to a doctor because I felt significantly down, tired. I'm not tearful or, like, the clear symptoms of, like, depression or anything. but I just was like chemically off in some capacity but again I didn't I didn't have the

understanding or the education or the willingness to ask for that education but I think that's why I think that's why men struggle so much I think that's why we're seeing a lonely loneliness epidemic of the numbers for you know men dying by suicide are like four times out of women and it just is this it's this age old I don't know if it's like daddy issues but we believe that we're supposed to be a certain way and if we are not or if we let a little bit of it's cultural receive as weakness in then we are failures it's like that voice in your head I had the same voice I'm sure Jay had the same voice it's the word's going to mind that you said supposed to the word's supposed to the words supposed to and should there's words I catch myself all

time thinking or critiquing myself with and it's like I feel like at times it's like it could be like a noble effort like I should be doing something better with my life or whatever like you can put it attach it to any kind of story but you take it too far then you have this unrealistic expectation of how we should or shouldn't be and it becomes a dangerous game and so I think the word supposed to should yeah is a subconscious action that we do sometimes and outwardly in the locker room, you're kind of the ballbreaker. Like, you're one of the guys, right? Like, there's no reason for anyone to think that something is off.

Yeah, I mean, I'm one of the biggest jokesters. Where's Pedy come from? Yeah, Pedy is my alter ego. Like, this guy who, when he would get some alcohol, he would loosen up and be this jokester kind of guy, and, like, that insecurity would, or that hesitation of talking would go away and just be this goofy person who just happened to be the time I just, like, jokingly said a name that would be attached to that.

PD also just kind of sounds like a goofy name. So it just kind of stuck. I love that. And so that's what kind of happened as being an alter ego joking kind of thing. And because people who really knew me in baseball knew that whether alcohol was involved or not, that's just kind of how I was. Was it joking, keep things light, have fun at all times kind of person. It became something where no one even referred to me as Drew, whether we were drinking

or not, like in the clubhouse the next day before the game, nobody called me Drew because it was just like that's who I was, was just a fun teammate, tried to be my best teammate kind of thing. And I felt like I did a good job of connecting with my teammates at that time in a fun-loving, easygoing, charismatic kind of way, I would say. So let's go back, because you said a word that, like, I know relates to, like, our experience. You said the word peace, right? Like, when I was growing up, I can remember walking into a room and just constantly looking at what I thought other people were thinking about me. And I'm just having this constant dialogue with myself, you know, watching myself never stops, never stopped. The first thing that

allowed me to feel peace or that freed me from that was sports. I was a big athlete growing up, never at the level, anywhere close to where you got. For me, it was basketball. It just, it gave me that sense of ease and comfort. Like I was out of my head when I was playing, and I, and I love that. is that do you remember the first time you felt peace or like you weren't thinking was it through baseball yes and no i think that's what i was i was as you were saying that i was trying to think of some examples but i think the answer is yes i know like i completely experienced that break or that escape at times in a very helpful way but i also applied that overthinking mind that i became good at to sports as well, to where I was constantly comparing myself or picking myself apart in the

worst ways while praising my other teammates or other players that was comparing myself to. But so the answer is yes and no. Like I think it was part of the reason why I fell in love with sports, why I still am such a believer in moving my body the way I do now still. I think it's something that is a very efficient way to kind of get you out your head at times or out of your body at times. Yeah. I mean, move a muscle change of thoughts real. I mean, this morning is a great example. I did not many, a lot of mornings, I don't want to get out of bed, so I go for a run, you know, and it's not that I don't want to get out of bed because I don't want to live. It's more just I don't want to do the day. You know, I don't want to, you know, do the responsibilities that have been laid out for me. Yeah, we're tired.

Like I said, it's like the cycle of being tired, waking up, mid-afternoon crash, all these things are just normal, but we try to fight those things, or not even fight them. We just try not to want them. And it's like, it's normal to feel tired in the morning. It's part of the cycle of waking up anatomically. So there's nothing wrong with it. Just like there's nothing wrong with feeling burnt out at times when you've done a bit off a little bit more than you can chew with work or life or whatever the case may be. So I think the magic is being able to actually somatically allow yourself to accept those things

and pivot in ways that your body or yourself or your mind is needing. But that's the challenge. That's the hard part. So when you, when the attempt is, so it's February or no, it's April? April 16th, 2020. April 16th, 2020. At that point, you've been in pro baseball for 10 years. Is that right?

Yes. And you were in the big leagues? you were back and forth. I experienced the big league time a little bit the last a couple years prior to that. So 17, 18, 19, I was up and down in the big leagues. And so 2020, I was just getting ready to start spring training and trying to make the team with the giants before the pandemic happened. So to answer the question, yes, I was in the big leagues for parts of three years before that and parts of 10. And the days and months leading up to the attempt, were you working out, were you in your routine, where you still focused on

baseball and your fiance and all these things that were in your life? Yeah, so this is the half year before my attempt, I described as, there was three acute things that happened in my life that I described as a three ingredients for recipe disaster that really just kind of brought out all these lifetime habits and thinking patterns that I had. But there were some things that were happening that were really triggering those things, which in 2019 I had my first season ending injury of my career.

I was very fortunate to stay healthy enough and work to keep myself in the field from the majority of my career, but I had my first seizing any injury in the midst of not doing great. And so instead of just rehabbing, I actually just got released because it made more sense roster of flexibility-wise for the Cardinals at that time to release me. So I was sent home in August and had a surgically repaired arm and was doing my rehab on my own, coming home, watching all my friends play on TV in my living room in my house, which just threw me first been. I was not used to that. I'm always out there watching all my friends. I felt FOMO, disconnected in a way that I was not prepared for and didn't have any kind of experience

coping with in healthy ways beforehand. And so... And no end up, the team doesn't deploy any services. I mean, like, they'll set you up for the physical rehab, but, like, there's no mental, like, this is going to be hard on a dude who's, like, playing this sport, and now it's over for this period. At times, yeah, sport, there's just so many things, so many scenarios that happen sometimes, yeah. But they do their best. Like, they're not just, like, the worst people ever. They're just kind of send you on your way. do all they can with all the other things that are on their plate and in-house they have

different resources available and so but that's the other part is like because i was so annoyingly a part of a stigma it's not like i was like hey i'm about to go home and this could be i can see this maybe being tough for me to to handle it's like no i'm gonna beast mode this this rehab i'll be fine when really like i just i didn't have the the wherewithal to know that this might be a tough time let me ask for help preventively or when it does start happening let me have the guts to to ask them for those resources that they would have offered. I just, because like I said, I was just still kind of stuck in my old ways.

And so that injury threw me first spin, which kind of projected into these other displeasures in my life of myself and insecurities, fearful of my career coming to an end well before I felt like I reached my potential, so I was terrified of not being able to bounce back from that injury. And so this level of fear and uncertainty was just weighing on me in a crazy way. And that, unfortunately, because, again, I didn't have therapy at that time or the communication skills at the time. I just impulsively projected that stuff on my surroundings, which at that time was my fiance

who was an angel of a person. And she, unfortunately, had to deal with my irritability, my short-temperedness, my isolated kind of habits, which were nothing super destructive. But over time, I just became kind of a shell of myself. And I eventually got to a place where I thought that those me wanting to disconnect from her, which was me just wanted to disconnect from everything in life because I isolated and ran away from things as a child most of my life. I convinced myself that she was part of the problem as well. So the second ingredient was me calling off that wedding from a beautiful person,

which kind of was the first time I really got to see my internal misery really significantly affect someone else. And I saw that pain that I was causing someone else for the first time that I was kind of feeling my whole life, which really threw me for another spin, which was this was about February. I called off the wedding February 2nd of 2020, and this was days before I was leading for spring training. So within this whole time, I had got rehabbed enough to make that, to sign with a new team to try to continue my career. But I still thought that calling off the engagement was a good idea. And so that second ingredient and seeing that pain passed on to someone that I really cared about just killed me. And so that was the first time that I saw.

If my pain is going to start hurting someone, other people, maybe I'd be better off just not here. here. So that was the first time I started having suicidal. Is that the first that's the first thought? That was my first plan planning like real concrete suicide. I had passive suicidal ideation in different moments in my life before. But that was my first like I really kind of want to do this. And two days later I drove from Las Vegas to spring to spring training in Arizona four hour and a half hour drive completely dead silent no music no nothing just thinking about suicide the entire time and it unfortunately it was like a switch went off where I just couldn't stop thinking about suicide.

I would be in the middle of training and spring training hitting during a bat, step out of the box, take a pitch, get my sign, think about, doesn't matter if I get a hit this year. I'm going to go home and take my life later tonight anyway. So it was just constantly in my mind. And then the pandemic happened, I word that as a third ingredient.

Whereas baseball was at least, I was using baseball, kind of like you said earlier, kind of like to distract me or hopefully help me get through that phase. And then when the world shut down, and sent me home to that house that up until that point, all I knew was Diana, our two dogs. When I went home to that lonely, quiet house, I remember walking in thinking,

and I remember saying out loud, I'm in trouble here. When I didn't hear Ellie's footsteps running to the door, already thinking about suicide for the last month and a half endlessly, I was terrified and that was like the most eerie feeling in my life. And so those three ingredients, is how I call it, were the things that really set me up for a really, hard time because I didn't have the guts to share those things and those those concerns with

anyone around me. And no one pulled you aside and said, Drew, something doesn't seem right. No, because nothing seemed wrong. So within all this, I guess I started the example. I was thinking about it throughout spring training that year, I was interacting with people in the exact same way that I was beforehand, which is an easygoing goofball kind of person. No one would have ever predicted no and that's the thing like I that's what so complex about this is like I was able to I was exhausted at the end of the day because I was putting a lot of energy in putting on that that that that act but at the same time I was good at doing that like that's in a weird way that gave me pride because that was a break from this lonely misery that I was feeling at the end of

the day and in that time I was convinced that that lonely misery was the real me and the goofing around kind of easy-going person was an act, but now it's like, no, the most authentic version of myself was that person that wanted to give people joy and interact with people and feel connected with people. And the part that I was stretching a little bit was this on this stigmatized version of myself that was lonely and miserable, but really it was someone who was just unwilling to do the work. And so no, no one asked because I wasn't showing any signs of this and the only thing that I think came up was the people that the two guys I was living with in spring training they knew that I think they remember them just asking like calling off

an engagement that must have been incredibly hard right like are you doing okay with that and I just remember yeah no it's unfortunate it's unfortunate but yeah I'm doing okay when inside I'm like no like I actually I feel like I just ruined this beautiful person's life and I'm holding on by a thread here but I relate to that man because it's like even today in my life I struggle sometimes, like, walking into a room and knowing that I have to be on. Right. And then I ask myself the next question is, like, do you really have to be on? Can you just be who you are?

And that's confusing and complex to me, too, a lot of times. And I think is where a lot of my mental health struggles when they come up come from, which is at my core, like, I just want to be who I am and say what I want to say and be in the stream of life. and when I am, like you said, kind of putting a smile on or making people laugh or doing the things that I know I'm supposed to be doing, there's something that really doesn't feel good about that. Yeah. Well, I think that's where the work comes in is knowing that there is going to be times

in life where you do have to kind of grind it out. And that's what I mean. Like being able to tap into that grind it out mentality is helpful in my life. But trying to do that in every single scenario of my life and every single day, was something that I experienced was an exhausting way that became a life or death situation and so being able to turn it on at times like I don't want to work out but I know it's healthy for me like let me go beast mode real quick and grind that out or let me go show up for this in a way that I feel like it's going to be helpful for the people that I'm around let me grind that out that's much different than let me go grind out this normal social setting because I don't want to live later tonight like that's a much different grind it out kind of concept and so and that's the other thing I think that's the other thing I think think with mental health in general is being careful with not making it trendy of like right doing whatever we want all the time and like yeah if I feel any kind of disrupt in my piece like that must mean I have mental health struggles like no like

sometimes life is hard and sometimes we have to grind out we have to do things we're tired but I'm just saying when there's a pattern and there's a consistency where you're getting to a place of burnt out or it's becoming severe in different ways or there's a huge disproportion in our lives and from a chemical standpoint or just stability that's when you start paying attention to those things and I think it's normal again to sometimes have to put on the brave face yeah that's huge that's how I interpret it no I think that's huge right now and the toolkit like I shared earlier is like I still enjoy being able to be that old school masculine dude in the gym at times but I now know I don't need to do that when I'm like having a

conversation with my mom we talk about this all the time it's like you know people on social media influencers normal people like it feels like everyone's latching on to this movement, which is good, right? Like the mental health movement. However, it's also giving people permission to, I would imagine nurses at high schools are having more kids come down to the nurse's office saying that they need a mental health day, which I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

I don't know. I don't have the answer. It's what makes it so complex. Like, just like no one would have known that you were the guy. Right. But I think that's the thing is, is going to be a learning curve, a learning phase to all of this because it is so new. And so like learning our new thresholds of what is and isn't things is just as important

as knowing if it's right or wrong or too much or not enough kind of thing. Because again, if my, I think about myself beforehand, if I would have had the guts to say I need a mental health day, it would have felt like it was like the biggest challenge, the biggest workout of my life or the biggest shame in my life. But I would have taught me thresholds. of like when is it a more appropriate time versus not an appropriate time or just like it doesn't even matter if it's an appropriate time like I'm thinking about it in my life it doesn't matter if someone else thinks that this is appropriate or not and so my hope is that the more we talk

about this the more we learn that early on in the process from a preventative proactive standpoint we just learn our thresholds in a much more sustainable preventative way rather than a overwhelming impulsive all-or-nothing kind of way where it's like I need to take a day where instead of like the night before it's like I am starting to feel this let me do an extra meditation or let me do an extra journaling session so that way tomorrow I can get through it from a little bit more filled cup kind of way instead of like I need to do nothing yeah if that makes sense so setting our thresholds and learning our our our managing skills and coping skills is something that would be just as important as having the guts to ask for help or take the days

yeah I mean like you're coming at it with such a sophisticated and genuine experiential like like you know blueprint at this point i think a lot of times we we see people using mental health or this self-awareness as a way to avoid some of these things in life which are just a part of of living right like having to do things you don't want to do having to work hard you know grind persevere whatever it is but also like you said just knowing really like when is this really tipping the scale and unhealthy for my my wellness the thing that i was thinking though when you were talking a couple minutes ago though is this this pd guy like where did you feel you did you feel better as pd like did was there ever a part of you was like you know what like when i'm in this space

i like feel better and this isn't this is a part of who i am like i'm can i just take this as a launching point and really fill the rest of my life with this sort of way of thinking, you know, this personality that allows me to be more outside of myself. Did you ever think about this? I love this question because I've been thinking about this a lot the last couple of months, and it's something that I'm realizing is showing up in different ways in my life in other areas. And it's something I think about with my dog Ellie is like I have this hashtag that I said in my

group chat and my family group chat of just more evidence, which is short for. There's more evidence of Ellie living your best life. And I'll share that with some of our close friends at times or even on my social. social media. But every once while I get messages and responsive. I just hope you know that the times that Ellie's living her best life, she's with you. And so I hope you recognize that you're living your best life as well. And more recently, I'm starting to realize that I totally agree, but for me, it just feels easier to show it and do it through the lens of Ellie's eyes or in this for this question's purpose through PD's eyes because it's like I still struggle

with insecurities of who me, my actual self is. Yeah, you're not enough. Let me do it through something else and if it doesn't go well if it doesn't if it's not like something i totally jive with it's like oh that that was that was ellie or there's this other area of my life but it's not me because i'm too insecure to practice what i preach of being vulnerable at times and so this is something that i've been like thinking on and meditating journaling on at times because i'm still like trying to sort it out but it's just like this it's like this alter ego that i'm allowed to be something different which from this question is it allows a little bit more freedom of who I actually am and it's maybe it's an opportunity to actually just apply that to

it's you which comes from a place of authenticity um more often I have this feeling with you that you just don't and I relate to it give yourself permission to make what you view you view as mistakes yeah I know I don't I mean that's what I'm in the work I'm still like I've I've learned a lot these last five years but I'm still have a lot of ingrained habits from those those things that I'm learning from for these last five years because I still, I over-critique, I over-control things. I try to make things into ways that I feel like they should be. And when they don't, I get incredibly frustrated

and impulsive and aggressive or irritated at times towards myself in a very aggressive ways. And so I tell this, I mean, now it's getting a little bit longer, but early on in my talks, I would say, yeah, I'm a 27-year-old vet in the pessimistic, self-critiquing, self-hatred world. And now I'm early on in a couple months, a year, two, three, and now almost five-year rookie in the self-praise, self-love, self-grace kind of world. And it's been five years, but in comparison to the person that became this pessimistic monster for 27 years, it's a,

it's a big challenge to kind of rewire some of those things, because whether I like it or not or how intentional I can be at times, there's still some subconscious patterns that just pop up in a very pessimistic, critiquing, not giving myself kind of grace or with those kind of patterns. There's a definition in our world, the best of, you know, someone who's an alcoholic, you know, describing alcoholism, you know, and the ism is really the thing. And this definition that I heard once is just hit me like a ton of bricks,

you know, and it's the alcoholism or the isom is the unbearable, unbreakable burden of self-consciousness. And like, when I heard that the first time, I was like, I have never not been thinking. about myself or something in relation to myself. And it's fucking, I can't, it's tiring. And I had to get the hell out of myself. And that's why I start, you know,

that's when the drugs and the drinking really took me. You know, then it just took me way too far and I had no control. But when I felt that first sense of peace, it really was like in a, through a PD kind of lens where I was able to think about someone else. And in AA and where I kind of came up in this with Zach, you know, it was like, you know,

go help another person. When you walk into a room, think about what you're bringing, because I couldn't walk into a room. I remember being a kid and going to, like, family and being nervous or anxious about having to go kiss my relatives.

It made me so uncomfortable. And I'd see my sister, I have a twin sister, just walk around, just flying around, kissing everyone. Hello, hello. And I just, I couldn't do that. Just a simple thing.

So like, when I, when this switch happened for me psychologically, where I was like now, I could think about other people and just launch into it, like an athlete, you know, just go. Just shake,

10 hands. That changed my life, you know, and it sounds like that you get a similar thing from that when you're speaking, when you're sharing your story, you know, through PD and things like that. Like, that's just what I needed, like that freedom from me because that's, that was what the problem was. Yeah. I think, I'm thinking of two concepts of one of like my guy, like really my mentor, Hunter Pence, he talks about when you want something, you're living in lack. What's he up to? Yeah, he's just being a goat. Being Hunter Pence. Yeah, he's changing the world, changing lives.

But he talks a lot about living in lack, meaning like wanting to be a different way or wanting something. Even if it's something really small or something that's like totally attainable, just that that that mode is you are unintentionally living in lack, which creates disrupt lack of peace at times. And the other concept is like the idea that like we're living. in mirrors and like so what or um i kind of lost it for a second so the other concept but um the living in mirrors makes sense to me though that one too but no i was thinking of something else within um the example that you gave of watching yourself um no no no um but i'll just run with like the idea of being in lack like if if you when you're feeling like you're not being can't be yourself or you don't want to be yourself you're you're inadvertently wanting anything else and it's like

just living that idea of lack is is a draining exhausting way to live and it's something that the more you peel back the layers and more you realize like that is kind of like fueling a lot of actions in our life in different ways and it's like rewiring that into just like passion or being of service in giving back is something that oh the other concept was what you want give it away kind of thing and so being able to like be more comfortable with with interacting with people being able to give just forcing yourself to give it away is a much faster way to receive what you're wanting. And so it's kind of a contradicting kind of concept of like not wanting to want

because then you're living a lack. But like if you do want something, then if you can give it away, which I interpret as like just being of service. Like I want peace more often in my life. I don't want to be so critiquing like let me do things of service in a way that's not allowing myself to critique myself more often. Yeah. So let's jump to.

the days and weeks leading up to the attempt, you gave permission to kind of ask the questions that I think, maybe it's just me, but I have on my mind. And I don't ask these questions because in a gossipy, kind of, like, dramatic kind of way, like I think it's helpful for people to hear what the process was, right? Like, you are in this house. It is April. Your mind, obviously, is very analytical. It's very obsessive, if you will.

when do you start writing this note like how do you get the weapon like what what is that like how how do you get to that moment on that couch where you're pulling the trigger yeah i mean i was i was working on the note for months um almost two months um like i said once that switch went on i was that those silent times those drives or like the quiet time at the end of the day um i would put little bullet points of of topic points or things that i wanted to mentioned at some point to work on a note. And so I was kind of working on it for all the months before that. And so I described it as like I was working on any kind of like school project. Like I wanted to make it as clear, as understandable as I possibly could. And so like I said,

those times where I would be doing anything else and something would pop into mind, I would take my phone out and just open up that note to add a bullet point to those, that note to then be able to go whenever whenever sunda actually put together an actual written note i can use those bullet points and elaborate on them because at this time i wasn't very articulate to be honest like i wasn't aware of my thoughts and my feelings and putting words to things whereas was like incredibly hard for me and so i slowly started working on using those bullet points when i got to my house during quarantine after the the world shut down and so i started working on it throughout throughout march and April and same thing when I got home from spring training that's when I went through the

process of buying a gun at that time too is I don't know if you remember but everybody was like stocking up on on ammo and guns and stuff because they were preparing for the whatever that whatever that way in the world and so it was kind of like an easy cover up of like everyone else is doing it let me get it I remember I even went and like shot it to practice with Not to practice, but like to shoot it with my dad and my sister out in the, out in the desert. And we all shot this gun. But I remember there was a- But did your family have guns growing up?

Was it always a gun? Was it strange that you had a gun? Well, even if it was, it was portrayed as everyone is doing it. And I'm buying this for protection, just like everyone else is buying a bunch of guns right now. That's a crazy thing about parents and family is like, I will do something so bizarre and my family won't call it out on me. but someone else does it and like why like why's he got a gun i get it your guys are going to shoot him like he shouldn't have a gun yeah and that's one of the things that like after the fact one of the things that my close friend share with me was like the only thing that we really

feel like significant discomfort is the fact that you showed us this gun beforehand and portrayed it as like this is a self-defense thing that everyone is buying right now when now we know like you were buying this for this one specific reason so that's like one little part of the story that you tried like when you were buying the gun were you fooling yourself into maybe the idea that it was some level of self-defense or like you were 100% this is for there was parts of me that like I said at any given moment there's my thoughts can go different ways and so like because I haven't officially decided there was definitely part of me it's like okay if I don't end up doing this it won't be the worst thing in the world to have a gun for self-defense

and so like I wasn't against guns at this time and and whatnot and so I Like I said, if I ended up not going through with it, I didn't see that as the worst thing in the world to having a gun. But yeah, I mean, even before that, I went in practice, I went to a gun range in Arizona while I was still last spring training before the world shut down to just learn how to, like, shoot a gun, basically. Or just the, I don't even remember, I knew how to. I had been hunting it before my life, but I just went to a gun range in Arizona, tried to buy one there. But because I didn't have an Arizona license, I couldn't buy one. So then when I got sent back to Las Vegas for the quarantine, I was able to get one. There was a delay.

I remember there was a couple of things throughout that process that were kind of like this very like superficial relationship with God at this time. I remember asking like, is this God trying to like not let me buy this gun? There was like a delay in shipping and stuff. But then I eventually got the gun like on March 30th, I believe. And then there was a two week process or two week period where I was like. working on this note and like just kind of like going back and forth like am i really going to do this like how would i do this is this no good enough or as good as i can't as you go through the people in your life and one by one kind of say your goodbyes is that no it it really just turned into an overall

thing i started with family and friends i dedicated a paragraph to my dad specifically to diana and then everyone else and again in a kind of a self-shaming way i i i started that overall paragraph of everyone I wish I felt comfortable saying everyone else knows who they are when I say these things but I know that none of you do because I was so closed off and none of you know how much I actually care and love about you but just know that I do value and I love everyone that's in my life so I kept the very overall and try to explain why I'm doing this and why I hate myself so much basically and I wrote in the words or one of the lines was I know this isn't going to justify what I'm doing I'm just trying to help clear up any questions that you guys might

have for after this happens. And so I try to go into much detail about my the struggle I was having within myself and let my dad know how much I love him, how much I'm sorry to Diana for ruining what we had and then leaving some like directions for whatever I was going to be leaving behind and stuff. And so that was finished around a couple days before the 16th. And it was really just kind of sitting on the idea like if I'm going to do it, I can do it. Like I feel okay. with what I've prepared so just got to a point of like I think I kind of want to do this and so April 16th I'd woke up like a normal day like again just kind of contemplating if we're going to do it and like around in the afternoon I just kind

of realized like I've been kind of preparing to do this for a little bit and unfortunately it feels like it's time and so I had really originally planning to go do it somewhere else and drove to the spot that I was going to do it at and couldn't go through with it then and came home and where was that ended up it was just a construction site I was thinking about my family and friends throughout this whole process. And so, unfortunately, I thought it'd be better for a stranger to find me instead of my family member. And so I thought that would be less traumatizing. And so I was hoping to do it somewhere else, but I couldn't go through with it alone in my truck. And so I came back

into my house and did it on my couch around 8 p.m. a couple hours later. And then the hours after that, it gets wild, right? Because you, you're alive. Yeah. Never lose. Never lose consciousness. except for the time that I met I met to when I went to bed. So I pulled the trigger. I remember looking at the clock that I was looking at. And after I pulled the physical pain? Yeah, what's the pain? And so the first four, the first four hours, I didn't, I didn't feel pain.

I was in shock. I was in confusion. Like I said, I pulled the trigger. Blood? Yeah, yeah. It was a mess. I had a huge injury. Blood everywhere.

And again, I'm not feeling. anything. And at first, I didn't, there wasn't blood, like the first couple of seconds. So, like, I, like, I was looking to my left, pull the trigger, um, and was still looking at that. I was like, I remember hearing the noise, like, looking around, like, what just happened? Was it a blank round? Did I miss somehow? And then I meant, and then that's when I started noticing there was blood. So I was like, what the heck? Like, I was just expecting what I had seen in movies. And then, again, no pain. So then I was just sitting there for a couple minutes, like, what is going on? Um, and then realized I was making a mess. So I got off the

couch because one of the other crazy things about this is like the whole time I was thinking about my family and friends like let me get off this couch because maybe my family will be able to sell this couch and benefit from having money more money from this couch and so let me get off the couch let me go lay on the waterproof floor that I have and so I went there and again I was just waiting for the end for all this time and but again the level of confusion that was going on was insane because I wasn't feeling pain I wasn't dying and I was just sitting there waiting like what in the world could be happening. And so a couple hours went by. Um, I was making a significant mess. And so I went and took a shower to try to clean up. Oh, wow. Um, mouth washed.

You worry about like bleeding too much and having to go. I was just trying to not make it a mess. And like I said, because I changed my mind of being in a different place, I was worried about my family walking in and seeing a horrific scene and or a family or a friend or somebody. And so I was trying to clean up to make less blood, basically. be everywhere. But then again, this is like hours later. This is around midnight. And then I was like, okay, this is just not happening.

This is late in the night. Let me go lay in bed. And so I went to go, I remember before laying officially like hitting my head on the pillow, I was like, this is going to be it. So I just remember having a quick moment like this is, this is it. Like this will definitely be it. And then fell asleep, then woke up the next morning to the sun coming through the shades in my room.

Are you pouring a cup of coffee? And like, are you like, like, you're waking up in your story? looking up and that's when the pain hit so the next day is when the shock were often when i woke up it was the most like indescribable indescribable level of pain um so i woke up and the swelling hearing things shifting in my face um and the level of the amount of blood and pain was was out of control and so i was just laying there for a little bit um do you remember anything about that sleep did you wake up at all in the middle of the night i don't remember anything i just remember waking up around like it was it was like early in the morning um and i just remember the sun coming

through the shades is what woke me up. But yeah, then, I mean, to get even more crazy, like, around 9.30, like, I was just laying in bed in my master bedroom this whole time. I remember my phone going off around 9.9.30. Again, I just, I heard it, but I didn't think anything to go get or anything. I just remember recognizing it. And then, like, 20 minutes later, I hear a very loud banging happening in front of my house, like, outside. And I just remember, I just remember thinking, like, wow, that sounds, like, incredibly close to my house, like, in front of my driveway. later in the day i go get my phone and i see a text that that that noise was a text for my dad

and ask hey is it okay to come by to use your garage gym in 20 minutes my dad was on the property using my garage gym working out while all this was going on but my dad just being like a very respectful person like he didn't come in because i didn't respond but like which i'm happy he didn't because i'm happy he didn't walk in on that but he was there working out slamming the medicine ball um a couple hours later is when I move my way to my bathroom and take a second shower, come out and have a moment in the mirror and look at the damage and have a thought of like, man, I'm not going to be able to play baseball again. But that's when I caught myself thinking about the future and started questioning

do I want to actually die or do I want to live. And so the amount of pain was just, again, out of control this whole time. So I went and took some Tylenol. I was thinking about, but this is when things started shifting because I realized I was kind of doing things forward thinking, all along because I was drinking what you would do if you wanted to live I was drinking water to hydrate because I was thinking I lost a lot of blood let me drink water I took a Tylenol I bandaged up I cleaned off two separate times I mouthwashed at a certain time I caught myself thinking about baseball and so basically from like noon until four I was just contemplating if I want to try again to take myself out of my physical discomfort now or if I want to call for help because I need

I want to survive. And so around 3.30, I made my way out to the couch where I did it before and had the gun in my left hand and 911 dialed to my right hand and just stared at them for both like 15 minutes and they eventually chose life. And before I called 911, I flipped my phone to camera mode and took a picture of the moment that I chose life and then called 911. Dude, give me something. Fucking miracle.

That's unbelievable. I mean, and that's what I was. I'm blazing. like when I called them I said I attempted suicide I shot myself last night but I want to survive now they didn't believe that understandably so so they thought that some kind of ambush was happening so they sent a ton of cops to come be ready for an unfortunate situation they come in guns blazing come check the perimeter realized what I told him was true and then all the cop cam footage was all of them at least at one point had a conversation with another one saying like

dude, how is this guy? Like, yeah, all that blood's dry. Like, how is this guy still alive? He actually, he's telling the truth. And so there's a lot, something bigger at play here that. Yeah, that's my next question. I mean, I think, and, like, I want to move to the hope here because that's what's important for people to hear.

Like, I love you. I've said that a lot for sharing your story, for helping others. We share, like, a common mission on this planet, which I appreciate. And this question that I ask a lot of our guests is just where. what role of spirituality and God and the universe play in your life and in having that experience? Yeah, I mean, it's, again, I've shared that I'm not the most traditionally religious person, but I have a very trusting and honest relationship with God or the universe. At different times, I'll say thank you God.

Other times I'll say thank you, universe. And at times, I say honest because at times it's very frustrating, too, because those old habits have pushed me back into some suicidal ideation phases at times in my life afterwards and it feels very frustrating like why do you keep pushing me back into this and I think that's a very normal experience at times is like feeling mad at God or feeling mad with spirituality that why do we have a struggle in life but again I think I have a very trusting relationship because I have very strong evidence that there's something bigger at play because anatomically I was told plenty of times by surgeons and doctors and on paper.

It's very obvious. I probably shouldn't have made it through April 16th. And even before that, there was some signs of my life. Maybe it should have been here. I mean, I was a miracle of miracle baby being born. I was a twin at one point that survived out of the twin. And before that, wasn't even supposed to be a third child in our family. So you were a twin.

There's a couple of instances in my life that God just keeps reminding me that I'm You're meant to be here. You're meant to be here. Where's the gun now? Actually, my brother has it. So the police, they took the suicide note, the gun, and the bullet, and I have the bullet and my note still as a keepsake. And then they were able to pass the gun over to my brother, who my brother is, he has a lot of guns. He's a person that, yeah, he's. Fun fact, I've never shot a gun in my life. 41 years old, never, never shot a guy. Me either. Yeah.

Yeah. See, Sir Owen, but yeah, like my brother, he lives in Texas. He has, he's, he hunts regularly, and he believes in self-protection like that. And so he's someone that they felt they could pass over it because it was going to be destroyed. And so, so Drew, I'm thinking two things. Like, how long is the recovery and do they, do they commit you to some type of psych hospital? Like, do they, what is that? I was in ICU for about 10.

to 11 days. I was in like a regular hospital room for two or three days after that, and then I went to a psych hospital for five days after that. And again, another kind of ripple within this story is that this was all during COVID. So I wasn't able to be visited in person by my family, which was, there was a lot of challenges within this, but more for my family was, it was really hard and spent a lot of time trying to reassure them. And I mean, the phone bill had to be out of control if that was still a thing with the hospital i was i lived on the phone calling my my family and friends um for those days communicating to them that you want to be alive yeah and reassuring them i'm going to be doing the work when i get out of here um i'm

i have nothing to hide now i'm sorry i did this telling it's part of that they're they're not to blame like not they're not to blame that was the most consistent message was right that was the most reassuring the most amount of time i spent reassuring was that this is nobody's fault this was nobody's fault like even if there was something that happened it's still not your fault like it's there's things in life that I just I didn't have the willingness to address or process in a healthy way and so were you close with your brother your older brother throughout your whole life leading I mean did you have your brother and also did you have any like best friends or people that knew you the most even if you were still sort of protecting what you were

protecting growing up and into this period did you have like close male relationships Yeah, my family and I were not the most communicated. Like, we all love each other, but we all had our own normal family baggage and separateness, our separation at times. And so my family, we weren't the most dialoged group. But I was blessed with a very solid group of friends from high school that I'm still very close with. So I had them and then my group of teammates that I played with most of my career, or even if it was short, like we were all very close. And so I was fortunate, again, I'm another example of how not everything, everything always goes one way and so like even though I had that that's not that wasn't something

I was utilizing in a way that was helpful because I was ashamed but I had everything that I needed at my disposal and I know that's not the case for everybody but that's again it doesn't that doesn't mean that it changes anything necessarily and so right that's my regret obviously I spent a lot time on processing guilt of regret and whatnot but I feel like I regret not asking for help or not sharing with those groups of people more than the actual attempt because I don't think the attempt would have happened if I would have shared with them in a regretful way. That's huge. It's just the regret.

I hope you. I'll pray that that lifts because I don't think you have anything to regret. We have like five, ten minutes, so I want to kind of boogie down to some of the more important stuff here, which is one, a documentary came out, E60 did this incredible piece, which was a step forward from, you know, I'm sure you're, you're, you're, you're, you're story had been publicized, but that put a big megaphone on the Drew Robinson story. And can you tell us just what you've been able to do with that, what you are doing today, how you are advocating for mental health, how you are focused on suicide prevention and

really just like, you know, give us the good stuff, man. Give us the hope. Yeah, I mean, I was able to, again, take the same platform that I could have had before my attempt and take advantage of that to share, try to help people. And my quote that I by is just trying to heal loudly to prevent others from dying silently. Trying to heal loudly to prevent others from dying quietly. Sightly. So, yeah, that's just what I've been trying to do because I've realized that we're all a lot more like than we realize whether male, female, successful, not successful, young, old, doesn't matter. Like, I've had so many interactions with all kinds of different people.

And the constant theme is I just, we're all so much more like. We're all feeling the same chemical reactions on different levels from different extracial. general circumstances. So the person that we see on the side of the road, their body is creating the feeling of worry the same way that Jeff Bezos's body's feeling, but his is coming from the entire company depending on him. His is coming from where his meal is coming from. But if you take the context aside on the human level, they're both feeling the emotion of worry. So again, at the conceptual chemical level, we're all a lot more like them to realize. So if we can just offer more empathy, stop comparing our struggles, and just be willing to be there for one another,

because at any given moment, some of it might be on their metaphorical cliff, and the last thing they might need is a push. And so, yeah, I'm on a mission to try to help people not do what I did, basically, and because I'm a perfect example of even having a lot of the things that I might have wanted as a kid, it didn't mean that I could just success my way or achieve my way out of depression and self-hatred. And so being willing to do the work and make it cool, make it something that is life-saving or just more stable in life, the same way than any kind of achievement, realistic things do for that we think we'll do in our life. Um, and I've just been

able to fall into places and be a part of an amazing organization that was willing to give me an opportunity to make a comeback after all my, talk about my physical healing. You're a giant. They have a full-time position. You're the. Yeah. So this all happened when I was when I was, I'm okay. Okay. This all happened while I was playing for the San Francisco Giants. Um, and so during my emotional and physical healing, they, they supported me through that. And then once I started kind of stumbling in, to making a comeback with one eye they were open enough to let me come try out and I was able to make the triple A team and play a season after everything it happened with one eye with one eye

um what is that like living with one eye yeah I mean now it's the one eye season did you like were you able to I wasn't very good statistically it didn't go great but I'm a I'm a I may be a little stubborn here but I unfortunately made a very big swing adjustment while I also was making, trying to make it come back with one eye and I, we'll never know, but I'm on the belief that that mechanical adjustment was a little bit more contributing to the lack of success more than the one eye because I eventually got to a place where visually I feel exactly the same. And something that my, one of my doctors informed me was that death perception only comes into play within arm's length. And so everything outside of that, whether I have one eye or two eyes,

like we went golfing and we were told to guess how far the way the pin was. We would be pretty similar in our guess. And since sports happen so quickly, I have to make my judgment before everything becomes within arm's length. So once I got, there was like a 10-month period of just adjusting to my new vision with one eye. But visually, things felt somewhat normal. But yeah, made a comeback. I played AAA was still, I felt a pretty good defender, hit a couple home runs with one eye and hit a home run in my fourth game back, which was in Vegas, right down the street from my house, which was something that I reflect on very often. then. But then when that season kind of came to an end, the Giants offered to bring me back

as a mental health advocate, a newly created role to act as a bridge between our players and our mental health professionals. Did you decide to stop playing, or that was just kind of something they came to the table with? I decided. Like I said, I wasn't doing very well. I wasn't playing very often. And I actually was like tentatively planning on asking for my release to then start schooling to at that time jokingly. It was like, I'm going to become the LeBron James or Michael Jordan of therapists. But they were like, hey, before you do that, would you be willing to stay on and do? Kind of like, because at that time, my story was public.

And so a lot of the guys were asking me just curious questions about my story, my healing. They were feeling just encouraged from those conversations to take advantage of our clinical psychologists. Have you been bullied it all around it? Have people made fun of it? Yeah, of course, on social media. People claim stuff at times, a little bit inappropriate. But for the most part, I feel like I'm also in a pretty rare space where, I get a lot of great, a lot of, yeah, a lot of love, a lot of reminders to keep going.

But yeah, the conversation with the guys, they were feeling encouraged to go to start meeting with our sports psychologists. And so that was just kind of happening naturally at our AAA level because those are my teammates. And so when I said I was going to be walking away, they asked if I'd be willing to take on this mental health advocate role and see if I could do that for the whole organization. And so I act as a bridge or a translator for a mental health world for the boys. And then now it's kind of turned into a hybrid role where I help out with coaching at times, too, since I did learn some stuff playing for 12 years.

Yeah, you say you have some knowledge there, you know, being a professional athlete and playing at the highest level. What's your new quote? I know the old shirt was... Yeah, our big hit was strength isn't always physical. Strength isn't always physical. I think applies. It just hits hard for anybody who gets it. The more you read it, the more you realize it.

And then the other one that I always end all of my talks with is people would rather hear from you than about you. And so this year we're going to be making some shirts that say we'd rather hear from you than about you. And so that's a strong message too. That's one that contributes to some of my regret feelings at times. I try not to, but I think that's, I don't want to, should it, could, it would kind of thing. But I think if I would have came across that quote before, I think I would have thought about it a little bit differently where no matter how irrational and dramatic or crazy I feel like I'm feeling, I think my dad would have rather heard about all. those irrational, crazy thoughts more than hearing about what happened. So anybody is listening, like, no matter how intense your feelings are, I can tell you that they all come to an end at some

point, or there's ways to deal with them in a more healthy, sustainable way. And at the end of day, people would rather hear from you than about you. Yeah, I want to leave. I just want to leave, because I don't know where you're going to go. I apologize today. But I want to, I want to stay on some of the solution here, which is, which is you answered a question in the room earlier. You spoke for us at this conference, which I'm so grateful for, and you blew everyone away and someone asked basically what to do if someone is struggling and you answered this question in a way that I thought was was unbelievable it was to ask another question which is what how much is enough or you you put it oh he's talking about the idea of worthiness and feeling like

enough and yeah it's what to do in those moments that you don't feel like enough and I I challenge myself this at times or I'll bring it out to the to the guys that are people I'm willing to work with are able to work with is just like, hypothetically, if you can imagine what is enough, where does it end? And the idea is that if you keep on thinking of what you don't have, it'll never end. And that line will continuously move.

And so I talk about the idea of like myself, if I would have kept on getting everything I wanted, it just would have kept on moving. So I got to the big leagues, my lifelong dream. I didn't really get to enjoy it because it automatically jumped to wanting to be an everyday baseball, everyday major league baseball player, have a starting position.

And then I probably would have wanted to be an all star. then MVP, then World Series champion, then Hall of Famer, that line was just kept on moving. And so asking, understanding, like, if we need something else to make ourselves worthy, we will continuously be chasing something that in the end will make us realize we're going to feel empty. And I can attest to that, too. I've been able to obtain some things that I really enjoy, but I've experienced that they don't change the way I feel about myself. And so doing the work and doing the things that fill our cup in a more sustainable, healthy way is always,

a way more fulfilling and um i'm cracking the book out i'm not to write on this one because i'm like i'm feeling all kinds of stuff with that with that question um we just experience all these things we don't obtain them right so it's like we just experience pleasure we experience materialistic things we experience good scenarios in our life but what we really obtain is the memories and so like if we can use those kind of things to be our identity and our worth instead of the things that we're actually chasing we'll find a lot more peace and i promise it'll make those things feel even sweet in the end because you know you did it the right way and you have less questions that answer when you get the things that you wanted so I just think of identity

of things being the things that can't be taken from you so all the titles and professional baseball player that I experienced all the materialistic things those can all be taken from your loss at some point but no one will ever be able to take away the way I showed up the way that I treated somebody those are my identities and those are the things that I can live with in a much more fulfilled way rather than that doesn't mean I don't like those other things I'm not saying so it's one way or the other it's it's it's having having the, I don't know, the perspective on things in a little bit more sustainable way rather than falling to the trap of destination happiness.

Yeah, before I thank you, I just, yeah, Jay. Yeah, well, we talk about that in terms of, like, you know, living in the fourth dimension of reality. Like, the three dimension is things, you know, money, people, places, and the fourth dimension is, like, the spiritual, like, having that broader perspective. But the thing I just wanted to ask you is today, if you find yourself not feeling or, you know, struggling, you know, are there practical, you know, things, you know, that you cook together and say, this is what I need to be doing to address and support my mental health. Sometimes. Yeah. I mean, I definitely have a lot more no betters, but I don't always do better at times. So my awareness has grown exponentially the last couple years, but sometimes my action doesn't follow up all the time. But yeah, I mean, I'm a big believer

in journaling, meditation, exercise therapy. I think I word therapy, journaling, and exercises is my trifecta like those are the three things I if when I'm doing those most consistently that's when it's not so coincidental that I'm at my best usually emotionally and mentally but yeah I have a lot of a lot of awareness that like there's things that may be starting to tip one way maybe not such a good way or I'm getting a little bit too so critical at times and I'll lean into some of those trifecta things or lean in some of those connection things whether it being like having conversations like I did when I was in the hospital and

Or just honestly practicing what I preach with, which is pretty much as vulnerability. There's times where I feel incredibly weak and I still try to tough it out. Again, the disproportionate action sometimes come into play where it's like, okay, the appropriate time to tough it out ended like a couple weeks ago. Like it's time to just be honest and be like I and share the fact that I'm getting to a place that's not so so healthy right now. And it's the grinded out phase wasn't helpful anymore. So just paying attention and thinking back. to some of the lessons that I've learned and taking advantage of my fruits and my labor these last five years of all the stuff I've been willing to do.

Yeah, I think the first thing I want to say before I wish you off is if you're listening to this episode and you've had someone who, if you've had suicidal ideation, if you've had thoughts of not being here, you're not alone, you can reach out to me, you can reach out to us, you can reach out to the show, like there's resources available, and if you've lost someone, by suicide like you know and you've listened to this episode and it feels like a lot we are here for you and we love you drew robinson i'm going to shine a light on you as much as i can dude thank you so much for being here thank you really just a legend thank you thank you so much