How have Rachel McMahon's athletic experiences led her to co-found a startup company with the mission of changing the mental game for athletes?
Finding purpose in your experiences can be critical to life after sport. However, those that find purpose beyond athletics often move on to leverage their competitiveness and drive to build successful professional lives.
My guest on this episode, Rachel McMahon, was a walk-on track athlete at Brown University.
In Episode 21, Rachel discusses how her own mental health challenges and her experiences while running at Brown for four years led her to co-founding Galea Health, which holds the mission of connecting athletes with tailored mental health care.
Rachel talks about how being a walk-on allowed her to maintain a growth mindset throughout college and how her interactions with fellow athletes at Brown led to what is now a burgeoning early stage mental health company.
My suggestion to young athletes is to think about their values and what is important to them outside of sport. Maintaining perspective on the importance of athletics in our lives can help us optimize performance and more importantly, maintain our mental health.
Mike: Hey everybody, it's Mike Huber, Founder and CEO of The Freshman Foundation. You're listening to The Freshman Foundation podcast, a podcast specifically about the transition from high school to college athletics. My guest on this episode is Rachel McMahon. Rachel is a co-founder and COO of Galea Health, a platform dedicated to connecting athletes with tailored mental health care. Galea is on a mission to change the mental game for athletes.
Rachel walked on to the Brown University track and field team as a freshman and ultimately became co-captain of the team as a senior. Rachel's own mental health challenges inspired her to seek out ways to support athletes and destigmatize mental health. Please welcome Rachel to the podcast. Rachel, how are you today?
[00:00:45]Rachel: Good. Thanks so much for that intro, Mike. How are you doing?
Mike: I'm doing good. It's great to have you here. If you want to just get started, if you want to just give everybody who's listening, a little bit of background on who you are and what you do. I'm sure my intro didn't do you justice.
[00:01:02]Rachel: Awesome, yes. I grew up in New York City. I've been a lifelong athlete, loved sports from a really early age. I mainly played volleyball, basketball, and ran track and field. Volleyball became my first passion. I joined the club team when I was in seventh grade. My mom's super tall, my whole family's really tall, I have big hands and big feet, thought I was going to be 5'10", turned out to be not even close, so my volleyball dreams were dashed a little bit early on.
Alongside volleyball, I'd been doing track and field and because there's so many plyometrics in volleyball, I was a pretty good long jumper and high jumper, so I knew I wanted to continue on with athletics in college. Applied to a few different schools and ended up at Brown. Was super excited and had talked to the coach and so I walked-on the team as a long jumper. Wasn't really sure what my path would be on the track team, but knew I'd get a chance to play. Whereas with volleyball, I didn't have that kind of guarantee.
I had an amazing four years there and was lucky enough to be a captain my senior year. That's my athletic journey. Now I'm still working in the athletes' space. With a couple of other Brown grads, I co-founded Galea Health, which you gave a perfect summary of before.
Mike: Thanks. We'll definitely get to, I want to know more about the genesis of the company, how you got into it and how you are building it now. I just wanted to ask you, we've talked a little bit before we recorded, about your background. You chose to walk-on at Brown as a track athlete, even though volleyball was your first passion. Can you just talk a little bit more about that path from walking-on as a freshman to when you became a co-captain as a senior?
[00:03:00]Rachel: Yes, absolutely. I'll talk a little bit about that initial decision to do track over volleyball. I absolutely love volleyball, but when I was thinking about college, I wanted to take a step back and think, "Okay, what do I want out of this whole experience? Not just athletics, but what type of friends do I want to make? What type of schedule do I want to be able to have? What do I want my relationship with sport to be?" With track, I felt like it was something that was unchartered territory for me in some ways.
I went to a small high school in New York that didn't have a super extensive track program so I felt like I had a lot more room to grow when it came to track. I knew I would be able to compete, and I knew there was a team of over 100 people and a coed team at that. I was just really excited about the possibility of meeting so many people, having a community right away on campus, and knowing that I had a lot to learn and a lot to improve upon.
I think in some ways, and we can talk more about this later, but that curiosity about track ended up being something that really helped me throughout my four years, because instead of kind of approaching it as this is "Who I am, I'm this amazing track star or a volleyball player." I thought, "This is something new and something really exciting. I know I'm not going to be the rock star on the team the second I step on the track," but that was really exciting to me, and really, I think that looseness and curiosity is what actually allowed me to improve as much as I did.
Mike: Yes. It's sort of textbook sports psychology, in terms of understanding the way we are internally motivated. When we're curious about something or we want to get better at it, it tends to be much more sustainable. Whereas if we have this impression that we've made it, so to speak, that maybe we aren't going to work as hard or maybe when things don't come as easily, we shut down and so I'm always impressed by that in any athlete, regardless of age or sport.
I think the other thing that stands out in what you just said was, you really were searching for a fit, and a holistic fit for college. I'm curious, I hadn't really thought about this in preparing, but one of the things I hear a lot from the athletes I work with who're high school going into college is the influence of social media, and the influence of social pressure in choosing a college. The idea that choosing the biggest name or the most, highest prestige name in a university, is what's most important. Did you have any of that influence in your choice?
[00:05:39]Rachel: Yes. I think I definitely did. I think for me, the high school I went to was very academically intense and very competitive in an academic sense, but not so much in an athletic sense. I knew that I wanted athletics to be a big part of my life, but one, wasn't quite the caliber athlete to go to a really high profile Division 1 athletic program. Two, wanted a little bit more of a balance so I was really looking at smaller schools and D3 schools.
I think when it came to social media, I had actually a few friends who had gone to Brown, so I had some familiarity with the school, and they had really positive relationships with it. I tried to kind of keep my decision as removed as possible from the rumors I had heard about the school, and the perceptions I'd seen online about the school, because I knew that wouldn't really ring true to my actual experience.
The biggest thing for me was just having the opportunity to go to the campus to really talk to a bunch of other people on the team, to talk to other athletes. I think I definitely had some biases going in when I was looking at different schools and like, "Oh, this school's supposed to be super liberal or super this or super that." but for me, I felt like I had to actually do the research on the ground and talk to people. I don't know if that answers your question, but I think I was influenced by social media, but made a really kind of concerted effort to try and actually talk to people and not go with what I had heard about the school.
Mike: Yes. I think that makes sense. It's only natural. I think all of us, regardless of age or gender, there's ego involved in these decisions to a certain extent, and prestige matters. You're also thinking about, "Well, when I'm done with college, I'm probably going to go out into the world and get a job or do whatever people normally do, and having a prestigious name on my resume is going to help." There's some element of that in every choice, whether it's academically driven, or whether it's athletically driven, that's going to influence, but I think having the awareness to know that, "Hey, I know this is an issue but I don't want it to drive the decision." is really a thoughtful way to address it.
I think I mentioned this to you before, but I've talked to a lot of people who've played college sports, at different places, different levels, different sports, all those things. Most of them are or have been recruited athletes or scholarship athletes. You were a walk-on, how did the recruitment process work for you as a walk-on?
[00:08:27]Rachel: That's a great question. There's part of me that envies the people that were heavily recruited. I applied early to Brown, and then got deferred, and I was so bummed because some of my athlete friends and friends who'd gotten in early, had their whole thing set up and they were really excited. They only had to apply to one college. Then, after Brown early decision didn't pan out for me, I scrambled to do 15 other applications to different schools.
My hope was to get recruited for volleyball but when that didn't happen, I got a few letters for track because I think track is one of the easier sports to recruit for, because it's so just, "Alright, did you make the mark or not?" so I was in the ballpark, but just under where I needed to be. As a long jumper, I think I jumped 17'10" and you really need to be jumping 18' to be in the Ivy League recruitment mix. It might even be more competitive now.
What happened for me is I ended up getting into Brown, regular decision, and I was choosing between a few colleges but knew I really wanted to go to Brown but still had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and now, I was like, "You know what, I'm going to try and look at different schools and see if maybe Brown wasn't the right fit for me." but still ended up loving it. I sent an email to the coach basically saying, "I'm really interested in going to Brown, what are the chances that I could be on the track team?"
My track coach at the time also sent an email, I think probably vouching for me. He said, "Yes, absolutely. We'd love to have you on the team. Come and talk to me the first day of school and we'll get things figured out." I didn't really have a tryout process, I think, again, with any other sport, I would have, but with track, it's just a little bit clearer if you're in the range. I think if I hadn't been able to make practices work, and hadn't been able to put in the work, then, I wouldn't have been able to stay on the team, but there was no formal tryout for me.
One of the most profound memories I have about joining the track team is the first day I got on campus and I went to meet with the Brown jumps coach, Coach Ken and he said to me, "From this moment on, you're not a walk-on, you're a member of the team. We're not going to treat you any differently and I don't want you to think of yourself any differently. You're on this team now, you're at the same level as everyone else. Let's see what you can do." I think I also just lucked out with having an amazing coach who was willing to believe in me and challenge me to step up from day one.
I know other walk-ons, it's a little bit more of a struggle of I got to prove myself, which I still felt, but just to be on the team, but I think I felt both welcomed and challenged from the get go, which was the perfect combination for me.
Mike: I think one of the things I hear almost universally, is that relationship with the coaches, the coaching staff is really critical. In terms of, do you feel like they have your back? Do you feel like they're being honest with you? Do you fit? "Do I fit into all this? Is their philosophy aligned with who I am as a person?" because it can be a struggle if that's not the case. It sounds like you had that support from day one, which I'm sure motivated you to even work harder than maybe you even would have, because you knew this person was going to invest in you as a member of the team, as an equal versus, "Hey, that is the walk-on, we'll just humor her and let her grind it out.
[00:12:19]Rachel: Right. Yes, absolutely. I had heard so many good things about him too, and from talking to other people on the team, pretty much just heard rave reviews about Coach Ken, so I was really excited about working with him as well. I also had never, because my high school was small and not super athletically-focused, I'd never actually had a jumps coach before, so I was really excited about what is technique for long jump? I didn't even really know that was a thing. I just felt like I had so much to learn, but still appreciated that sense of welcome and sense of inclusivity right from the start.
Mike: Right. Absolutely, but you make a great point because you were competing in high school, probably on sheer physical ability, athletic ability. Whereas you weren't being coached on the nuance of something that's really, really technical, and then all of a sudden, you're this, pardon the metaphor, piece of clay. Where the coach is like, "She's right on the edge of where we would want her to be anyway. Oh, and by the way, she's never really been coached up in a way." so then, there's all this runway for you to come in and get all these new levels of skill added to your repertoire, to the point where it sounds like you're obviously competing as a senior, you're probably, I'm guessing, much better than you were four years earlier.
[00:13:40]Rachel: Yes. One of my crowning achievements is that I also got the most improved award as a senior. That was a highlight for me over the course of four years. I really did have a steady improvement trajectory. Touching on that same point you made, I think it was actually a huge benefit to me to come in, in some regards, underprepared.
I think seeing that as an asset was again, something that was really, really helpful, because I think, one, there's just the humility of being like, "Alright, I got to work as hard as I can, and impress the coach, impress the team." but then two, there were other women on the team who were incredible athletes, and much better jumpers than I was, but because they had already been heavily coached, they had to relearn some of their skills, which they ended up doing an amazing job of. I didn't have to do that relearning as much because I really just had no technique at all.
I think, again, that was a place where I could have seen it as, "Wow, all of these people came from really legit programs or have an awesome training, but ended up feeling like, "Okay, now, I don't know anything. I don't have as many ingrained bad habits." I think that was a strange blessing, but in retrospect, I'm glad that I came in so new.
Mike: Yes, and I think the reality of it is, in any sport now, there's so much competition, there's so much training for young athletes who are training all year round, they're competing all year round. The element of burnout is very real. For you, it doesn't sound like you were so invested in track and field. Before college, it was part of your athletic life, but it was not primarily that. You probably didn't have the same tread on the tire in terms of just grinding out years and years, and meets, and all the training. Whereas for some people, get into college, you've been doing this for all these years, and putting in all that work, it might be really hard, especially when you have to relearn some stuff, when you think, "Oh, I already know it."
[00:16:02]Rachel: Right, completely. One thing that my coach really emphasized was, he'd say, "Be an athlete. Don't be a long jumper, don't be a track star, just be an athlete." I think that's something that it's often easy to lose sight of, especially in track, which can be so technical. It's that, okay no, you're just still trying to learn, you're trying to train your body to do new things, that it's not just going through the motions. It's just actually being an athlete, jumping, and then doing things that should feel natural, but sometimes becomes so complex that we lose sight of the fact that this is an athletic feat, not a super technical skill.
Mike: Right. You've talked about that, you've made reference to that, I think a couple times in terms of the perspective. Looking at something as an asset versus a liability. Looking at it as an opportunity, which I think a lot of athletes don't frankly have that perspective. They look at it as like, "Oh, I have a deficiency, and there's something wrong with me, and I've got to fix it." versus "Oh wow, there's this clean slate in front of me, I'm going to go after it and get it." I think that's really important.
Was there ever a time in your athletic career, whether it was volleyball, track, whatever, where maybe you had some of that kind of thinking about like that you're self critical or you're hard on yourself? Can you talk about that at all?
[00:17:21]Rachel: Yes, absolutely. I think especially with volleyball, I had that my sophomore and junior year when I was hoping to be recruited and just had become so tense about the whole process, and was feeling a little bit of burnout, and was just approaching it with so much stress and so much perfectionism, that I was losing the kind of just intuition, and responding to how people are playing. Just trying to perfect every move I was doing and ended up just playing much more tense, and lost the love for the sport.
Versus with tracks, the curiosity and openness, which I have my ups and downs of track, for sure, but then, with long jump, it's such a mental game too, because you have to run as hard as you can, but not step over the line. It's very much a mental game, but my coach again, was very much about "Trust the process and I'll worry about getting you on the board. I'll worry about some of those things, and you just go out there and be that athlete." That's what he would always say and I think is something that I still think about, but in different ways in my life.
Mike: It's really sound coaching when you can get an athlete to just focus on what they can control and take that burden off of them, of delivering a specific result and just say, "Hey, go be yourself. Go be an athlete. Go have fun, whatever it is." and not make it about, "Well, you have to do this or else." then, you can focus on just putting in that effort and keeping a good attitude, and keeping your focus where it needs to be. That's really cool. Shout out to Coach Ken, new friend of the show.
I'm just curious, with volleyball you said sophomore, and junior year with volleyball, you were a little bit tense or maybe uneasy about the recruiting process. Did you play volleyball as a senior?
[00:19:21]Rachel: I played on my high school team, but I stopped playing club my senior year. Yes, so I really got fully burnt out. Also, it really was quite a lot to try and do three seasons high school and then also club. I'm sure so many athletes on the show do that too, but it's really a lot. It's a lot of them. I don't think there's quite as much wiggle room as there is in college in terms of schedule and, and things like that, so I was really underslept and not at my peak performance in high school.
Mike: It's not something that I will dwell on, but I do think it's an important point in that I do see with athletes, overtraining being an issue. Not only physically like there's just not enough recovery built into the system, but it's mentally. You're not able to give yourself a break. I have a lot of athletes who tell me like, "If I don't do this or if I don't train three times a day, someone's going to get an edge on me." and they can't wrap their head around, "Hey, I just need to give myself, my body a break, my mind a break, and step away from it. This is not the only thing going on in my life, and frankly, I'm taking away from my performance by overdoing it and training."
I think that's just something that it seems commonsensical, but when you're in it, it's really hard to break away from.
[00:20:46]Rachel: Completely. Yes, I think that's really true. I've never really thought about how helpful it probably was to take the load off my senior year, but I think I came in freshman year, feeling pretty fresh and pretty ready to go. I think again, one of the benefits of not having done a ton of track in high school is I was able to avoid some injuries that I think I might have gotten, because track is such a overuse injury sport.
Yes, I think the way we think of what it means to be prepared, needs to be revised a little bit, because I think the best preparation I could do, and this sounds a little bit cheesy, but was just to go in with an open mind and with a sound work ethic. I think probably what I thought at the time was "Oh man, I should be running 400s, I should be coming in in really intense shape." I remember thinking that the summer before freshman year, like "I'm just going to be dusted and all of the workouts." but I was just burned out from high school and needed a break, so I took it even though my anxious mind was saying "You should be preparing. You should be preparing."
I think paradoxically, the best preparation I had was rest, and not feeling like I had to prepare everything.
Mike: I think that's really important. I think it's really important and it's one of the struggles as a mental performance coach, is trying to persuade people that more physical investment is not necessarily going to give you the same return. That investing in mental preparation is maybe a better alternative, or at least at times, supplementing and taking some physical away and putting in some mental, so that you're preparing yourself.
I think the lack of the tangible result in a mental training program a lot of times, is what people just question and say, like, "Hey, what am I going to get out of this? How do I know this is going to be worth it? Whereas if I train, I can say I did it, and I know it's going to change my body, it's going to change my time." It doesn't always work that way, but that's what people assume and so it is really tricky.
I have to imagine that all of that put together, to transition a bit, all of those experiences are what led you into the Galea founding venture of the business. Can you talk about how you got together with your co-founders? Is everybody Brown or most of the people?
[00:23:22]Rachel: Three of the four. Yes. There definitely was a direct correlation from my athletic experience to founding Galea. It really happened my senior year. I was in class with Braedan who's the CEO, and he has an also really powerful story. He grew up in Canada playing hockey, and then suffered a series of traumatic brain injuries that ended his hockey career right before he headed into Brown.
He was recruited and coming in as a freshman and then year before, his career ended and he ended up having serious concussion symptoms for the next three, four years. Took a medical year, really went through the wringer but still was super passionate about athletics, and had felt during his experience, there wasn't really anywhere to turn from an emotional support perspective. I think especially in hockey, which is really about toughness and things like that, it was tricky to find support.
I had a somewhat similar experience. I struggled with some anxiety and depression in high school, leading into college. For me, my relationship with sport was a key mental health outlet and coping mechanism for me. I had a less fraught relationship with sport, but was very passionate about both mental health and athletics. As a senior on the team, and one of the co-captains, was starting to figure out "Okay, how do I play a support role for my teammates? How do I recognize what they're going through and how do I balance wanting to hold teammates accountable and wanting to create space for mental health and self care and things like that?"
I started talking with Braedan about what we felt like was a gap in mental health support for athletes. People I talked to, campus counselors, but they didn't really understand the nuances of the athlete experience, so we thought, "Why isn't there one hub that people can go to, to connect with mental health support from professionals who really understand the athlete experience? Who either have sports psych degrees, or were athletes themselves at the high school, collegiate or professional level."
We took a class together that was about entrepreneurship and innovation, and we started brainstorming and coming up with this idea in this class, and then did a bunch of research on our own time. Applied for a grant from Brown and got a grant to get the website going. Then honestly, we took a bit of a break. We had the summer and then, Braedan started work in consulting and I actually moved to Kenya for what was going to be a year at the time, and then COVID struck, and we regrouped and got back into it.
Then, we actually posted an internship at Brown, and Annie, who is one of our other co-founders, applied for the internship. She was a gymnast who had also had some mental health struggles, and she joined us an intern, and then it was just so awesome that we tried to keep her around, so she joined as a co-founder after that. Our fourth co-founder, Ben, who's our tech guy, Braedan connected with him, he's consulting at Bain. They connected at Bain and Ben grew up in Canada, was a boxer, and also had that athlete connection.
It's a winding story, but that's how we all got together. It's the shared experience of some sort of struggle and a passion for sports.
Mike: Yes. I think it's great. Obviously, being in the field, I have a similar experience myself in terms of some of the things I've been through on my own, and how that's inspired me and led me to where this is. I think one of the things that's really important is, is that there are, like you made reference to the fact that there are many different types of providers out there. There's the clinicians with the PhDs, and the psychiatrists who are doctors, and then there's the mental performance coaches, like myself, but there's other people out there who are trained differently, and that isn't necessarily good or bad.
It's really about finding the right fit for you and I think ultimately, for me anyway, the message is helping people find a way to ask for help, and make the easiest possible path to, "I think I need someone to help me." and it's okay to do that. Then, you come together with the idea, you got the group, you guys sound like it's a really well formed team in terms of experiences. Take me one step further, what does the platform look like? Or what do you want it to be? What's your vision for what this becomes?
[00:28:21]Rachel: Honestly, we started out with a loose idea of "Alright, there needs to be better mental health support in the athlete community." We pretty much cold-emailed a bunch of therapists who had a sports psych background, or looked like they worked with athletes, and just tried to get a read on what their opinions were, what was going on in the athlete mental health space.
We started to think about athlete mental strength, mental health as a continuum from mental health to mental performance. We were grappling with this the whole time because we love the toughness, and the resiliency, and the mental strength we learned from sports, and we didn't want to lose the "No, this is still amazing and sports are awesome." We're not trying to say, "Oh, sports hurt your mental health." but it's about the relationship you have with sports, relationship you have with your mental health.
We saw it as this continuum between mental performance and mental health and we talked to a number of providers who said, "Oh, I'm a sports psychologist, but I actually don't really work on issues like depression, I work on issues like motivation, or issues like performance anxiety, but not clinical anxiety, but if you're just really nervous about a meet you have coming up." We started to tease out the differences between mental health providers and the performance providers, and the people that do both or do things that are in-between.
What the platform is right now is, mental health providers are licensed by state, which we learned later on in the process, so we have mental health providers in five different states. We've launched in York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and California. Those are people that have athlete experience and also have a license either in social work degree or a licensed degree in supporting mental health. What we really thought was important was people who had been athletes. People who understood the athlete experience.
We're launched in five states there, our goal is to launch in all 50 states. Braedan and Ben are Canadians, so we'll head up north as well. Really just become the go-to place for athletes to log on, find a therapist that actually gets the athlete experience, or find a mental performance coach who maybe has direct experience, and they can filter, "Oh, I want someone who's worked with figure skating." and then you'll find someone that's worked with figure skating, things like that. That's the vision right now.
Our long term thing that we would love to have happen, would be to be paneled with insurance and to have some universities or some leagues actually cover the service for their athletes, because we know that stigma is a big thing, but also, affordability is just a massive challenge for mental health, mental performance.
Mike: I would say the afford-- Well, I wouldn't say it's the biggest, but it is a huge barrier to entry, because there's so many different types of athletes from so many different types of-- [phone rings] Oh my goodness, that's the first time that's ever happened to me. We'll just keep going. There's so many different types of athletes from so many socio-economic backgrounds. [phone rings] Oh, my goodness, please stop. I should have shut my phone off. This is like, literally the first time this has ever happened, but I guess there's a first time for everything.
The accessibility part of it, and most of the people that are in this field, especially if you don't take insurance, but even if you do, people don't have insurance that covers this type of service, so the affordability piece of it and finding different providers that fit or getting someone to sponsor or subsidize it so that there's accessibility, somebody with the quote unquote, deeper pockets, but also has the same interest, the same motivation as you do. I think there's a lot of different ways to skin that cat, and there's a lot of ground to cover.
Is there any educational component to what you're doing? In terms of really trying to help educate people about the benefits of mental health. What it is that athletes could really benefit from? Is there any educational part to what you're doing?
[00:32:50]Rachel: Yes, that's a great question and raises this bigger issue that we're trying to tackle, which is that athletes experience mental health challenges at the same rate, or in some cases with challenges like OCD or eating disorders, higher rates than non-athletes, but they seek out mental health support way less often than non-athletes.
I definitely was slow to seeking support in my own journey, because I think I did internalize a lot of that, "No, I'm tough. I don't need support." things like that. I think that education around mental health and that asking for support isn't a sign of weakness, and vulnerability is not weakness, that can just be a different kind of strength is something that we've been thinking a lot about in terms of how to share that message.
We've built out resources, blog resources on the website. On our Instagram, we share different posts whether it's about the prevalence of OCD and athletes or eating disorders or whatever it might be, because there's actually a lot of specific mental health challenges that athletes face that people don't realize there's higher prevalence rates of OCD in athletes unless maybe they have OCD, or they knew someone that had experienced OCD.
We're working on continuing to put out blogs that dissect specific mental health challenges in the athlete community, and also just putting out more athletes’ stories and resources that help destigmatize mental health in a community that's so committed in a wonderful way, but also a challenging way, to toughness and resiliency.
One other thing that we're really hoping to do down the line is to start creating more support resources for people around athletes, so parents, friends, girlfriends, whatever it might be, because I think, talking with some of my peers who were intense athletes and struggled with eating disorders, they say actually, the biggest thing would have been, in addition to the therapy, which was amazing, would have been if my parents had some course they could have taken that would say, "Here's how to support your daughter who's an elite figure skater, but also struggling with an eating disorder." In the longer run, building up that community support.
Mike: I love that and I can tell you that I think there's a really significant demand for that, because I've had parents of clients, high school clients, actually come to me and say, "Can you give me advice about how to deal with my son? What should I be doing? I tried this, I tried that, it's not working, what should I do?" I think it's such a strong emotional connection between a parent and a child, and you want the best for your children.
I'm a parent. Sometimes, we lose our objectivity because of all that we have invested in it, not just emotionally, but financially, all those things that go with having our children compete in sports, that sometimes we get a little bit biased or jaded about what it's supposed to look like. When we don't get the results that we want, the way we behave isn't exactly what would be ideal, and I think the parent education side of it is huge.
One of the things that I've incorporated, identified in my coaching, is helping kids to be able to ask for help. Especially for this cohort. This high school to college where most kids in high school who are being recruited to play college athletics, are the stars. They're the best of the best. The best on their team, the best on their county. They're nationally recognized in a lot of places now, and then they go to college, and then they're with the best of the best, and there's much more failure. They don't know how to go and ask somebody for help or seek out the feedback that they need to get better, because they've never had to do it before.
A lot of the things that I try to do is, what are some of the things you can do to ask, how do you ask questions? Or why is this okay to go ask for help because if you don't, you're going to internalize it, which then goes from a performance issue, potentially, to something much bigger, because your identity is so tied up in athletics, if you don't perform at the level you want, then it becomes "Well, I'm not good enough." or "How do I get better?" Then, you get all these things, the burnout, the overuse, maybe you've got substance issues, addiction issues, because you're trying to cope with something that you've never really dealt with before.
I'm really, really cognizant of that and I think it's really important work that Galea is doing, that you're all doing to try to bring light to that.
[00:37:40]Rachel: I'm curious too if the parents who ask you for your advice or your help, is it really case by case for you like, "Alright, I'm working with this kid or this young athlete and I know what they need?" Or is it like you're giving similar advice to two different sets of parents saying, "What you need to do is listen. What you need to do is ask these types of questions." Do you think one course could help support all parents? Or you think it's really about the specificity of what kids are going through?
Mike: That's a really great question. I do think there are certain principles that apply across the board. For me, I think, listen, if I could tailor advice to a parent based upon the relationship that I have with their son or daughter, I will, and the relationship that I have with them, I think there needs to be trust. I have to be careful about having a relationship with a parent that is conflicting with my responsibility to the athlete.
It depends, is always the answer in psychology, but I would say there are things, I think principles. It is about the listening, it's about being able to step away and letting the athlete find their own experience, and asking questions that are open, they're open-ended questions. Learning some of those counseling skills that we learn, which is to say, "Hey, ask the question, let them try to solve the problem on their own, as opposed to feeling like they're being judged or there are conditions being placed on their performance."
I think that that, to me, my personal theory or opinion is, is that a lot of this has to do with the inability of parents to disconnect performance from the kid, so the kids see it as, "Well, you think I'm a bad kid because I'm not performing." The parents certainly, in almost all instances, don't feel that way, but the language and the behavior doesn't necessarily show that, and so the kid, especially when you're not emotionally mature, you don't understand the difference. You think your parents are judging you as a person based on your performance. That's really hard when you're 12, 13, 15, 17 years old, it's really challenging.
[00:39:56]Rachel: Yes, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. It's definitely something we've been asking ourselves and thinking about as we try and create resources, is how helpful is generic information? I do think that there are some things like listening and even just frameworks for actual open questions people have actually found really helpful. Sometimes it's helpful to see like, "Oh, this is how you could ask this question." but it's definitely a challenge.
Mike: Yes, and I think from a business side, and I struggle with this as well, I think it's thinking about what are the levels of service that you provide to people? From a business model, is it one size fits all? Is it one price fits all? Like for me, it's like, "Oh, this is my price." Not necessarily. Different people have different needs and trying to create different levels of service so there's an affordability aspect.
There's also a, this person might not need hand holding or close attention, they might just need a little bit of guidance in the form of a generic resource because they have a good sense of what's out there. They understand the issues, they just want a little bit more clarity, or just affirmation that they're in the right spot.
That's always something that I struggle with certainly, and I think it's something we're always thinking about as entrepreneurs. How do we make this accessible, but we also make it a venture that makes sense for us to invest our time in?
[00:41:15]Rachel: Absolutely. Yes. The biggest challenge for sure.
Mike: Yes. There's a lot to think about. I guess I would say, from where you're sitting now, is there anything else that you'd want to share about Galea or what you're doing that you think it's important for people to know?
[00:41:34]Rachel: Yes. I guess two things. One, is I just think as someone who-- this is I guess, a little bit of a letter to my younger self type of thing, but I was someone that was very skeptical of therapy when I was in high school, and very much identified with being the tough one and the one who never cried. I think the most interesting part about now being someone that's gone to therapy, is that I don't think I've lost any of my toughness. I think I've just learned a new kind of vocabulary for how to express myself.
I guess I would just say that for anyone who might be thinking about seeing a therapist or recommending that their kid see a therapist, is that it doesn't get in the way of performance, it often enhances it, and that it doesn't get in the way of strength, it often enhances it.
I think one other thing that's part of the broader mission of Galea is trying to nuance what it means to be an athlete, and to share the stories that athletes have. Braedan and Annie have both published stories on Galea, about what they've been through and what athlete experience means to them. What we're trying to do is say there's not one right way to be an athlete.
Everyone doesn't have to be like Michael Jordan and that level of intensity, even though you can be and that's amazing, but just that athletes can be a lot of different things. They can be strong and they can be vulnerable, but also they can be athletes, and they can be artists, and they can be academics. I think that was another thing that was really valuable about being a walk-on is I thought, "Okay, I got to figure out who else I am outside of the sport, because I might not be able to stay on this team for all four years."
Galea, I think is awesome in that way, is that there's a lot of stories that people can read there that will give them a sense of "Oh, there's different ways to be an athlete." Also, I think, something that I would say to two athletes who are going into their freshman year or sophomore year or junior year, any year in college, is to stay open to things outside of sports because sometimes it can actually enhance your connection with athletics in ways that you don't really understand.
Working in entrepreneurship has made me feel like I'm identifying way more as an athlete and using all of these skills of performance and all of these other things, so I think, yes, just not getting boxed in and really thinking about how broad and dynamic it can be to be an athlete.
Mike: Sure. Listen, I love that, I feel the same way. In my business, I think there is a lot of elements of trying to start a company and build a company that relate to athletics in terms of the challenges we face, the failure, the doubts, the confusion, all those things, and I think that's really important. I think identity is something that comes up a lot with anybody I talk to, as it relates to sport because sometimes, sport can overwhelmingly assume, our identity assumes that we're an athlete and that's it.
When things don't go the way we want them to, because I'm this or that, a baseball player or a track athlete, a soccer player, swimmer, whatever, and it doesn't work out, well then, we don't know where to turn. Then, we're super hard on ourselves because that's the way we think of ourselves. I think it is important to understand that there are other elements to life and that you don't necessarily have to put all all your eggs in that basket, and frankly, to your point, can make you a better athlete, because you have some semblance of balance. Which can be a mirage, I guess, at times, but we're constantly working on it. I think it's really important.
I wasn't necessarily planning to ask you this question, but I'm going to ask you as a final one. Is there any book, resource, anything that you would go to or refer people to as something that they might want to be like a go-to resource out there for you?
[00:46:04]Rachel: Yes. There's actually two books that come to mind. One of them I just read, it came out recently, is called Bravey by Alexi Pappas. She was a runner at Dartmouth, and then, she went on to compete in the Olympics for Greece. She, after the Olympics, then experienced a pretty serious bout of depression. Throughout the book, she talks about all of the things we've been talking about today. What it means to be an athlete, what it means to think about mental health.
She also has directed some movies. She's this really dynamic and fascinating person who breaks the mold of "Oh, this is how I should be as an athlete, or as a woman, or any of these categories." It's a really fun book. I would recommend it to parents, I would recommend it to people who are going into into college, any age.
Another one that I think is really an amazing read, but definitely fairly heavy, is What Made Maddy Run, which is by Kate Fagan, and it's about Madison Holleran, who was a, again, track and field runner at the University of Pennsylvania, and she died by suicide after her freshman year. The book really deals with perfectionism, with the challenges of going into freshman year, of being in this new place of trying to be perfect in so many different ways.
I think it's a really thought-provoking book to read and to think about for someone who has a kid going into freshman year, or a sibling, or whatever it might be. Just how to support and what some of the struggles that people might go through are. I think those are my two athlete mental health books that I would recommend, yes.
Mike: Those are great suggestions. I am familiar with the story about Madison and I had not read the book, so I'm definitely going to pick that one up. I think it sounds great, but they both sound great and really on-topic. As we wrap up, where can we learn more about Galea, and you, and whatever you want to tell the listeners?
[00:48:23]Rachel: Yes, absolutely. I personally, am on a social media cleanse right now so I don't have Instagram, but the Galea Health Instagram is active. That's Galea G-A-L-E-A Health, and then, probably the best place to go is the website, which is www.galeahealth.com. You'll find resources, athletes’ stories. If you're in one of our five launch states, you'll find a network of providers who have been athletes and are passionate about supporting athlete mental health. Hopefully, we'll be expanding to other states really soon.
You can also, if people are interested, sign up for the waitlist or let us know what state that they're in and we'll follow up with a list of providers or a date that we'll be launching in that state.
Mike: Excellent. Well, everybody who's listening, please check it out. Rachel, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a great conversation, and hopefully, we'll have a chance to do it again, part two in the future.
[00:49:30]Rachel: Yes, absolutely. Thanks so much, Mike. This was awesome.
Mike: Thank you.