Mental Olympics? (August Newsletter)

Pretty amazing Olympics. San Diegans scored big time… skate, BMX, volleyball, golf, surf… to name a few… so awesome to see the local Sport and Active lifestyle industry have such success. No doubt, the visibility of “action sports” on the worldwide screen will fuel demand well into 2022.

But, it occurs to me that the ultimate Gold Medal should be awarded for honesty and courage… and the winner is Simone Biles. The drama that unfolded was so very revealing and personal, and admirable. This diminutive, 4’8" world class female, GOAT, showed us all how fragile our mental fitness can be, and how destructive as well. Watching it all unfold was heart wrenching, and it reminded me that as a sport community, we need to talk about mental fitness and do all we can to remove the stigma that asking for mental help is somehow “weak.”

I decided to seek some guidance and contacted Rob Haskell from Surf Cup and Ami Belinoff and Brian Alexander, co Founders of Well U, an app designed to help world class athletes manage their mental fitness. These three and their organizations have a direct line to peak of the pyramid athletes (and their parents, a whole ‘nother issue). The bottom line is simple: athletic performance and mental fitness are stacked one upon the other; the sum of the parts greatly exceeds the basic metric of performance in any particular sport. Naomi Osaka springs to mind. She too can beat the best, but dealing with external pressure brings on depression and anxiety, readily apparent to the world. Naomi is another courageous Gold Medalist!

There is no space here to dive deeper, but let me say on behalf of SDSI, we are dedicated to making mental fitness a critical part of our vocabulary and advocacy. Life is a journey. Mental fitness is key to happiness, long after you have run your last mile, caught that last wave or spent your final season on your favorite sport.
-bob

“It's important to remember: you start out a kook, and you will end up a kook. Do it gracefully.” -Skip Frye

Read the full newsletter here