How athletes can conquer validation-seeking behavior | Malik Mayweather | TEDxUMiami
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us-5hv_x6LM Video ID: us-5hv_x6LM ============================================================ according to an almost decade-long study published in sports health in 2015 this is a journal peer-reviewed by primary care physicians athletic trainers surgeons and more seven percent of deafs among collegiate athletes were suicides males accounted for 3.6 times more likelihood to commit these suicides and this study encompassed almost 3.8 million athletes over the life of it disturbed by this i decided to do my own study right and here's what i found if these percentages from sports health hold true as of this time last year april 2020 the ncaa's website says that there are 8.5 million athletes in high school and college combined and let's just say in my study everyone dies at 7 percent that's 595 000 suicides males account for 1.35 of that 595 000 so we can do a little bit of math here and you find that there's 441 000 young men do a little bit more math and you find your 154 000 young women but wait there's more using the incidence rates from sports health we find that 1.22 of those suicides are committed by african-american athletes that's almost 488 000 young men and women that look like me we can throw a little cherry on top of this and we find that 2.25 of those suicides are committed by football players that's over 264 000 football players in my study if everybody dies i've played football since i was about five or six years old but those are just numbers right and we can get lost in the quantifications of these studies all day so let's take a step back here i'm malik mayweather i was pronounced dead at birth i reap the benefits of being affluent and homeless all the while playing two even three sports at times i excelled at catching footballs baseballs running jumping but what i was best at was hiding my anxiety and depression from my friends and family while winning championships and being an a student and although i've never wanted to hurt myself i do have a friend i want to tell you about his name is bill i'm not laughing because his name is bill i am it's an old name i don't want a legion of bills attacking me after this ted talk so no offense i mean bill's an old name but i'm gonna tell you about bill nonetheless because bill like myself was an athlete as well but see bill used to wonder what it might be like to fall off of a balcony and essentially the face of the earth so here's bill's plight bill was the one in his family he had to make it everyone followed his career during high school college had good grades gorgeous girlfriend respected his peers but he never felt validated validated because you see the goal for bill was not to be where he was it was to be where he wanted to be and much like any of us who've ever had to strive for something to achieve something bill couldn't see how green the grass was under his feet at times his grandmother used to be the one to help him with that but she passed away during his first semester his freshman year of high school 12 days after his birthday in fact so you see this plight was not something that just fell out of the scaffold build it developed over time to have him to the point where he think about what it might be like to fall off of a balcony so we kept stuff in but this was dangerous because you see essentially bill was like a car with a clogged exhaust pipe and yeah you can turn it on might even go forward but you stay in it long enough your carbon monoxide poison so bill had to figure out why he wanted to be in this car he found that it was peace there it was full of the cheers and the exceeding of expectations and perceptions that others put on his abilities but you see this was a dependency this relationship between everybody else's perceptions of him his abilities and all that should have came from within but those things made bill feel validated i mean he took so much pride in it that he did some things just to prove people wrong because they made him feel validated but i'm going to tell you what bill did to break this cycle and yes i have his permission trust me bill found this passion much like the little girl in the picture passion isn't always apparent when looking at people from the outside but it's very apparent when they're doing whatever that thing is they're passionate about bill was passionate about helping people so he got into coaching and can we all agree how instrumental a good coach is the ones that are the best are the ones that are really passionate and care about the impact they have on others lives a quote from the bible says yet wisdom is proved right by all of its results i think bill found some wisdom about himself through his passion and the results were evident by the impact he had on those people's lives innately bill sought out to get more exposure had to look at life through a new lens it didn't necessarily have to be coaching at this point just had to fit his skill set remember i said bill did a lot of things just to prove people wrong and i mean hey if you want to prove people wrong you got to be good at whatever it is that thing that they think you can't do is so he started out to be in those environments that would allow him to explore that he found really quickly that doing things and environments you're not familiar with isn't really easy so he had to become resilient in a new way that was different from pushing through sprints on a conditioning test or reps in the weight room he also found that when you help people more often times than not they'll stand with you but now when you possess what bill had passion resilience he had people standing in total solidarity with him to drive home this pursuit this passion of helping people and these interactions and relationships led to more and more opportunities and yes it was a lot of work for bill i mean he has the athlete mentality work till you drop he had to alter that song because he looked back at the end of the day and realized he's only eaten one time trying to complete a task or ten but he also found even with this alteration he had plenty of chances to cultivate these opportunities and more and more came so now bill had nothing to do but be like a tree planted by the river of opportunities that were now flowing to him and produce fruit to nourish nurture the environment that he was in and now bill may still wonder what it'll be like to fall off a balcony but now he knows how to fly and pull from within so he never feels lost and we see what are his lessons not failures and successes i don't know if they can zoom in on the back of this jacket and focus but the name on the back of it is little bill it's been a long time since i had this on i am elite jamal mayweather bill to some and i'm not going to take too much more of your time because they won't allow me to anyway but i think it's right you know i've given a lot of mind over the years for sheer entertainment value and no i don't regret it because it landed me here i played football at the university of miami between the years of 2013 and 2017 but i left here for a year and a half during that stand i ended up here middle of nowhere scuba mississippi yeah i know i never thought i'd be anywhere doing a ted talk but i never thought i'd be anywhere talking about scuba again that's downtown by the way but it's home to the first two seasons of last chance you you can catch me on the first one trying to avoid the camera which i have to say is a show of improvement today because there's three four five six rolling in here or something and i'm not hiding from any of them but those guys even got me when i was a little less mobile after i broken my ankle but that's where this started this development from my lowest moments 2014 in school of mississippi to my second lowest moment of not being able to realize a dream of playing a sport professionally to a higher moment here today where i've been painstakingly honest about how i got to this position and what i went through mentally outside of my identity i think some people knew who it was if i fooled you i guess i did well but painstakingly honest nonetheless although i went here university of miami for undergrad and even finished my mha masters in health administration in december and i'll be helping people stay healthy in a hospital setting i also went through life and got a first hand experience at all the things that i talked about here today athletes seen as some of the most physically healthy people in the world but mentally in shambles i also want to help them those that may never see a hospital because suicidal thoughts and depression aren't as tangible as a broken foot or broken fingers i hope you can see that i have an enlarged heart proverbial of course for those that are seen as strong but have never felt more alone why because every number from the beginning of this presentation sports health or my study represent a person a death that is preventable all i'm proposing is that each and every one of you myself included use this framework and become more of a person together god bless you