0:00

I think it is crucial and luckily it's something that probably gets talked about more now than it did in previous generations from what I've been told.

0:12

I think there's just so many with the kind of development of social media and technology, there's almost more ways to view this negative content.

0:23

There's more ways to attack someone negatively. There's more ways to make someone feel down.

0:30

And I think a lot of people are still there's still a stigma around talking about it.

0:37

I know for myself there's been times when I probably needed someone to talk to and wanted to keep up this kind of, you know, athlete, macho look of I don't need anyone.

0:46

But the truth is that you do and you'll feel a lot better for talking about your feelings and your emotions.

0:50

And from the perspective of a sports person, you know, the love you receive is outstanding.

0:58

It's huge. But for every person who loves you or every few people that love you, there's always one person that doesn't.

1:04

and maybe despises you for the team you play for, something you've done.

1:11

And, yeah, that can be difficult. That can be really tough for athletes.

1:14

And I can really empathise with athletes who struggle with their mental health

1:19

because it's the cornerstone for all your physical stuff and your performance if your confidence isn't there because of your mental health.

1:25

And I think it's really important that Laureus address that as something that's, you know,

1:30

a big factor in sports and society. And I think if

1:33

us as athletes are vulnerable with, you know, it seems like we have the world at our feet or our hands and we can do whatever we want and we earn so and so much money that we can never be affected by.

1:45

And I think if we can show a vulnerability about mental health, it can definitely open up a bigger conversation for those people who are struggling in the darkness in normal society as well.

1:56

And like I said, that's the duty of people like myself in the situations that we're in to be role models in that sense as well.

2:06

You know, there's nothing wrong with feeling vulnerable every now and then. I have my moments as well where I doubt myself or I feel like I'm not as confident as I should be or I was.

2:17

And it's important to have someone to talk to and to address your mental health and to take care of it like you would your body.

2:23

You know, you might go to the gym and work out eat clean but if you're not paying attention to your mental health and how you're feeling

2:30

those things stack up on you as well and yeah being

2:33

someone that's there for people to talk to as well you know again

2:36

people in our position probably

2:40

have teammates that sometimes you think oh god I probably wouldn't go to him for that and it's like no I think I'd rather be the kind

2:46

a teammate that someone comes to and dumps it dumps their kind

2:49

of their mental health issues on absolutely i'd rather

2:52

take it on and listen to it and try and help them out um

2:55

you know i think it's so so key you know there's been

2:58

so many examples of people who have struggled with it in

3:01

in the past and it leads to horrible circumstances so um it's really about trying to prevent those kind of circumstances in society in sport um and being open to to hearing them

3:14

definitely yeah definitely i think at the remember when i was

3:17

um at birmingham and uh you could you

3:21

could put your name into twitter and you could see every tweet about you within an

3:25

hour um and it was very quickly that i just

3:28

decided that why why am i why should

3:31

i let the opinion of people who don't know as much as the people i'm around um validate how i think about

3:38

myself you know um you know I always

3:41

felt I was a good player long before I saw it on Twitter and yet I was reading it to try and for what to feel better and then you obviously read one that

3:51

there's obviously isn't nice and that has the the same effect

3:54

but opposite and it's just like you know why would it why would I do that why would I put that on my own mental health and you know I think there's there's aspects of social media that's so valuable to an athlete I think um

4:06

more and more people now interact with that as opposed to things like press conferences

4:09

tv interviews so when you can be honest and authentic

4:12

with fans it gives them a great insight into how you felt about a

4:15

game how you're doing with certain things your day-to-day life to

4:18

to try and be more relatable to people but um yeah

4:22

there's also a negative element that i've decided to i know a lot of athletes have decided to as well just to slightly avoid to try and avoid that kind

4:31

of added negativity you know it's uh there's probably enough

4:34

of it in the game there's enough pressure there's no need to try and seek

4:37

it out you know so yeah I've kind of got to

4:40

the place now where when I do read stuff that's negative it

4:43

doesn't really affect me anyway but I'd still rather not see it so if there's I don't go looking for things that I know are only going to make me feel negative No, definitely not.

4:54

I do think more needs to be done. I still think athletes are seen as these people who should kind of shut up and take it, which is a bit of an old-fashioned approach to it.

5:02

I still think there should be probably, you know, everyone's allowed their opinion on sport, but I think there should be limits to the horrible things you can say.

5:13

I don't know how you kind of limit that. I don't know from the perspective of these websites or these apps how you do that.

5:19

But I think more importantly is the support network around the athletes that are having to hear it, having to experience it.

5:27

I know at Madrid I've got a really good support system in terms of coaches, players, members of staff that I could speak to if I was ever down.

5:34

And I'd like to think that every player, every club in every sport has that kind of thing. But I'm still not sure.

5:40

So it's important to build that. as like

5:44

you said um something that's just as important as your

5:47

gym training uh your physical trainers uh i think it's important

5:51

that going forward mental training and um and

5:54

those kind of things is uh available in the game yeah

5:57

i think i think if you're down and you're feeling like you're in

6:00

um a place that kind of is sticking with you um

6:04

it can can affect your performance i can't say i've ever been in one of those really deep holes of mental health and i'm very fortunate for that

6:11

because I think I've been around people who have and it's quite sad to see and I've always been someone to try and reach out and help for me the main thing is confidence really sometimes it's

6:21

confidence when you have it you can ride it forever it's like the

6:24

the most amazing feeling thing you can

6:27

possibly have but when you don't have it it's like you

6:30

can feel lower than low like almost your feet don't work that your body doesn't work and And I'm sure there's ways you can try and regain your confidence,

6:43

but essentially you get it from performing. So it's almost a bit of like a paradox, if you like.

6:48

So, yeah, I think for me, confidence is the main thing that

6:51

I always try and keep high, whether it's kind of self-reassurance, accepting the fact that you're not going to complete every pass you make.

7:02

You're not going to beat every play you try and dribble against. You're not going to score every game. you're

7:06

not going to win every game I think the more comfortable you are with

7:09

those facts the more comfortable you are with the fact that I'm not going to be perfect so why should I shoot myself down for that and instead try and bring myself up?

7:18

I think that's the way I see it. Yeah, I think Laureus

7:22

in choosing football masks, deciding to work with each other, it's

7:26

genius because it goes hand in hand with these athletes, these great athletes, obviously ambassadors for Laureus, and then these great initiatives like football masks.

7:34

I think you can see, you know, the kids, like, I don't know, a lot of them, their relationship with each other but a lot of them will get thrown into these kind of

7:45

football programs and it's like the football and

7:49

the sport aspect naturally just draws you to each other naturally

7:52

makes you want to talk naturally makes you have a laugh naturally you

7:56

kind of get on with each other and all of a sudden you've made a friend all of a sudden you've got someone to talk to when some things at home is not going great and a credit to the coaches as well because I think they're brilliant with that I think they give the kids the the perfect amount of kind of

8:08

rope to go and be kids and express themselves but also uh

8:11

knowing to rein it in when there's little bits of learning um obviously

8:15

today with the the blue and the green card i think it's it's genius you know the the green card to tell someone that they've done something well how

8:22

how rare is that now where you know you're kind of expected

8:25

just to be good all the time how how much

8:29

would it mean to a kid to be told look you've done a great job what you just did there was brilliant uh keep doing that and a blue card instead of just being like go and stand in

8:37

the corner is like i don't know that wasn't great but how can i challenge

8:40

you to be better at that it's it's the perfect way

8:43

to learn for kids and uh those challenges you

8:46

can implement easier with sport with the values that sport teaches

8:49

you so i think it goes hand in hand and um yeah both

8:53

great initiatives both doing amazing things and i'm