Dr. Don Wood, founder of the Inspire Performance Institute, argues that 30 years of mental health awareness hasn't solved the core problems: 22 veterans die by suicide daily, and homelessness persists. He points to Chris Nickic, a man with Down syndrome who completed an Ironman through 1% daily improvements, as proof that real change requires advocacy and legislative action, not just conversation.
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Today is October 10th, and today is World Mental Health Day. My name is Dr. Don Wood. I'm the founder of the Inspire Performance Institute. And I always like to ask people, what do you think of when you think of mental health? What comes to mind? Now, some people may think of something like schizophrenia, you know, which is a very severe form of mental health issue. Right. Some people may think of anxiety, panic attacks, or depression. So whatever your mind comes up with and what you think about with mental health is basically coming from your perception or experiences with mental health. And unfortunately, there's a lot of stigma around mental health issues, and that's coming from either a social stigma that society sort of puts on mental health, or it may be coming from your own personal experiences. Maybe you've experienced a mental health issue, and then that creates sort of a stigma. People are sometimes afraid to talk about it or let anybody know that they're dealing with it. So the purpose of World Mental Health Day is to try to bring awareness to the issue so that we can then help people understand that there are solutions, that things are hopefully getting better with mental health issues. World Mental Health day started about 30 years ago, exactly 30 years ago. And the question is, have we really improved anything in the last 30 years? Even though we have this day dedicated to it, we probably need more than a day, I would think. But at the same time, at least we have seen some areas.
Improve, but not a lot we can and we must do something to improve this. There. There's a lot of things that still need to be done. For example, you think about veterans, and here in the United States, we're having about 22 veterans a day commit suicide from mental health issues. Just take a look at the homeless problem in the United States, and I'm sure it's around the world as well, but there are cities all over the United States are just being overrun with homeless people. And that's really coming from the fact that the government has really shut down any kind of help for them. So they just basically leave them to fend for themselves. And generally, they'll either get arrested or they'll put into some sort of a mental facility if they become disruptive. We need to come up with a better way to do this. And so when I think about mental health and I think about people who are making a difference, you can make a difference. Just get out there and start advocating for mental health with the politicians, with all of these legislators. We can definitely address this. And all it takes is an effort on everybody's part. I want to share with you. A good friend of ours, Chris Nickic. And Chris a few years ago came and he talked about he wanted to. And Chris was a young man in his early 20s that has down syndrome. And if you know what down syndrome is, right, the issues that they have to deal with are immense. But Chris and his father came and said, you know, we're going to have Chris run in an Ironman. Now, just imagine the difficulty of somebody with down syndrome having to run in an ultramarathon, which is an ironman, which is biking, swimming and running. And so Chris's basically belief was that if he just improved 1%, that was his motto, 1% improvement, consistently getting that 1% every day, every week, every month. And that was what his goal was. Chris ended up competing in an Ironman in the same time that everybody else had to do it. An incredible accomplishment. So it just goes to show you that people with mental health issues can perform very well. They can continue to improve. Chris is a great example of what a 1% difference can make. So don't ignore Mental health Day. It's not going to go away. We need to demand more. We need to push society, push our legislators, push our government into making the changes. And there it is.
