How brands can support mental health for athletes - an interview with Drew Petersen
Q & A with Drew Petersen
What your brand can do for athletes
An interview by Chris Dickerson & Rachel Gardner with Drew Petersen
In the performance-driven world of professional sports, mental health has long been treated like an afterthought, if it was addressed at all. Recently, there has been a spate of athletes speaking up or taking a stand to advocate for their own emotional well-being. Simone Biles. Naomi Osaka. Michael Phelps. Kevin Love. Every revelation has been incredibly powerful.
The outdoor industry should pay attention. Discussions of mental health in our forms of outdoor sport have been equally hush-hush. Yet, we are asking our athletes to risk huge exposure and often put their lives on the line in exchange for promotion, product trades, and a bit of money. Yes, these exceptional athletes are self-motivated with or without sponsorship. But we, as brands, become part of their team – and vice versa.
Shouldn’t we be making the time and space to ensure they are okay and supported?
Professional skier Drew Petersen is among the strongest and clearest voices today in mental health activism today. In sharing his story, he’s not only paving the way for other athletes to foster this critical aspect of wellness, he’s also helping brands do better for the athlete/brand relationship. Feel free to contact Drew for speaking engagements and consultations around the topic.
We recently sat down with Drew to discuss his story. Read on to learn about his personal mental health journey and his candid recommendations on how brands and marketers can be better partners for their sponsored athletes. You’ll see that creating safe spaces and providing better mental health support is not only the right thing to do as humans and friends, but these proactive efforts also add more value to the brand/athlete partnership.
- We discuss topics involving mental health and suicide. If you are struggling, help is availabLE -
Speak with someone today at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, available 24 hours in English, Spanish. Call:1-800-273-8255
Update: The US recently launched a new number: Dial 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Drew provides additional resources for emotional support on his website.
Here we go:
[Verde] Hi Drew. Thanks for joining us. In industries (both outdoor and professional athletics) that don’t talk much about mental health, you’ve been really upfront about your own struggles. How and why did you decide to share your mental health experience?
[Drew] When I was a kid, if there had been a pro skier that I looked up to–or frankly anybody I looked up to–talking about these things, I think that my entire life would be different now. That realization was one of my biggest motivations. The earliest memory I have of suicidal thoughts was when I was nine years old. They were probably in there before, and that's just the first memory. It's tough, but I just wish somebody had been talking about it back then. It’s why I worked so hard to motivate myself to get to a place where I could talk about depression and mental health publicly, and to finally share this story. Now, I can be somebody who is talking about it and hoping to help someone else. Our community has to do something different moving forward because there are too many people out there struggling alone.
Since you have a platform that’s partially amplified by your brand sponsors, how did you first approach sponsors around your mental health and what was their reaction?
It’s twofold. One, when I was going through the depression I talk about in my film, “Ups & Downs,” (view below) I kept it hidden. I was worried that if I spoke about my mental health to my sponsors, they would drop me and I wouldn't get invited to go on any trips or new projects. It would be the nail in my coffin. My ski career was already suffering because of my mental health struggles, and the physical injuries that came with it. So I didn't tell them until it was getting so bad that I had something more tangible to point to: the concussions. They were super understanding about the concussions. And once I was able to cross that bridge of talking about mental health, they were understanding on that side, too.
Drew’s Film: UPS & DOWN
How did you broach the topic?
Ultimately, it came down to the individuals. I went to a couple of people I really trusted at the brands, and those people were super receptive. Honestly, I didn’t know how to navigate these conversations back then. Now, I’m still figuring it out! I try to communicate a little bit more proactively or preemptively, and it’s not always easy. I’ll say, "Hey I'm a little overwhelmed right now. I'm not going to be able to deliver at 110%."
As you were getting ready to release the film, which comes with its own added stresses even without the subject matter you cover, what worried you about the potential response to the film?
I wasn't worried about negative responses; I was worried about the volume of the response. In June 2021, I wrote an essay for Outside [June 2021] and the response was overwhelming! Fortunately, I had that experience going into the release of “Ups & Downs, so I knew a bit more about what to expect in terms of messages, interview requests, and stuff like that. Now, I always say it's overwhelming in the best way.
Beyond performance, we don’t always think about the full spectrum of pressures an athlete feels. What are the types of pressure put on you through your brand contracts?
There's a lot of conversation around the pressures to push and perform at a high level and take risks. But I don't really think that there's actually that much type of pressure coming from brands, certainly not from my sponsors [Salomon, Hestra, Gnarly Nutrition]. That’s more of a perceived pressure.
It’s just the nature of being a high achiever. People will always want you to be delivering at 110%. And athletes always want to be pushing themselves, both athletically and with all the other pieces that come along with the job. There is real pressure, though, to continuously create and post on social media, and to always maintain relevance. Those pressures are constant and definitely felt from brands. They don't get talked about as much as the risk-taking, yet it can be overwhelming and pretty detrimental.
What should brands be doing to help athletes maintain a healthy balance between pushing their ability and meeting obligations?
If brands want to support their athletes for the long term–which they should want to do–you should care about them as a human being as well. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also looking out for your investment. They can start with having more open conversations with their athletes around health as a whole, in regards to their jobs and their lives. Most of the time, athletes deal with their physical health totally separately from their contracts. Health insurance is never included! And mental health? I’ve never heard a brand talk about mental health. Ever. Through these open conversations, brands [can learn how to] foster an environment and a community where it's encouraged for athletes to take care of themselves in the best way possible.
Would it help if brands were more prescriptive on what they expect from an athlete?
It would. There are two sides, though.
Maybe instead of being more prescriptive, or even being explicit with expectations, I think there should be more of a range, and more care toward the longevity of what athletes do. So instead of total focus on: "Did you get the best shot on this one film trip?" or "Did you get the most viral clip on Instagram this winter?" Can we look out for people three to five years down the line?
Brands should be communicating to their athletes that [one viral moment] isn’t the key goal in the athlete-brand relationship. [It’s great when it happens, but there’s more depth, too.] It all comes back to fostering that culture of an open conversation.
How would you recommend that a person at a brand approach an athlete to check on their mental health?
I've thought about this a lot, and there's not a simple answer. Once again, it's more about fostering a culture where there's an open conversation around the health of an athlete. Marketing managers and team managers should not only reach out when they need something. They should check in to see how their athletes are doing, too. Basic human stuff. There's a lot of room here. If we were working normal jobs, in a normal office, we’d have that day-to-day interaction and we’d be able to monitor where other people are at. It’s tougher to gauge in a brand-athlete partnership where everything is remote.
It may help brands to realize that athletes are going to be hesitant and scared to talk about these things for fear of losing their spot at the table. It’s super competitive to carve out a career as a professional athlete in the ski or outdoor industry. If you waiver at all, the next young kid is going to take your spot. I believe brands can foster a culture where kids are welcome and long-term relationships are valued. Where there's a sense of long-term commitment, there’s usually also mutual sense of long-term loyalty.
Companies like Red Bull offer health insurance for some of their sponsored athletes. What incentives should brands be thinking about?
There's value in it for both of you to build a healthy long-term partnership between brands and athletes. Perhaps it's idealized to think this way? But I think that's how it would be best: actual employment with benefits, including health insurance. I worry that by saying this I'll sound entitled, and people are going to judge me and not want to work with me. But I think it’s a problem that so few athletes are employees, as opposed to contractors.
Here's the problem: In skiing and in the outdoor industry, many brands out there are asking for people to take risks to their physical and mental health. They want to get the most out of athletes for as little as possible. So athletes work really hard, in exchange for a pair of skis. And that's wrong. It’s accepted from the brand side and from the athlete side. It's wild that we're in this little sphere where people are willing to do stuff like that.
Have you seen a shift in the last couple of years as more people are more vocal about fairness and equality within the outdoor industry?
It's getting a little better. I'm also getting older and more experienced, so I'm advocating better for myself too. I'm in less of those kinds of antiquated or even immature conversations of unsound business exchanges. But at the same time, there are entities out there who want me to speak, to work, to consult on mental health, in exchange for “exposure.”
Show that you value mental health [in the same way you show you value other things]: put resources behind it. You pay somebody like me to come in as a consultant, or to speak with your brand or athlete team. Pay for healthcare. Or pay a sports psychologist to come speak to your athlete team at a monthly meeting you have. That would be rad.
That right there is part of how to foster a culture of caring.
What are your recommendations for brands?
Engage in more complete and open conversations with your athletes. Everyone's busy and most marketers and team managers are wearing three of four hats. But if there’s value in your athlete program, there’s value in making time available and bandwidth available. This will help foster better, healthier relationships between brands and athletes overall.
Create a culture where it's okay to talk about this stuff, somebody has to talk about it. Pop that bubble and break that barrier of silence around mental health. Bring in someone like me to pop it, or figure out a way to do it yourself.
Brands should encourage and foster their athletes to have a healthier relationship with social media. Real or perceived, the pressure to be on social media constantly is terrifyingly unhealthy. Not just anecdotally: there is a ton of science. Even Facebook knows that it's detrimental to people's mental health to be on their platforms.
Put some money behind the “whole” athlete. For mental health support, it could be paying for athlete therapy. There are a bunch of organizations and options out there now.
I would love to see an employment model for athletes [with access to healthcare]. I’m not so entitled that I think that we’re entitled to these privileges; I’m saying it’s an ideal model long term.
Brands have an opportunity to step up and show they care—internally and with their customers.
Thank you, Drew, for your honesty and openness and willingness to share. You are helping other people, and you’re helping brands grow with humanity and care.
Learn more about Drew:
Find more about Drew on his website, what he is working on and to book him for speaking engagements.
Other Sources and information:
Photo: Bobby Jahrig