When the Olympic Dream Isn’t Enough: Alexi Pappas on Depression, Identity, & Real Toughness

She hit her peak — then hit rock bottom.

Olympian. National record holder. Author. Filmmaker. Alexi Pappas had it all… until post-Olympic depression nearly took everything from her.

In this raw and powerful episode, Alexi opens up about:

• Losing her mother to suicide
• The surprising fallout after achieving her dream
• What no one tells you about “mental injuries”
• Why elite performance is NOT protection from pain

And most importantly — how she found her way back.

Whether you’re chasing a gold medal or just trying to hold it all together… This conversation will make you rethink everything you know about mental toughness.

Connect with Alexi:
🌐 Website: https://www.alexipappas.com/
✖️X (Twitter): https://x.com/alexipappas
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexipappas/
📚 Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain, and Other Big Ideas: https://www.amazon.com/Bravey-Chasing-Dreams-Befriending-Other/dp/1984801120

Follow Paddy for more:
🌐 Website: www.toughness.com
📸 Instagram: @paddysgram
💼 LinkedIn: Paddy Steinfort
✖️ X (Twitter): @paddysx

 

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Alexi Pappas: You can never solve an internal problem with an external solution. Toughness is the ability to give more credit and more attention to the actions than the feelings, and accept that the feelings will change because of the actions. Toughness is your ability to be in there when you need to be in there.

[00:00:24] Paddy Steinfort: So welcome to the Toughness podcast. My name's Paddy Steinfort, your host, and today we have Alexi Pappas with us, who is an achiever and overachiever in so many areas, an Olympian who has also co-written and starred in multiple feature films like Track Town. Also, a bestselling author of the book, Bravey. Welcome to the show, Alexi.

[00:00:44] Alexi Pappas: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. 

[00:00:48] Paddy Steinfort: And as I was saying in the in the pre-show chat, Alexi could potentially be the most ideal guest for this show because of some of the stories and experiences you're gonna hear. And the rest of this chat, we'll start with a fun fact, though. A fun fact that I have here is that, did you know that the word dream is found 117 times in your book?

[00:01:10] Paddy Steinfort: Did you know that fact? 

[00:01:12] Alexi Pappas: Oh wow. A hundred seventeen 

[00:01:13] Paddy Steinfort: one one seven 

[00:01:15] Alexi Pappas: So many times because it's not, I mean, it's a pretty long book, but that means. It's like on one-third of the pages. That's so neat.

[00:01:24] Paddy Steinfort: See, there you go. Search.  Well, and I think it's a good place to start because going to the Olympics is a dream for so many people. It's some of us can't even imagine it. It's literally just like, ah, that'd be cool, but we're not even close to being athletically gifted enough for you though, the dream, as I understand it, it wasn't like something you were dreaming about when you were five. How do you end up representing your country at the Olympics in Rio?

[00:01:53] Alexi Pappas: Yeah, so you know, sports were always, I think a way for my dad and I to communicate with each other. And after my mom passed away, I lost her to suicide when, or by suicide, I think is the right way to say it. When I was four, my dad I think, found that sports were the best way to teach me how to like fall down and get back up.

And I also loved. Sports. And so I was brought by him to the Olympics in 1996. I was six years old, and I think at that moment I really was like, this would be so incredible and cool, but of course the Barbie that I brought home was the gymnastics Barbie, and I didn't end up being a gymnast, but I loved sports and I think what I loved about them was.

The sense of like putting in work and getting something back and having some sort of control. And I loved teams, but I would say that the Olympic dream didn't seem possible to me until after college, mostly because I simply wasn't good enough, I think to like entertain such a dream as a real thing. It was more like a reverence to the Olympics. An admiration, a love for it. It wasn't until after college that I loved running enough and that I was, you know, in a position to dream about making it to the Olympics. And prior to that, again, I found running a little bit later than some people. And I also had this curiosity for the arts and for acting, which is a kind of performance just like running. And so I think I am a performer. That is what I enjoy most. 

[00:03:31] Paddy Steinfort: Is that normal, like you said, you came running a little late. You're a runner. So you've competed in a 10,000 meter race, and often endurance events are things that you know you need to build up some conditioning for. Right? Was that, is that a normal age at 26 to find yourself getting really good?

[00:03:51] Alexi Pappas: So with running, I would say it is almost, you know, a blessing in disguise if you happen to not overtrain when you're in high school. And it's a hard balance to have because you, if you are in a healthy environment and you love your sport, which I didn't love running in high school, and I was in an environment where coaches wanted me to quit every other sport and just run.

And so I, I actually ended up not running junior and senior year of high school to play soccer and other sports. So I would say it's not common to not run all through high school and make it to the Olympics, but it is common to peak in running somewhere in the age 26 to 33 age. So it's a sport where you peak a little bit later in life than like a gymnastics, for example.

And I think that's because the female athletic body is more capable in distance running and running in general than the child body. And I think what was not common about my path was having the time away from the sport that I did. But I think I have that to think for making it as far as I did because my body was really developed and healthy and durable to handle the training that I put in between age 21 and 26, which was over a hundred miles a week every single week.

[00:05:13] Paddy Steinfort: Which is crazy for those of us who struggle to get two miles in every other day just to keep the legs ticking over. I would argue as well that it was probably to thank for some of the other pursuits that you've reached fairly high levels in like not many of us could say that we've written and starred in feature films, let alone multiple.

Not many of us can say, we've got a book deal and we put out an amazing story. Was that like your space later in high school and in college, that you were able to explore that more because you weren't as serious about your running at that point? 

[00:05:47] Alexi Pappas: For sure. So my freshman year at Dartmouth, I was like on the cross country team, but I wasn't good enough to compete and so I was left home on campus when everybody went to their races. I was, I got all these emails about this improv group audition, and I didn't, I had never done improv comedy, but I did like performing. And so I went out of curiosity and I got into this group that years prior, Mindy Kaling and Rachel Dratch, and a lot of like really, really great creative people were a part of.

And I think that those two pursuits really balanced each other out because. I mean, they were both like crafts that I wanted to get better at, and everybody in the [00:06:30] worlds that I was in wanted to be better. But they also were so refreshing to one another. You know, like you, you stay very grounded and down to earth in a comedy improv environment. And I also would've probably never met my husband, who's my creative partner, if I hadn't been out at a party one night instead of at a race my freshman year. 

[00:06:52] Paddy Steinfort: Well, that's a very cool story. So there's a lot to thank for then, but, uh, that it came slowly and developed slowly. So you made it to [00:07:00] Rio, you set a national record, so you're, you're a Greek American. Is that the right way to say that? 

[00:07:05] Alexi Pappas: American? Yep, exactly. You're perfect. 

[00:07:07] Paddy Steinfort: Right? And so you represented Greece at the Olympic Games because of the nature of the Olympic Games. I imagine that's even more because it, like it started in Greece, right? Like the Olympic games were originally the Greek games. So a cool little circle back moment there. And as you represent them, you set a national record in the 10,000 meters. So this is like speaking of dreams, 117 times in your book. Every third page, you have peaked. You're 26, you're representing your country, you've set a national record, you've achieved the dream of, dream of dreams, and then things start to turn a little bit right?

And this is where your story, not that it's not interesting up to that point, that's incredibly interesting already, but that's almost scene one or act one of the hero's journey. And all of a sudden things start to go into. Without playing too much on the words, going from a dream to a nightmare in some ways is what happened for you next.

[00:08:05] Paddy Steinfort: Can you share what that experience was like? 

[00:08:08] Alexi Pappas: Yes. So, taking a step back from the Olympics, I think that my understanding of mental health, my understanding of what had happened to my mom was really limited and challenging because when she died by suicide, I thought the narrative that I was told was that she was just so sick that she had to go and she was unhelpable.

And what that meant to me as a child was that I better not ever be anything like her because I don't wanna be unhelpable and I don't wanna have to go. And so I spent so much of my life chasing these outward-facing accomplishments. To simply tick the boxes for myself that I was successful and happy and okay, because I didn't want to die and I didn't understand how someone could go from being okay to being not okay and to being not okay in a way that was unsolvable, which is just my understanding of her situation based on the narrative that I've heard and the narrative that I crafted.

And so when I got to the Olympics, which is a peak that nobody prepares, I think for the moment after, because if you did. You might not get there in the first place. Mm-hmm. I panicked a little bit because I wanted to know, well, first of all, I think I thought that I would feel this thing that you expect to feel at a peak where you feel complete and you do you feel incredible.

It's a dream come true, but you can never solve an internal problem with an external solution. So there always will be. If you're chasing, you know, running away from a trauma or whatever it was that I was doing, there's always gonna be that feeling of like incompletion because it's not a really viable solution.

And when I was done with the Olympics, I felt like I was at this cliff and needed to know what was next, and I needed to know yesterday, and I didn't know. And there was a series of changes that I made in my life in the course of a mont,h from moving to changing coaches to changing events up to the marathon to.

I experienced, uh, I was going through sponsor negotiations. There was a lot of stress, and it felt like a big cliff, really, and I didn't navigate it very well because any feelings of anxiety that I was having, which were tremendous, I pushed away because I associated those as indications that I was behaving like my mother or being like her, which I didn't wanna be. And so I kind of rejected any kind of post-Olympic depression as a possibility for me, and therefore made it even worse. And it wasn't until my dad, months into this episode, saw through the phone really that I was not okay and made me get help that I got help and understood that.

I was sick or I was mentally injured, and that my doctor was like, it's just like a physical injury where you can fall down and scrape your knee and, and your brain can have a scrape on it too, and it can heal, but it's gonna take a long time. And that was really the epiphany moment in my life where I realized that it was an injury and that I could be okay again, but I didn't grow up understanding that these injuries were injuries, and I didn't understand that if they ever happened, that I would be okay. 

[00:11:35] Paddy Steinfort: So it's an emotion. So I firstly appreciate you sharing that story and that part of your journey, it's only one part. It's obviously a very significant part of it, but it's powerful and for some reasons we'll get back to it towards the latter part of the show as well. In particula,r about what it means when people like yourself share that story. But ,your dad picked it up [00:12:00] on a phone call. So tell me about that phone call. Like what is he hearing from you or not hearing that makes him alarm bells go off. 

[00:12:08] Alexi Pappas: Yeah, what a good question, because it was several phone calls. I, you know, I'm close with my dad and he was hearing things that indicated that I thought that my life was ruined. So I thought I knew my future, and I think that's an indication that we're not healthy because you could never know. Future. And I was sure of it. I was sure that it was never gonna be good and that I wanted to go back in time. 

[00:12:33] Paddy Steinfort: Wait a sec. Time out. Time out. You just, you just wanna, you, you just went to the Olympics and set a national record. How are you coming off the back of that saying my future's screwed? 

[00:12:42] Alexi Pappas: Well, that's, see this is the problem though, because I was not. Well, and I think that the world sees you as someone who cannot. Have thoughts like this, so you feel like you can't have thoughts like this. And the truth was that I was not well. And so whatever thoughts I was having, those weren't me. They were just my thoughts and..

[00:13:03] Paddy Steinfort: Were you scared to say them out loud because the world thought a certain way of you? 

[00:13:07] Alexi Pappas: I certainly didn't tell anybody but my dad, and because it was shameful, like you are a superhero and you have no reason to complain. So if anything is wrong, it seems like a spoiled thing to think. But your thoughts, you are not your thoughts, but you can have thoughts. And I had those thoughts. I had thoughts of wanting to go back in time and just recreate a life that I already had. I had thoughts eventually of like, you know, suicidal thoughts, and I think I eventually admitted some of those to him, and he saw what had happened to my mom, and he told me like, we're not gonna lose this time. And that was a really heartbreaking thing to hear from him because I know what he went through, you know, and I know I, I didn't wanna hurt him like that, but I obviously needed his help. 

[00:13:56] Paddy Steinfort: I hear those words and I, I get a little welled up. I lost a relative, my godmother, to suicide when I was an athlete. Not at the age of four, but I know what it can do to a family. And I hear you say that, and I wonder whether your dad was like sneaky good with the way he framed that because you were a competitive athlete and when he framed it as winning versus losing in the battle against mental health that might have like set you up to actually want to compete again it and, and not lose. Do you think any of that played? 

[00:14:26] Alexi Pappas: Oh, it's interesting. I mean, I certainly think that my dad was the type of person that never, very rarely made me do anything he would. So when he said something, it resonated. And so it was more that he wouldn't have intruded or made me do anything unless it was very important.

And I do think turning it into a bit of an athletic thing was smart on his part. It was smart on my doctor's part to be like, this is an injury. Let's like begin the process. It's gonna hurt every day for a long time, just like a broken bone. This is just gonna feel like sadness. And it was just, I think creating those metaphors or those ways for you to visualize yourself as something that you could wrap your head around.

My dad was really good about it. I mean, look, I scared him, right? Like it's scary for him to hear these things and. He always answered the phone and I think that was really important 'cause I clearly didn't want to want to die. I just wanted to die. It was just the thoughts of wanting to die, but I didn't want to have those thoughts.

And I think when I called him, it was like when I had those thoughts, and he knew I didn't want to have those thoughts. And I think he had a really deaf hand of someone who wasn't. He, he just, I don't even know how he knows how to behave the way that he does as a parent, but he definitely, you know, saved my life.

[00:16:03] Paddy Steinfort: It's an amazing credit to him. And we talk a lot in this show with other guests about heroes along the journey, and there's one for you immediately. Obviously, you've already mentioned him and one of the skills that he had and that your psychiatrist, being able to make this kind of tangible or putting it in a frame that like made sense to, I can attack this, we can win.

Or it's a physical injury. I can hear like it gives you a, like you said, something to grab onto, and often we'll use kind of a metaphor or something similar. To answer this question, I ask this of all my guests, what's toughness mean to you in your experience? Both as. One of the world's greatest athletes being able to go to the Olympics and set national records as someone who has, you know, it's not easy to write a book, to get through a project of that size to film a a, a movie to even just to do improv comedy sometimes, right? These are all tough things in their own way. How would you define, and obviously you've been through an incredibly tough personal experience. How would you define toughness, taking all that into account? 

[00:17:13] Alexi Pappas: I think toughness is the ability to hang in there during a period of time that you've committed to a goal. As long as there's no bad pain going on or injury, like it's being able to kind of be in an incubator for a period of time that you've committed to. So, whether you're like, look, I'm running this race and if I'm not injured, I'm going to keep putting my foot in front of the other, or I have this goal and I'm gonna be on my own team and commit.

For this period of time, I think toughness is like committing to a process and also, you know, all the while having the bird's eye view of being able to pull yourself out if some red flag comes up. But barring, if there's no red flags, toughness is your ability to be in there when you need to be in there.

And yeah, and I, and I think toughness requires composure. So it's not like this, like out of control toughness. Toughness isn't like a feral animal. I think toughness is composure. 

[00:18:18] Paddy Steinfort: Hmm. And, and you, so I assume that that mention of composure is probably specific to like in race events, and when they say action as you're acting. But are you referring to other things as well, like periods of time during your mental health? Your mental injury, did you feel like composure was important to you during that as well? 

[00:18:39] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. I felt like it was important to accept certain things as trues, like that I wasn't gonna feel better for a really long time. To have the ability to wake up every day and not be surprised by my pain anymore, but focus on my actions. So, probably toughness is also the ability to suspend your feelings in moments and just focus on your actions because your feelings, at least the way that I see it and the way I was told, your actions change first, then your thoughts, then your feelings in that order only.

And so, probably toughness is the ability to, to give more credit and more attention to the actions than the feelings. And accept that the feelings will change because of the actions. 

[00:19:30] Paddy Steinfort: Love that. Love that. That's a really cool way. I think you kind of hinted at it before when you were saying, you know, there's a red flag, clearly you pull yourself out.

If you're, if you've got incredible pain, it's getting worse. That's not something that we want to encourage people to push through, but almost accepting, not the red flags, but the orange flags, is kind of uncomfortable. I'm gonna have to push through it. And the fact that and it rings true. I remember we had Apollo Ono on the show a while back, and he talked about the fact that he only got really good when he started to accept and embrace a certain type of pain because that was where he got his power from, that made him push a little harder in certain races, et cetera.

Obviously, significant pain, particularly whether it's physical or mental and emotional, is go outta their way and find or to put up with too long. But I think that red flag, orange flag is, is a nice little, I'm gonna play off your metaphor and add that in there. Now, the cool thing, this is why I mentioned at the start of the show that you are possibly the best guest we can ever have, is because you've lived at this amazing level of performance.

Not only have you done it athletically, you've done it in the arts as. And at the same time, so you not only understand the mental requirements of performing at that level at the same time you've been through some, one of the other driving factors of this show is to help people deal with mental stress, pressure, things that could lead people down the wrong path or towards more pain, but if handled properly, and more importantly, if they seek the right support like your dad got you to do.

Then we can still have great lives and get through some tough stuff as well. You having gone through what you've been through, turned into and are one of the more outspoken mental health advocates in sport and it's a really cool passion that I applaud you for and, and it's been cool. Looking at some of your stuff, how did that come to be?

Like how did you decide, notjust 'cause there are plenty of people who go through it. This is a great point I heard you make, I think in an interview. It's not just about saying this is the thing in sport, like, yeah, no shit. Like it's a thing in society. People have the sleep, but you didn't just have it and then get back to work. You, you had it and it changed your focus, like you're passionate about speaking out about this and educating, why that step for you. 

[00:21:54] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. Well, I think it's just shocking to me how uneducated and how unprepared I was for facing what I experienced. Based on my family history, it's like I should have been a kind of red flag candidate for what I went through, and that I was so unprepared means that anyone could be unprepared, I think.

And I think once I realized how simple the vocabulary shifts were, but how profound, I felt like it was really important to share whatever I could, because those vocabulary shifts of seeing my brain as a body part of. Thinking about my actions first and various other things were so epiphany that I needed to share those things.

And also I had an awareness that I have seen the very worst things I think a person might see someone do to themselves. And what I've seen my mom do and felt the very, like I was the highest risk depression you can be. So if anybody falls somewhere in between that I feel that I can uniquely speak to them.

And I remember, you know, when you asked at the beginning of this interview, why, when did you commit to the Olympic dream? It was when my Olympic coach, or it was my college coach, who was an Olympian, told me, this is a dream you could take seriously. I think you should do it. That's when I was like, oh wow.

Hearing that from my dad doesn't mean as much as hearing it from this guy. And so I'm also aware from my perspective that hearing certain things from certain people is more impactful than hearing the same thing from somebody else. And I think that I'm in a position to speak to certain people, and I will do it because I can.

And if it speaks to even one person, that can save someone's life, and I do think that. Even though most of what I put out on social media has this, like I think a sweetness to it, there's a melancholy and like a sharpness to it that if you understand where I came from, you see, and I think it's important at some point to share where that comes from.

And for me, that felt most appropriate in a book where you can kind of tell that whole story. And I love words and I love writing and I'm good at communicating. So I felt. That this was a natural thing to find myself doing. And I also have found that I have something to say about it, that like some people are like, well, we don't know what to do, and I'm like, I know what to do.

I know what, it would've been nice for someone to do for me. I know what would've been nice to hear. I know what would've been not nice to hear. And so it's also just the idea that whenever there's been a question about it, it's been so obvious to me now that I've been through this whole thing, what I could say about it, that I'm saying it now.

[00:24:44] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, that's, I mean, wow. There's so much to grab out of that. Firstly, I did, I was lucky enough to read a few of your, what you've shared on Instagram. There was a poem there that I'm actually furiously scrolling through your feed right now to try and find it so I can share it. If I can't find it, I will record it afterwards and share it with others because, right.

It really was inspiring. Secondly, I'm curious, I believe you're right. There was multiple things you said in there. That really resonated with me, partly because that's why I have ended up hosting this show for similar reasons. But in particular, there were two things you said that I think are almost word-for-word on what I put on the initial note or invite when we're getting guests on the show.

One of which is if you coming on here helps just one person, it's worth it. Yeah. So it was really cool to hear. Say that. The second thing is. I do firmly believe, and there's good evidence to show that hearing the message from the right person changes how you engage with it, changes how likely you are to act on it, all that sort of stuff.

With what you described there as your coach being the person who helped you actually be like, yeah, I'm gonna do this Olympic there. Do you think the right person, I'm doing air quotes for those who. Do you think the right person is referring to someone who's been super successful and I wanna be like him? Or is it someone who has been through what they're talking about? Because if we are talking about being Olympian, cool, I want to hear from someone who's been Olympian and that's success. But if we were talking about mental health, do I want to hear from an NBA player or do I want to hear from someone who had suicidal thoughts and got through it? What do you think? 

[00:26:21] Alexi Pappas: I think you wanna hear from somebody. Who is a step beyond where you are, whatever that is. It could be an emotional step beyond, it could be a career step beyond. I think you would just wanna hear it from someone who's been there and, and, and also someone who feels, maybe someone who it surprises you from.

Because when I, this is not related exactly to the mental health thing, but when I decided to pursue the Olympics. It was actually at the end of college, I had the opportunity to go to really great writing programs and I was gonna do that and just like be a writer. And it was my creative writing advisor who encouraged me to pursue the Olympics because she was like, you'll always be able to write your body is right now.

And so sometimes you hear it from a surprising source, like it wouldn't have meant as much to me from my Olympic coach. To hear, actually pause on your creative stuff for a few moments to chase that Olympic dream. So I can't say exactly, I just know that you know it when you feel it. And you also know, I think, when you're in that position to maybe be that person for someone. And it's okay if you're not. I think that's why everybody matters in this world, because you might be speaking to someone, you might not speak to everyone. But that's okay. 

[00:27:48] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you, if you speak to one, then that's all that matters. Yeah. 

[00:27:53] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. And I noticed that it did speak to people. I think mentorship, it's kind of a two-way street, right? Like you give mentorship, but you also can draw it out of people and it's an ongoing relationship. So I've just tried to stay engaged with people and try to feel what has spoken to them. And I think when you write like a memoir. It's not a journal.

So I'm writing it with the hopes that people will connect with it. And so it's, it is a goal. It is a goal. It's important to me because I would've loved to have that from somebody when I was younger. 

[00:28:30] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Uh, you mentioned two things there. One was the mentorship, and the fact that obviously you think it's important.

You've mentioned three, four. Helping you go to the Olympics. Number two, helping you go to the Olympics. Number three, tackling a big event. Number four, it's cool and all, and I think this is for me, one of the coolest things about what you. It is not, not, I mean, that's crazy to say that after we've already heard everything you've said, it's amazing that you share this story and, and it's, you're so authentic with it, but that you actually talk about things that people can do, not just like, like the Instagram quotes that are like, Hey, you know, tough it out or ignore the haters.

We had Ron Chang on here one time, and he, he made the joke that I love that Ignore the Haters is a fucking Instagram quote. It doesn't, it's not useful to anyone. How do you do that? 

[00:29:20] Alexi Pappas:  It doesn't do anything. Yeah. 

[00:29:21] Paddy Steinfort: And so you talk a lot about action, which we'll get into in a second, specific to mental health. But let's talk about, when you say find a mentor, like how the fuck do you go do that? 

[00:29:31] Alexi Pappas: I think it's, you draw it out of people. Like, I think the word itself feels really passive, but I always, when I was little, knew that I needed it because I was like, I don't have a mom. I need to like. Find help. And so I would always try to get it out of people, and I think that it seems like something that you're just given, but I never expected to be given it.

I expected I would have to go out and get it. And then the fun part was realizing that you never have to outgrow wanting that. And that muscle that draws it out of people and the way you draw it out of people is simply being interested in them and being. Like grateful to be around someone and then not being afraid to ask questions.

And people can always say no. Like, I've approached people who just simply don't have time to mentor me or help me. And that's fine. Like, who cares? Someone just says no. But if I never ask, I'm not gonna know. Maybe they would say yes. And so I think it's a muscle you develop. 

[00:30:37] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Do you talk a lot about this? It's a good metaphor because. Mental injury standpoint, but the developing the muscle of asking questions, even if it feels a little scary. You also had a really cool acronym. The first one is the, the brain, uh, acronym B is for a body part, and you've mentioned that a few times. Your brain's a body part, and it can get injured just like other things.

Your muscles, your bones, R is for recover, but just like other physical injuries and mental injuries can get better, but you've gotta accept. You don't get better immediately. It takes some time. A is for attention and that's paying attention to your thoughts and feelings, like if you pay attention to pain or discomfort in the rest of your body.

A is for intervention. Like most of the injuries, the problem starts small. So when you do notice that things start to build up, that you want to act on them, and then N is for normal. That's it's normal for your mind to need maintenance at work, just like it's normal. If you want your muscles to work, you have to work.

I thought like that is just the one simple example of that point that I was making before, that your, what you share is tangible and practical, which is a really, I think, a vital part of this stuff. 'cause I reiterate again, you said something like, it's kind of a waste of our breath by just pointing out that, oh, athletes have mental health injuries too.

It's very useful that Naomi Osaka comes out and talks about it that. As being so vocal, but just saying you have it is not the same as helping people who have it by saying, here's stuff you can do. 

[00:32:12] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. Well that's because we don't know what to do. Maybe it's like an athletic thing where like we wanna be coached, like we wanna know what to do. And it's also if you do believe in the, like actions change, then thoughts, then feelings. We have to focus on the actions first. 

And it just simplifies it and makes it less of like a choice. Whether or not we're ill or injured or whatever. It's more like an injury, where like you can't think your way out of an injury. It takes actions and time, and that's it. It just simplifies it a little bit because actions are things we can do. 

[00:32:49] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, and we mentioned before, actions in one instance is a physical, tangible action of seeking support, engaging with a coach or a therapist, or even just a family member who can help you.

But in times, sometimes, particularly with inner struggles, inner issues, the inner game, if it's not a mental health thing, it's just trying to perform better. Is some of the actions us are flipping the way you view things or like you said, changing the vocabulary, which I think is a really cool way to put it.

And this is for me, what I think grabbed me about your poem. I'm gonna share it now. It's, it was posted on World Mental Health Day and you write about losing your mom to suicide when you were four, had reverberated effects throughout your life. There's a lot more in your book, brave about that, but this is a poem that you wrote to that effect.

Sometimes I feel sad, I want things so bad. I want things so bad that it makes me feel sad. Why do I feel sad? Is wanting things bad? Why can't I be rad to want things so bad? I think about ants and how badly they want. They try till they die to eat all your pie. What else could I do, chase? Nothing at all. Not want things because I'm too scared to fall. I think it's not sad. I misunderstood why I feel. How I feel about my mood. Why fear sad? 'cause sad is just care. And care is brave. Care is hard. Care is rad. Care is rare. It's such a cool way to share your own reframing of this stuff. Changing your vocabulary about that.

Feeling sad isn't a bad thing. It means something's important to you, and it means that you care and caring's good. And we just have to be careful about how we overuse that sometimes, right? Or how we let that become the driver of the bus instead of just accepting that I'm gonna go on this run and sadness is gonna come with me for a little bit.

And so I just wanted to share that with you. Firstly, personally as a thank you, but also with the listeners. If you are interested, Alexi shares openly on Instagram, but the book itself has many more, I'll say, narratives or notes like this that are worth digging into. What's the biggest vocabulary flip for you, Alexia, that you like? Either was the easiest and the most powerful, or it actually was really hard to do, but once you managed to do it, it's made a huge difference for you. 

[00:35:20] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. Well first of all, it was very surreal to hear you read the poem, like it was a real thing in the world. I mean, it is, but I only hear them in my voice. So to hear it in yours was like a really, like, I, I'm very grateful for that experience that, I don't know, that made me tear up because it made me feel like something that I thought was like worthy of someone else saying it. So that was really nice and I think that, to be honest, like the most life-changing thing was accepting my brain as a body part.

Because when I see my brain as a body part, everything makes sense. Where, you know, a little rough feeling one day isn't an indication that I like need to turn myself into a hospital or see a doctor. Just like if my. Leg feels a little sore one day. It's like, alright, maybe it's a day off or like, it's, you know, you, you know what to do about it.

And if it progresses, you know, it's like, it, it just made me completely take care of my mental health, the way I would my physical health. And I've been trained for my entire life to take care of my body. And so for me that was so epic because I already knew how to do it. I just didn't realize it was the same thing.

So I would just say that has been the number one. Vocabulary switch that I wish that people knew before they, I hope people know that if it helps them before they need to know that. So yeah, that truthfully was the number one. 

[00:36:54] Paddy Steinfort: It's number one on that list that I read before, and it, and it is very catchy and easy to remember. Yeah, brain, your brain, user body part. One of the things that we, that is common to this show, I, I steal this question from John Gordon, who's a great author, inspirational speaker. An exercise that he ran with sports teams, and to be around. One time he spoke, and it's the four, I think it three became the four.

You've already covered two of them by sharing what you've so far. Your hardship and also hero or multiple heroes along your journey. There are two others that he gets to, which is highlight and hope. We'll get to the hope as the last way to tie it up, but can you share a highlight of like, this is a, for some people, they hear what you're sharing about the story, and they're like, oh, I don't ever wanna feel that.

Like I'm happy to just stay in the. I just wanna have a planned life with not too many ups and downs. But for you, you've gone to the highest, highest mount Olympus. You've gone to the lowest lows, suicidal thoughts. What for you, after you've recovered from your mental injury and after you've started to move into this different part of your life, what's the highlight for you so far? And you can't say meeting your husband at the party. It's off, off the, 

[00:38:08] Alexi Pappas: I met him before anyway. Okay. So I would say. The highlight for me, I mean, I think releasing the book was a highlight, but I honestly feel that a recent highlight that I've had was we just shot a movie and I felt for the first time in my life, the feeling of teammate ship that I felt in sports.

On a film set where everybody was so committed to this one goal, and it was so much like the feeling of like people dying on the soccer field for each other that I loved so much. Growing up, it was like, and I never knew that that was possible. In the arts, and I remember I have a mentor in Richard Linklater, the filmmaker, who was a really, really competitive baseball player and he had to stop for health conditions and he became a filmmaker.

And I remember he told me, like, you can have this in the arts. And I had never, I hadn't quite felt it until we shot this movie, and I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is teamwork in a creative world. It was such a joy because I hoped that that could exist, but it's something that I hadn't yet experienced, and it's my favorite part about sports, and now it's my favorite part about creative stuff and in life really.

[00:39:29] Paddy Steinfort: That's a really cool discovery. I wanna say congratulations to you. I know that probably not that one, but I have a similar experience. I have a mentor myself who is a trained therapist. And probably when I talk to him, it's part therapy as well, I imagine. But the, I talked to him about my discovery of I got in flow while I was coaching someone, right?. And it actually had happened multiple, multiple times within the space of a month. And I'm like, it's the weirdest thing I feel like I used to feel when I was in the zone while I was playing. 

[00:40:00] Alexi Pappas: Wow. And he's like, 

[00:40:01] Paddy Steinfort: yeah, 

[00:40:02] Alexi Pappas: Tell me more. So, is it like you were just so focused with the person, or you just felt like you knew what to say or what?

[00:40:09] Alexi Pappas: What was it? 

[00:40:11] Paddy Steinfort: I don't know. Like I can only relate it to like when you're in a competitive environment, so I played professional football, you're racing, right, and you're in that moment. And there's not any anxiety or you're not, your mind isn't running, trying to fix things or like solve problem. It's just like, I was almost just grateful to be sitting there and having someone share a very important problem, and feeling grateful to be the person they're doing that with, but also just doing the dance of like, I'm not predetermined with where this session goes.

I don't wanna run this thing with you. I, I don't want to say this to you. Tell me where you're at, and then let's explore that. And it was just like this really magic, like it's for people who can't see, which is everyone if listening I keep like crafting this. It was almost like there was this magic space between the two people in the room. And I was happy. I was happy enough to sit in it. I don't, it's really hard to explain, but I think for people who have been in the arts, in competitive sports, for people who have dropped into the zone surfing, you get in the. Making love to the person that she loves. Like there are moments where it's just like everything else disappears and you just feel so cool to be in it. And it almost loves death. 

[00:41:25] Alexi Pappas: Yeah. Yeah. You don't belong anywhere else. Yeah. You're just exactly where you are. Yeah. That's Is that 

[00:41:30] Paddy Steinfort: What it was like for you on that set? 

[00:41:32] Alexi Pappas: It was, and it, it almost felt like a different planet because we were shooting it actually at the summer camp in Big Bear, so we were like on a closed summer camp set and it was like we were on a different. It was like a little bit of its own world and I just felt so unselfconsciously able to do, to express, I don't know. 'cause I was directing and acting, so it was a lot, it was constant and I just looked around and I felt that everybody believed in what everybody was doing and everybody was gonna give their best of what they were doing.

So everybody was there was meant to be doing something and they were doing that something with a very, very full heart, open, heart, full commitment. They wouldn't wanna be anywhere else in the world. And you could feel that, and that makes everybody better. 

[00:42:22] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, that's, it's a purity to it. I've had a couple of players and coaches mention this whilst it's been obviously a tragedy for many people in the world and it significantly changed the way we do business in many ways. Some of the, a lean set in a, in a locker room, that that has gone into effect as well, and it's changed the dynamic. There's not as many hangers on, there's not as many people even in the crowd. 

[00:42:48] Alexi Pappas: You don't need it. You like really need all that.

[00:42:52] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. And you think, was it, uh, without giving away too much of the actual nature of the, of the film or the plot, was there something to do with the storyline that it's like there's a commitment to a greater cause? The salts just created a cool work of art. Is there something in it? 

[00:43:05] Alexi Pappas: There's been a deadline article about it. It is out there in the world. 

[00:43:09] Paddy Steinfort: Okay. All right. 

[00:43:10] Alexi Pappas: About the movie exists. So it is about artists. So it's actually inspired by the last chapter of my book, which is about the difference between. Interest and commitment in a dream, and it's about an artist in residency. It's a fictitious artist. In residency that high potential artists who have yet to fulfill their potential yet go for a month and they get one month to create their project and win a hundred thousand dollars, or they sign a contract where they will quit the arts forever, which obviously doesn't exist, but I found.

In my life that there was a moment where I was like, I'm doing this no matter what, and I feel that you, it doesn't really exist. Like you could pretend to be chasing whatever dream forever, maybe, unless it's like the NFL or the NBA where it's like, no, you like are not on the team. But you know, you could pretend to be chasing any kind of dream or, or kind of half do it. But in this world you can't. You have to sign a contract. The Abbott, which is like the person who puts it on is played by the Rizza, who's the founder of the wci. 

He's incredible. And like, anyway, it was, it, it's definitely the best movie I've ever made and I feel that it encapsulates this kind of, I guess that toughness that you and I talked about, about like, get in there and do what you came to do here for a month, or you'll never do it. Yeah, and it's a comedy, but it's also like, I think some people are gonna leave the theater and be like, have a very sobering moment about their own life. And I'm not here to protect any egos, so 

[00:44:53] Paddy Steinfort: That's very cool. I know that I, I occasionally will have a chat with, there's an athlete or a performer in a different field who's complaining about bi outta the other, or the coach scrutiny, or my agents not doing the job. It's like, well, cool, I can make all that go away. We can just quit. Just never come back. Right. You just don't play anymore. And they kinda laugh like, oh, well that's stupid. It's like, well if if you're not gonna quit, then let's do it properly. 

[00:45:17] Alexi Pappas: Exactly. Oh, I love that. I love that you tell people that because that's really the like Yeah. It's like the shit. Or get off the pot moment of like, yes. And what are we gonna do, you know? Yeah, 

[00:45:29] Paddy Steinfort: Exactly. Exactly. Um, so let's use that last chapter as a metaphor. We're gonna start to. Just as I predicted, the best person to have on this show, we'll finish with what your hope is. So, so you've obviously shared a lot about where this movement generated for you. You are a creator who has so many different channels to express this message. What's your hope now from where you are now? You've had a great story, and you're only 31. It's crazy. What's next? 

[00:45:56] Alexi Pappas: Yeah, I had an epiphany the other day, which is that the greatest joy, so I think the greatest joy in my life used to be thinking about these big peak moments and like visualizing them and wanting them, and I still like to visualize those moments.

I realized recently that I found way more joy in admitting what I like, really want and being really, really honest about it, even if it's like a thing that the world doesn't see. For me, I see it and then chasing it with like my entire heart, like a little child chasing the ice cream truck. And I think I learned that lesson from writing this book, Bravey, because I know that it was not exactly what people expected of me.

People, I think, expected like a saccharin inspirational sweet little thing, and it's more like a kind nice, like it's great. Mm-hmm. It has some gore and sex, and you know, it, it is a little bit, it's a, there's a knife quality to it, but the world was fine with it. So what I learned was that it's up to me to grow myself up and evolve and decide what I want and chase it.

And I can't control whether the world will be okay with it or not. But chances are they will and they'll be fine and everyone will be fine. And I also just can't control it. And so I think my hope is that I continue to every day remind myself to just keep that as the goal is like. Being honest with what I want and then trying the very best I can and not thinking about the results at all because I cannot control it.

And I think it's a slight shift from being really goal-oriented, but it's felt really good so far, and I feel a lot happier. My average is much happier now. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I'm not as fixated on the peaks, and I know the peaks will come. Most of my life is in the journey, and I need that to be more fun. It should be more fun. That's it. 

[00:48:03] Paddy Steinfort: That's very cool. It's a nice process goal as opposed to an outcome goal. Right? It's, 

[00:48:07] Alexi Pappas: yeah. Did that catch that? Right? It's, yeah, but it's a very hard thing to tell someone because I've been told a million times like, it's the journey and blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, no. So I don't know, and I'm still finding the words to convince people that this is the truth. And that it is the best way and I think I'm writing a young reader's version of Bravey and I'm gonna make it a totally different book. 'cause I don't believe in, just like watering down something for a 12-year-old.

I wanna write a different book. And I think that's one of the things I wanna tackle is putting that into words that feel like they would've resonated with me growing up, which I was tough. That would've been a very hard thing to convince me of before 

[00:48:49] Paddy Steinfort: 12-year-old Alex. Is that who you're writing to now?

[00:48:52] Alexi Pappas: It's a tough one. Whoa. 

[00:48:53] Paddy Steinfort: Wow. Well good luck with that. 

[00:48:56] Alexi Pappas: I know. I feel I 

[00:48:57] Paddy Steinfort: gotta, I gotta be honest, Alexi, it sounds like 31-year-old. Alexi's a tough one as well. You, it's an amazing journey. 

[00:49:02] Alexi Pappas: I'm having more fun though. I think that's it. I think that's what's gonna be the chapters I'm gonna be like, it will be more fun. And you'll probably get to your goal more likely, right? Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:49:15] Paddy Steinfort: Well, exactly. I mean, sometimes when people are like stuck in the. Shitty parts of life. Like you're either having a mental health episode or you just had a bad day at work, or you got kicked outta the playoffs before you wanted to.

There can be like, they feel like shit dazed and people just want the pain to go away. But what we find, particularly in the psychological science, is that when you stop trying to get away from pain and you start moving towards what you love, like you move towards good things, it's not away from bad things. The bad things tend to drive fade away anyway. So it's a cool, like intuitively you've worked out what it took psychologists hundreds of years to decipher is that just make it about lovely fun. 

[00:49:59] Alexi Pappas: You're trying to be  like a tornado of good or whatever tornado of joy you need no room in that tornado for. Maybe it's just like being a little bit more amused that you're a creature who's like chasing this like likely arbitrary goal, right? Like sports, the arts, I mean it's not arbitrary 'cause it matters to you. That's, it’s not right. You kind of 

[00:50:20] Paddy Steinfort: hit, you kind of hit on what, what it was when I was, had that coaching moment where we were in the zone coaching, it was like, it's kind of the absurdity of some of it. And  the like the, the like, oh, pinch me moments. And also even just the like all, well, let's see what we can work out here. And rather than being stressed out by it, just being almost curious about, I wonder what it would be like if we sold this little griddle for you. Yeah. Wonder what it would be like if we got through this pain. And it's just that curious, fun instead of g your teeth and get through. 

[00:50:51] Alexi Pappas: Yes, exactly. It's all, and that just is the vocabulary, like you said. 

[00:50:56] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 

[00:50:58] Alexi Pappas: I love it. Oh my God. 

[00:51:00] Paddy Steinfort: Huh. Well, Alex, this has been an amazing roller coaster ride, but worth every minute and every penny. Thank you so much for, uh, for joining us on the show. For people who do wanna track you down. Uh, obviously I've mentioned your Instagram. What's your handle? 

[00:51:14] Alexi Pappas: Alexi Pappas. 

[00:51:26] Paddy Steinfort: All good. So Alexi Pappa on Instagram. You can also find her book, Bravery, online. Amazon good bookstore. Thank you so much, Alexi, and good luck with, uh, with the rest of your amazing career. The journey's only just begun.