What if the kids who look like they’re doing just fine on the outside are quietly struggling to make sense of what’s happening on the inside?
Ross Szabo is one of the leading voices in youth mental health education: founding Wellness Director at Geffen Academy at UCLA, founder of the Human Power Project, co-author of Behind Happy Faces, and author of A Kids Book About Anxiety. His story starts long before the titles. Born into a family with severe mental health disorders and addiction, Ross was 11 when he visited his older brother in a psychiatric ward, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder himself at 16, and coped with drinking that began at age 12. In his senior year of high school, after months of crippling depression, he attempted to take his own life… and this occurred while serving as class president, playing varsity basketball, and carrying a high GPA. On the outside, everything looked fine. The inside was a different story. That distance between the outside and the inside became the through line of his life’s work.
A big part of this conversation is about language. Ross puts it plainly: “It’s like we’ve stopped just using emotional words and everyone now has anxiety and everyone has depression, but not everyone actually has anxiety and depression.” Knowing the difference between feeling nervous and having anxiety, and having more words than “I’m good” or “I’m stressed,” turns out to matter enormously… the research shows the more words you have for your feelings, the better your mental health.
In this conversation, Mike and Ross explore:
- Why so many young people look fine on the outside while struggling on the inside
- A clear, working definition of mental health
- The difference between feeling nervous and having anxiety
- Why more words for your feelings means better mental health
- How to build coping mechanisms the way athletes build skills
- Why modeling beats lecturing at home
- What parents overlook when preparing kids for college
Ross’s work is an invitation to care for the mind with the same clarity we bring to the body. And if you’re raising, teaching, or leading young people, this conversation offers the language and the skills to close the gap between the outside and the inside.
“The way that I define mental health is it’s not about having a problem, it’s how you address different challenges in your life. It’s not about being perfect.” — Ross Szabo
“One of the most important things about being a leader is giving yourself thinking time. Allow yourself, whatever it is, however you do it, whether it be at night, whether it be morning, whether you do it regularly each month, give yourself some clear thinking time.” – Eddie Jones
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