Speaker 1: The following takes place between seven pm and eight pm.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to at seven oh seven, seven
Speaker 2: hundred WLW Welcome in RNL Carrier Sports Talk presented by
Speaker 2: Kelsey Chevrolet. Two hours to get it done tonight, man,
Speaker 2: do we have some grind to cover. We have a
Speaker 2: developing situation with the Reds. Let me give you the
Speaker 2: cliff Notes version on that. Sea Trent is reporting the
Speaker 2: Reds in Emilio Pagan have reached terms of agreement on
Speaker 2: a two year contract. Details to follow. My first guest
Speaker 2: is a Cincinnati kid. You might remember him as a
Speaker 2: sports anchor and reporter for Channel five from twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty two. After battling depression and suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 2: he checked himself into a mental health hospital, began treatment,
Speaker 2: found a new purpose, left TV, became a mental health
Speaker 2: advocate host of the Mental Game podcast. You might remember
Speaker 2: he joined me in studio back in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: What a journey since. What an incredible latest chapter We're
Speaker 2: going to get to in a second, but what a
Speaker 2: pleasure to welcome back Brandon. Sayo, how are you?
Speaker 3: I'm good land man. I look back to that moment
Speaker 3: in the studio. I think we had like maybe ten
Speaker 3: or fifteen minutes carved out. We ended up doing an
Speaker 3: hours together. And now I'll be forever grateful for you
Speaker 3: letting me share my story that way on the radio,
Speaker 3: because it was the first time that I really told
Speaker 3: a lot of those stories of my mental health struggle.
Speaker 3: So thanks man. I love it, and I'm excited to
Speaker 3: be back.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so proud of what you are doing and
Speaker 2: so excited about what you're doing. And that night I
Speaker 2: get goosebumps and my hair stands up on my arms
Speaker 2: just remembering the things we discussed that night. Let's do
Speaker 2: this before we get to the incredible news, do a
Speaker 2: little bit of backtracking. It's set up for those who
Speaker 2: may not be aware of what all is going on.
Speaker 2: Tell listeners what your mission is with the Mental Game podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean I struggled from fourteen years old
Speaker 3: on as a freshman at Lasal with suicidal thoughts all
Speaker 3: the way through college and even when I got my
Speaker 3: dream job working at WLWT and getting to do the
Speaker 3: sports with George and Elise and the crew at Channel
Speaker 3: five and covering the Bengal is going to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: No one really knew that behind the scenes, I was
Speaker 3: battling suicide every second, every day. For those three months
Speaker 3: leading up to that Super Bowl run, I had three
Speaker 3: family members passed away, including my cousin Ben, who's based
Speaker 3: in my older brother. He had a heart attack at
Speaker 3: thirty one. I dealt with all this pressure on me,
Speaker 3: obviously at work, which I loved, but it's a lot.
Speaker 3: And then I always felt alone and wanted to have
Speaker 3: that picture perfect you know, high school sweetheart, marriage and
Speaker 3: family and kids like we do here in Cincinnati. And
Speaker 3: I thought I finally found that person with that relationship,
Speaker 3: with going through a really moment and break up and
Speaker 3: toxic relationship, and so I get the rock bottom man
Speaker 3: where at twenty eight I had to go to my
Speaker 3: mom for the first time ever. He's the first person
Speaker 3: I ever told like, I don't want to live anymore,
Speaker 3: I don't know how to live and I need help.
Speaker 3: And that is the first time I asked for help,
Speaker 3: and I checked into a hospital at the Lender Center
Speaker 3: Hope and Mason. That helped save my life the next day,
Speaker 3: and that was the first step man. But it's been
Speaker 3: a long, long journey since that day.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, and your Mental Game podcast is
Speaker 2: just blowing up and you it seems if I had
Speaker 2: a map in front of me. You are traversing the
Speaker 2: country talking with with athletes and celebrities and they are
Speaker 2: opening up to you. And I'm struck by how comfortable
Speaker 2: you make them in very uncomfortable conversations. They're opening up
Speaker 2: to you about stuff like this. Give listeners an idea
Speaker 2: of some of the people you've talked to over the
Speaker 2: course of the last few years.
Speaker 3: Well, I have to give Sam Hubbard credit. That guy
Speaker 3: is a good friend of mine. Obviously a chance to
Speaker 3: cover him with the Bengals and I was at Channel five,
Speaker 3: but I texted him I had the idea, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: I got this idea to talk with athletes about mental health.
Speaker 3: Can I try it with you? And he invited me
Speaker 3: over to his house on an off day. I ended
Speaker 3: up becoming the first ever episode, and without Sam it
Speaker 3: wouldn't happen. But man, it's been crazy. I mean it
Speaker 3: started with Sam, Ricky Williams, one of my first guests,
Speaker 3: Jake Frailey with the Reds when he was still in town.
Speaker 3: But it's grown now where you know, I moved to
Speaker 3: La almost two years ago. Now, I drove my car
Speaker 3: out there, which is a long trick. But you know,
Speaker 3: I've been able to sit down with people like Harry
Speaker 3: Crews and it was the first time that he ever
Speaker 3: opened up about being suicidal, and he chose to do
Speaker 3: it with me because he felt comfortable with my vulnerability
Speaker 3: in my story. And so to get to sit down
Speaker 3: with some of these big time people in sports, whether
Speaker 3: it's Adam Schefter, Will Wade, Ted Carritt, you know, Ryan
Speaker 3: shay Z or Nate Burlison, these people that you think
Speaker 3: have nothing wrong and they're rich and they're strong, and
Speaker 3: they're playing in the NFL, they're on TVs. Guess what
Speaker 3: we all struggle. We all go through stuff. And so
Speaker 3: I love what I've been able to do with the
Speaker 3: pod and it's not something I ever dreamed of, but
Speaker 3: it's become my true purpose. And really that purpose is
Speaker 3: the in person stuff I get to do when I'm
Speaker 3: in schools or I'm at businesses, or I'm at LSU
Speaker 3: with Joe Burrow's parents, talking to thousands of people about
Speaker 3: mental health. Maybe for the first time they're talking about
Speaker 3: it because it's sports related. That's the whole goal.
Speaker 2: Man your newest chapter is pretty dang incredible, and you
Speaker 2: are the subject of the interview. Explain what happened yesterday
Speaker 2: and who you talked to and who talked to you.
Speaker 3: I can't believe every time I stay this sentence because
Speaker 3: it's been a secret I've had to keep for about
Speaker 3: three weeks. But I sat down with Oprah Winfrey, which
Speaker 3: is insane to say out loud, and I got to
Speaker 3: share my story with her. You know, I had. I
Speaker 3: had this video that went viral about three weeks ago
Speaker 3: where I talked about nothing It's related, not really mental health,
Speaker 3: but my fear of never being a father or a
Speaker 3: husband one day and I did not know that video
Speaker 3: would change my life and get to Oprah and her
Speaker 3: want to talk to me about it. It was incredible
Speaker 3: to see the outpouring of messages from men and women.
Speaker 3: But lance I'm talking about like, I went to bed
Speaker 3: on a Friday night posted just not thinking anything, not
Speaker 3: putting a ton of effort into it, and I woke
Speaker 3: up and had millions of views. I mean, it's got
Speaker 3: like fifteen million across three or four platforms. Now, I've
Speaker 3: heard from people all over the world, and one of
Speaker 3: those people was her producer, and I'm sitting at the
Speaker 3: Roses with my mom, like I'm in town for twenty
Speaker 3: four hours. I was speaking out Mountain ut her dame,
Speaker 3: and I go to the Roses in Blue Ass with
Speaker 3: my mom and I'm like, Mom, I just got an
Speaker 3: email about Oprah, Like I don't know what this is,
Speaker 3: and so I call the guy and it's legit and
Speaker 3: long story short, Yeah, I was able to sit down
Speaker 3: with her. She had this amazing episode with Scott Galloway.
Speaker 3: It's kind of the feature Gatsi's the great men's mental
Speaker 3: health coach and author and professor at NYU, but the
Speaker 3: whole episode was about male loneliness and so for about
Speaker 3: eight to ten minutes they featured my story and I
Speaker 3: got to have that conversation with Oprah and the audience,
Speaker 3: and man, it was it was special and it was
Speaker 3: really hard to hold on to until yesterday. But when
Speaker 3: you're with one of the all time greats when it
Speaker 3: comes to TV and entertainment and just I mean Lance,
Speaker 3: she's one of the top ten living people. Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: it's insane to say that, but it was really powerful. Man.
Speaker 3: There's some cool moments that I'll share here in a
Speaker 3: sec but just to get the chance to sit with
Speaker 3: her and have that conversation on a stage like that.
Speaker 3: I mean my phone that I put it out yesterday.
Speaker 3: It was pretty wild. I haven't stopped.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: So you said, it's about eight to ten minutes. Where
Speaker 2: where did it take place? And how can listeners view?
Speaker 2: Would watch it right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So she shot in New York. That's where we
Speaker 3: sho She shoots these group ones kind of with a
Speaker 3: fifty person audience. It kind of feels like her old show,
Speaker 3: but in a podcast form. And so yeah, add on
Speaker 3: the Open again. This sounds so weird to say out
Speaker 3: loud because I'm just a normal dude, but you can
Speaker 3: find me talking with Oprah on the Open podcast on
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio and all of your podcast platforms, and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: it was just really special, man. I think what was
Speaker 3: really cool She plays that video and I actually just
Speaker 3: put this on Instagram right before you know, I hopped
Speaker 3: on with you and she plays the video on Oprah
Speaker 3: and I like kind of tear up together and she
Speaker 3: pats her heart at me, and it was just like
Speaker 3: this moment of man, Oprah's talking about my story and
Speaker 3: I'm on this platform and it's like, I had this
Speaker 3: moment afterwards, and it's a it's we talk about my
Speaker 3: dating life, my mental health journey, what I do with
Speaker 3: the mental game, you know, the this vulnerability piece that
Speaker 3: I think so many men are afraid to having because
Speaker 3: we're told we're weak if we're emotional this BS that
Speaker 3: isn't true, but we are fed our entire life. But
Speaker 3: after the interview gets done, Lance, I walked backstage with
Speaker 3: Oprah and I'm sitting there and we're having a conversation,
Speaker 3: we take pictures, we hug, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I just like hear this other person start running towards us,
Speaker 3: and they're going, I love this branding guy. I got
Speaker 3: to meet him and it's Gail King, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: what is my life right now? Where I'm sitting backstage
Speaker 3: and I'm like the sandwich of an Oprah. Gail and
Speaker 3: me hug. It was like the coolest thing ever. And
Speaker 3: at that point, Oprah's you know team, they saw that,
Speaker 3: like Gail and Oprah trusted me enough where it was
Speaker 3: just us for like five minutes, and I got to
Speaker 3: have that moment in my head where during that five
Speaker 3: minutes of us talking and just telling each other's story
Speaker 3: and connecting Adotta who we obviously they know everyone, but
Speaker 3: like I have connection with Nate on my show and
Speaker 3: CBS Morning. But I had like ten seconds in my
Speaker 3: head man that I went, you are literally standing with
Speaker 3: Oprah and Gail King in New York City getting to
Speaker 3: do what you dreamed of, Like this is what all
Speaker 3: those nights walking on the road, Lank, thinking about taking
Speaker 3: your life, going to therapy, starting this thing, quitting your job,
Speaker 3: driving uber, having no money, getting sober, like all this stuff. Man,
Speaker 3: it was worth it in like that ten seconds. I
Speaker 3: you talked to like people like Burrow or these athletes
Speaker 3: and they're like, not just another game. They don't really
Speaker 3: have time to soak it all in. I made sure that,
Speaker 3: like I soaked that in for at least ten seconds
Speaker 3: of that time because it was a special dude, man oh.
Speaker 2: Man, And it kind of paint the picture of what
Speaker 2: you cat. You do a lot of traveling. In fact,
Speaker 2: I think you're going to be in if I have
Speaker 2: your itinerary or right, are you going to be an
Speaker 2: Indian Saturday as part of an event around the IU
Speaker 2: Loisville basketball game?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the care Source Invitational. I've got really Lucky
Speaker 3: where we've been out with a partner, the Mental Game
Speaker 3: and Care Source, thanks to the University of DAT and
Speaker 3: the coach Grant you know, you know his story where
Speaker 3: they lost their daughter Data and they started Javelite to
Speaker 3: raise awareness for mental health and funds to help people
Speaker 3: in the community. And started with one game with Dayton
Speaker 3: three years ago and a town hall at ud and
Speaker 3: now it's turned into this cross country tour. We have
Speaker 3: three or four games each year. This one in India
Speaker 3: is huge, man. Want it's on the day of the
Speaker 3: Big ten title game with IU who's playing of course
Speaker 3: Ohio State, but we're on national TV on CBS. It's
Speaker 3: a huge game and it's all about mental health. Obviously
Speaker 3: they want to win on the court, but it's a
Speaker 3: mental health awareness game. So what's really cool is the
Speaker 3: day before so on Friday, both coaches and both teams
Speaker 3: will join us at a local high school and will
Speaker 3: surprise the kids and we have this big pep rally.
Speaker 3: I do my fifteen minute keynote, really interacted, getting the
Speaker 3: celebrities that I know involved, with teams involved, and then
Speaker 3: they do drills with the players and coaches that get
Speaker 3: to interact. It's a special, special thing that you see
Speaker 3: Ohio State Zager, our old buddy coach cal and Arkansas
Speaker 3: has done it with a couple of years too. It's
Speaker 3: been really special, man. But yeah, I'm going there. I'm
Speaker 3: in Dayton tomorrow and then I am in Indy this
Speaker 3: weekend and back to LA. Before I'm obviously I was
Speaker 3: in Texas and South Dakota and month. It's it's insane.
Speaker 3: We got forty six states down, four.
Speaker 2: To go, Brandon. I can't imagine that the power of
Speaker 2: the connection you're making when when you take this message
Speaker 2: to schools or businesses. There are two events and and
Speaker 2: I watched the crowds you're talking to, and there's probably
Speaker 2: moments where you make eye contact with somebody who may
Speaker 2: be tearing up, and and just the connection and the
Speaker 2: help you're offering them when you put your head on
Speaker 2: the pillow at night, it's just got to make you
Speaker 2: feel so good. The how you're impacting.
Speaker 3: Lives, it is pretty crazy, man. It's like being on
Speaker 3: Oprah is awesome. Getting to meet some of the people
Speaker 3: and live in LA and rough shoulders with who I'm
Speaker 3: rubbing shoulders with now is life changing. But the real
Speaker 3: life changing and life saving stuff is what I get
Speaker 3: to do when I'm at my alma mater at the
Speaker 3: South and I get I get to talk to those
Speaker 3: kids that were you know that I've been in their shoes.
Speaker 3: Or I get to be at UC, or I get
Speaker 3: to be at UD and with these businesses. Hey, dude,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if it's ten people in a high
Speaker 3: school classroom or ten thousand in a basketball arena this weekend.
Speaker 3: Every time I stay after and talk and meet with
Speaker 3: people one on one as long as I possibly can,
Speaker 3: and every time, at least one usually more come up
Speaker 3: and say, hey, man, I never told anyone this, but
Speaker 3: I'm suicidal right now. I need help. I don't know
Speaker 3: what to do. Can you help me? And it breaks
Speaker 3: my heart, but it also warms my heart because it
Speaker 3: gives me that confidence that we're doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: We're creating a safe space, and we always have resources
Speaker 3: with us so we can help them in those moments.
Speaker 3: And man, I'm not saying this is like a look
Speaker 3: at me thing, but we've been to forty six states.
Speaker 3: We've touched them up two hundred and fifty thousand lives
Speaker 3: in person last year and a half, and man, my
Speaker 3: goal is to finish off fifty and then I don't know,
Speaker 3: I got open on myself right now, let's go International's
Speaker 3: Australia right now.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, Oh incredible. For those listening who want to check
Speaker 2: out the Mental Game podcast who want to maybe connect
Speaker 2: with you about bringing your message to where they are,
Speaker 2: tell them all the information they need how they can
Speaker 2: seek you out and check out your.
Speaker 3: Stuff of course, Yeah, go to the Mental Dot Game.
Speaker 3: The Mental Dot Game, you can see where I'm going
Speaker 3: to be at, but you can also hit us up
Speaker 3: and email our team. I love to come to high schools,
Speaker 3: middle schools, businesses. I'll tell you what, man, talking to
Speaker 3: people our age that maybe don't talk about mental health
Speaker 3: ever and breaking that that stigma with them is really
Speaker 3: really special. You can see where I'm going to be at.
Speaker 3: I love to meet up with people, make content videos
Speaker 3: and just be able to have conversations. And it's funny
Speaker 3: that obviously I'm in Cincinnati. I've got your studio twice
Speaker 3: today due to separate times. But I'm two hours late
Speaker 3: to the family party that I had to celebrate Oprah,
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna hang up and go party with the
Speaker 3: West for a little bit tonight.
Speaker 2: But I love you, man, I love you too, and
Speaker 2: I'm so happy for you and so proud of what
Speaker 2: you're doing. And uh, just keep it rolling and definitely
Speaker 2: keep in touch and keep keep doing what you're doing
Speaker 2: and making the impact you're making.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, man, and thank you for letting me
Speaker 3: do that with you so many times on this platform.
Speaker 3: I know we're going to help a lot of people.
Speaker 3: Man in the triphy sounds good.
Speaker 2: Thanks Brandon, awesome, Thank you.