JTT, corded phones, + our latest report
Maya Smith is Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation.
Our latest report, Youth Mental Health in America: Understanding Resource Availability and Preferences, is here and reading these young people’s stories reminds me so much of my own experience growing up.
In the kitchen of my childhood home, we had a phone on the wall with a long cord. It rang all day and I would sit on the stairs next to the kitchen twisting the rubber through my fingers and talking to my friends about everything from our classes and teachers to if Devon Sawa was hotter than Jonathan Taylor Thomas (he’s not, in case you’re wondering). If my parents tried to make a call, the phone would click and I would sigh and say, “Mommmm, I’m on the phone.”
One weekend morning the phone rang and it was one of my closest friends. She had decided to run away and she was calling from a pay phone in the Hoboken train station. She told me she only saw two ways out, running away or ending her life. This was not the conversation that I was used to having on those brown-carpeted stairs and I did not know what to tell her. I put the phone down, making her promise to hold on, and I got my mom. I sat next to my mom while she calmly listened, firmly spoke, and collaboratively problem solved. My friend returned home, and she is alive and thriving today.
I am fortunate to be the daughter of a psychoanalyst, a woman who listened non-judgmentally and a woman who – though she may have closed the door to her bedroom and cried many nights about the conversations she had to have with me and with my friends – showed up every day to listen, share, and connect.
This week, Born This Way Foundation released our latest research which you can read in full detail here. It can be easy to make assumptions about how young people are feeling or what they need, but we believe the only way to actually know is to ask youth themselves. So that’s what we did. We asked more than 2,000 young people ages 13 to 24 across the country to tell us about their own perceptions of their mental health as well as their access to and opinions about a variety of mental health resources. And here are three facts that stand out most to me:
- One in three young people don’t have reliable access to the resources they need to maintain their mental health.
- When asked what barriers are stopping them from accessing those resources, nearly half (47%) of young people said they don’t know where to go to find them.
- Far too many young people are unprepared for common but serious and potentially life threatening situations, with 48% of young people saying they would not have the resources needed if they felt suicidal.
This hits home for me, not just because of that call more than two decades ago, but also because of the young people I meet and talk to every single day. I know young people value their mental health – our survey agrees with nearly 90% of respondents reporting mental health is a priority – and I know they want to help themselves and each other, both in times of crisis and proactively every day. The conversation my mom had sitting on those carpeted steps was the urgent and hopeful one my friend needed in that moment and is the same type of conversation young people today need to be able to have with people who are trusted and prepared.
I want to tell you about this research both because I am proud of it as the Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation and because I believe in listening to young people, asking them to solve the problems they are facing by imagining the world they want to live in, and then leveraging every platform, relationship, and network I have to help them achieve that vision. I know that when tasked with addressing the mental health crisis in our country and in our world, young people are and will continue to rise to the challenge and rely on their resilience, passion, collaboration, and lived experience.
I also want to tell you about this research (and ask that you share it, far and wide). As a mother, daughter, wife, aunt, friend, and neighbor, I can only hope my daughter will hand me the phone one day and I’ll be able to support her in the same way my mom supported me. And until then (she’s three), I want you to know the members of the Born This Way Foundation team bring each of our roles to work with us each day and we do this work for ourselves and for each other – for deeply personal and important professional reasons. We are committed to amplifying and sharing stories, modeling and supporting conversations, and building and supporting resources and solutions and I know I speak for all of us when I say it is our privilege to do this work and to share this important research.
Maya Smith is Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation
I am a glass half full type of person, I’ve always been. I thought I was more popular than I was, I thought the yellow plaid pants I got on a family trip to Italy were trend-setting and catwalk worthy and even in the face of naysayers and pessimists, and I believe wholeheartedly in the power young people have to change the world.
For the next two years, I get to run around Las Vegas armed with those beliefs and my glass half full personality. As we prepared for last week’s launch of our programming in Las Vegas, I’ve been talking to young people, about young people, and with young people and I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of abundance and how we view it and leverage it differently.
Last week, Team Born This Way Foundation had the opportunity to connect with local organizations, host a strategy breakfast to introduce our work and also tour the homes of some high impact non-profits making a different in the lives of young people. In a couple of those inter-generational meetings, comments have come up that made me laugh – and think. The story of a young woman, eager to move up the ladder in her corporate job asking the boss how to get her job and when. The boss telling me this heard a story about a young woman’s sense of entitlement, but I heard a story about an abundance of confidence. An education leader cautioning us about the use of technology for young people and the inevitable erosion of the face-to-face social fabric that connects us. I assured him that my generation would manage to leverage technology to build social ties and go to the movies with our classmates – we have an abundance of ways to connect and communicate.
When I gave the closing remarks of a non-profit convening, in the beautiful private dining room of the Park MGM, and saw an abundance of delicious food (shout out to the avocado toast #Millennials) I asked for to go containers so that these non-profit leaders could take this delicious food back to the young people they serve, some of whom would eat their first and only meal of the day from those containers. That morning, we had an abundance of food. I know that my vantage point is one steeped in privilege and in the true comfort of having never known scarcity in any form. But it is because I’ve never experienced what so many of the young people that I work with experience, that I am constantly and obsessively searching for abundance in all of its forms and ways to share and defend it.
I’m just following my boss’ lead. At the end of her fabulous Enigma show, Lady Gaga told the crowd: “Don’t leave here loving me more, leave here loving yourself more.” She wanted to share the abundance of love and support she felt from the audience that night, not hoard it for herself, serving her own ego.
“Don’t leave here loving me more, leave here loving yourself more.”
– Lady Gaga
Abundance even got me in trouble, as I sat around a table with the young people from Project 150 and listened to the long list of urgent needs that they had. Their founder said the young people need toiletries and I thought of my hotel room, the hotel rooms of the people sitting around the table with me, and the hotel rooms of all the people that would fill the Park MGM Theater for Enigma. So I told our team (and the Internet) to bring toiletries to the show. As it turns out, that’s a hard and very complicated thing to execute for security and for our friends at MGM so thank you to the patient, kind team that instead of telling me “no,” smiled and said, “of course.” I want to promise you that I won’t do it again but I can’t, because I will. We all will. This is what the Born This Way Foundation team came to Las Vegas to do.
Las Vegas is a city of abundance; an abundance of bright lights, an abundance of delicious restaurants that I am committed to trying, an abundance of discretionary money won and devastating money lost, and an abundance of talent and entertainment and noise. It is also a city with an abundance of passionate community members and energized non-profit and civic leaders. In the short time we’ve been in Las Vegas so far, I am happy to report that the most abundant resource in Las Vegas – by far – is the passion, energy, and vision of the young people that call this city home.
Here are a few of the organizations we had the pleasure to meet with:
Top: Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth
Center: Josh’s Youth Ambassadors program at Western High School
Bottom: Project 150
Maya Smith is Executive Director of Born This Way Foundation
As my husband and son watched the Rose Bowl and my daughter napped, I sat on my couch with a new sketch book and traced the letters of the words I write most often – Be Kind – in pencil first and then in a permanent, black marker. Under the words, I wrote and underlined three categories; myself, my family, and the world and stared at the empty columns hoping that some brilliance would come to me. The brilliance has not come yet, so I’m writing this blog and hoping that by sharing my intention and inviting you to share yours, we can fill pages together.
Last month during one of our staff meetings, my colleague Aysha told me about the Find Your Anchor box. It’s a box literally filled with kind messages, affirmations, and positive images. The goal of this organization is to erase suicide and ensure that everyone is able to establish an anchor, which they define as “a dependable, stable, secure base that you can hold onto, one that keeps you firmly planted, no matter what winds or storms may come.” I fell in love with the concept, found my next tattoo (I’m sorry, Mom), and ordered two. I brought one with me to Las Vegas last week and carried it around with me everywhere I went, hoping to find someone who needed it more than I did. In each interaction, personal and professional, I asked people how they were, how they were feeling, and how their friends and family were doing. In both blatant and awkward ways and in more subtle and rehearsed ways, I wanted to know about the anchors in the lives of the people around me.
Marques was one of my drivers in Las Vegas. Before we even met, he texted me to ask me if I wanted to coffee, happily shuffled locations as my meetings ran over, arrived 15 minutes early, and on a particularly hectic day when we first met, his bright smile and kind spirit stopped me in my tracks. I sat down in the passenger seat, breathing a sigh of relaxation as he drove me to my next meeting. We chatted about his time in Las Vegas, his childhood outside of Los Angeles and he asked me questions about my work and my family. As most conversations between parents during the holidays go, I shared the story of my children on Christmas morning discovering their new hot wheels next to the Christmas tree. My heart was warmed by the memory and I invited Marques to share his Christmas morning story with his two daughters. “I didn’t see them on Christmas, I wasn’t OK” he answered, teetering on emotion for the first time and trying to change the subject. I gently pressed and invited him to share if he wanted to. Marques wanted to, so he bravely shared his difficult childhood, his often uncontrollable anger, his undeniable and overwhelming love for his daughters and his wife, and his difficult journey to become the type of man that he feels they deserve. Through tears, honesty and bravery, he shared an unimaginably difficult story with me as well as his recent decision to share his journey at work (thankfully met with support and understanding) and seek treatment. Marques didn’t know how the story would end but he knew – for the first time in a long time – that he wouldn’t end his story and that he’d keep fighting.
As Marques sat next to me trembling and crying while still expertly navigating the Las Vegas interstate, I rifled through my purse and opened up the Find Your Anchor box. I took out the note that read, “You are loved, Maya” and wrote, “You are loved, Marques” and handed him the box. I told him that I had been holding onto this box, from New York to California and now Las Vegas, and wanted to give it to someone who needed to be reminded of their anchor, of their strength, and of the need the world has for them. I got out of the car, hugged Marques, and went to yet another meeting – one Find Your Box lighter and one connection stronger.
Far too many people believe that no one wants to hear their stories, that people will fear their stories, and that people will judge their stories. I wasn’t out-of-the-ordinary kind to Marques, I’m so grateful he picked me to share with, and I am not sure how telling you his story will help with my resolution but I think the key to building a kinder and braver world is to share the beautiful stories, the difficult stories and to invest in them; to anchor ourselves in those stories and the people behind them. The key is to keep filling the pages of this story together, some days they’ll be blank or tattered and other days we’ll put hearts over the i’s and draw smiley faces, but if Marques isn’t giving up, if the team at Born This Way Foundation and I are doubling down, then join us, please.
Maya Smith is Executive Director at Born This Way Foundation
I Facetimed with a 4th grade Girl Scout troop a couple of weeks ago and they had adorable questions about my job and Lady Gaga and they eagerly shared their own examples of kindness from their school in Northern California. The whole experience took less than 20 minutes and I was glad – honored – to do it. In yesterday’s mail, a package of the sweetest handwritten thank you cards arrived from these girls with kind words, practiced cursive writing, and beautiful flower doodles filling every corner. I sat cross legged on my bed, next to my son Hunter, after a stressful day and read each one, passing them to him (a newly minted reader) so he could read them as well.
This is one of the daily experiences I have working for Born This Way Foundation where people thank me for something that has given me so much more than I have given them. That’s the thing about kindness: everyone wins.
I should be writing these smart, funny, passionate Girl Scouts my own bundle of Crayola thank you cards (and maybe I will). But today is Giving Tuesday, so I’m saving ALL my hand cramps for the thank you cards I’ll be sending to the generous members of our community who will help continue to make our mission of building a kinder, braver world possible.
On Giving Tuesday, I invite you to join me in supporting Born This Way Foundation. You might do it for the thank you card. You might do it because you’ve learned from Cynthia’s honest wisdom. You might do it because you’ve been inspired by the videos Shadille creates, laughing and crying alongside the young people on the other side of her camera lens. You might do it because you’ve been moved to action by the programs that Alex and Aysha bring to life or because you love the emails that Mitu helps craft (always proofread by the do-it-all Rachel).
Maybe you’re the beneficiary of one of the more than 8,000,000 acts of kindness that #BeKind21 catalyzed across the globe or maybe you’re a teacher whose classroom was transformed through our partnership with DonorsChoose.org. Maybe you’re one of the scores of people who were inspired to get trained in Mental Health First Aid by our #BeKindBeTheDifference campaign or maybe you’ve been reminded of the good that exists in the world (and you’re ability to amplify it!) by the stories of Channel Kindness.
I’m not sure why you came to Born This Way Foundation, but I’m grateful you’re a part of our community and I can promise – both as the Executive Director and the colleague of this incredible, passionate, hardworking team – that the best is yet to come and we need your support to make it a reality.
In 2019, with your support, we will:
- Bring high-quality, evidence-based resources to young people across the country, equipping youth with the critical tools and skills they need to support their mental wellness.
- Establish programming in Las Vegas to coincide with our co-founder Lady Gaga’s residency at the MGM Park Theater, expanding access to mental health resources for local youth and working with them to build kinder, healthier communities.
- Conduct timely, innovative research to better understand what young people need to lead thriving lives.
- Continue to build an action-oriented community of do-gooders through the new #ChannelKindness, harnessing our collective power to build a kinder, braver world.
Please, fill my day with continued gratitude and the opportunity to draw you Crayola doodles on the corners of Born This Way Foundation stationary. Thank you for your support, for your generous donation, and for embodying and supporting kindness every day.
A year ago next month, I was in Houston with Lady Gaga and the inspiring men and women from Team Rubicon, mucking out Ms. Pamela’s house after the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. I left my home, flew three hours away, and landed in a disaster zone and saw some of the hardest hit sites I’ve ever seen as I toured a neighborhood demolished by the fury of nature and struggling to find a way forward amidst caved in ceilings, schools overtaken by mold, and water lines that rose to the ceilings of once occupied homes. Team Rubicon is an organization that allows veterans to leverage their unique skills and experiences to support relief efforts and this week, as we celebrate Veterans Day, I am grateful for the constant, ultimate commitment that our servicemembers make on behalf of our country.
I am honored to have served, for four hours, alongside Team Rubicon to help alleviate the suffering in Ms. Pamela’s Houston neighborhood. Today, I am waiting for Team Rubicon to arrive in my own backyard, as most of our beautiful state is sandwiched between two raging wildfires, blanketing those parts of California that are not actively ablaze (like my community, for the moment) in oppressive smoke and haze. My family and I are again among the lucky ones, because we are safe and we watch the devastation spread and the heroism of first responders who walk into the fire, bravely.
Today, World Kindness Day feels especially urgent because the world is – in so many ways – on fire. To Born This Way Foundation, and to me, kindness is being in community with people who ask themselves – what does the world need? What unmet need can I help meet today? How can I alleviate the suffering of another person? So in honor of World Kindness Day, in recognition of the challenges our communities are facing, and in celebration of our power – individually and collectively – to make a real, tangible difference, we’re inviting you to join our latest Channel Kindness Challenge: #MultiplyYourGood.
Through #MultiplyYourGood, we’re asking you to give back to a nonprofit organization working to make your community a kinder, braver place. You can help by volunteering your time, giving your gently used items, or making a monetary donation. For every act of good you pledge (and tell us about here!), we’ll match it by performing an act of good for one of our amazing nonprofit partners!
To help bring the campaign to life, we’ll have help from some awesome organizations who share our commitment to doing good, including Zappos and SoulCycle and, to kick things off, we’re teaming back up with Starbucks. For World Kindness Day, we’re co-hosting community events at six neighborhood Starbucks stores – stop by one of the stores listed below today between 1PM and 4PM (local time) and join us and a local nonprofit organization for a cup of coffee, a moment of community, and to take part in an activity in service to others.
- Walnut Creek, CA (my home Starbucks!), with Mindful Littles, Peter Pan Foundation, and Youth Homes
- New York City, with the Ali Forney Center
- Los Angeles, with Children Mending Hearts
- Las Vegas, with Street Teens and The Center
- Seattle, with Youth Cares (this one is 2:30-4PM)
- Austin, with The Kindness Campaign
Let mine be one of many invitations you accept on World Kindness Day – and every day – to look around, acknowledge grief, despair, and trauma and commit to kindness, to community, and to the kinder and braver world that we urgently know is possible.
If you can’t join us in person, pledge to #MultiplyYourGood online at bornthisway.foundation/multiplyyourgood.