S4E2: What Tough Actually Looks Like | Luke Hopkins

You know, it's interesting because when we look at social media, we can talk about Instagram, I guess, but it's not limited to that.

We see Luke Hopkins, who is a good looking guy.

Thank you.

A brilliant guy.

You don't go and major in neuroscience at Southern Cal if you're not brilliant.

You don't get the scholarship that you got if you're not brilliant.

You're affable, you're likable.

And so, you know, to the unwashed, to people who may not have dug their talents into a little deeper, you're the guy that has everything.

But it hasn't been, like you said, without its travails, right? Talk to me a little bit about the clinical depression that you've been quite vocal about and that you have been very willing to share with others about and sort of your walk with that that comes with simultaneously when we lay it next to it in concomitant fashion with amazing athletic and academic and social success that's very visible from the outside.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I just want to first and foremost say, like, if you are someone out there who is listening to this and you are struggling mentally, like I highly, highly advocate for you to speak with someone because it really can feel like you are absolutely alone in your own suffering.

But I promise you, you are never alone.

You are always supported and you are always loved.

Sometimes it just takes a little bit of stepping outside of your own head to realize that.

And that's honestly the hardest part is the first part is removing your perception of self from your actual self.

I love the game or the book, The Inner Game of Tennis.

And it talks about the difference between self one and self two.

I've talked about it so many different times, but self one is your perception of yourself, which is all the emotions, thoughts that you tie to your being.

and self too is just your body and your your like physical ability to do things and in endurance sports itself achieving the idea of like the flow state or that point where you can just allow your body to operate without the additional and unnecessary thoughts and emotions attached to it you know you can just go out there and hit those intervals without having to be like right oh this hurts oh this is hard that's when true performance comes to fruition so that was something that I always kept in mind, but in regarding to the actual clinical depression itself, I, um, you know, from my dad's accident, even earlier on in my life, I've been, I've spoken with a number of different therapists and I'm such a strong advocate for speaking to therapy or going to therapy and speaking to someone.

Um, and then as of recently, earlier this year, after breaking my ankle, I definitely really it was like the number one driver for going back to therapy after a few years off because I moved to Austin, Texas.

I was living the dream that I had worked so hard for and I still didn't feel fulfilled with who I am and I still felt very insecure and it became a lot harder for me because as I lived this life here and started doing Ironmans and social media became a bigger thing for me, I felt bad for feeling bad.

I couldn't wrap my head around it.

I said like, why was I still upset with who I was as a human being why was I still so distraught with the fact that I couldn't be happy and that I still always had this desire to be more than what I currently was I always struggled with being present so following the breaking of my ankle back in February I decided to go back to therapy and it's been the first time that I've truthfully stuck with it and instead of going into each therapy session with the idea of, OK, what do I need to say to the therapist for her to make sure that I'm fine? Almost like playing the game of therapy.

Oh, yes.

And now just going in and being honest, because it wasn't about I'm broken and I need fixing.