We recently connected with TEDDY SOURLIS and have shared our conversation below.

TEDDY, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

At 23 years old, the biggest risk I have taken to date is starting a non-profit organization without a psychology degree, or any prior years of experience within the industry. For the entirety of my life, I strongly identified with being an athlete & eventually, I was gifted the opportunity to play collegiate basketball. While doing so, I recognized a problem within the sports world, specifically for men, where we were not having the vital conversations that we should have been having. In the face of adversity, I am one that deeply searches for a solution & in this case, Men’s X Mental was that solution. Post graduation, I became overwhelmed with thoughts that were drenched in a solemn, “what-if” mentality, as I used personal & familial financial assets to assist upfront funding in order to get MXM off of the ground.

Initially, being surrounded by successful friends who bring in annual salaries not nearly in the same stratosphere as me, my internal judgment of risk was (wrongfully) in the vein of comparison. Chasing my passions & living my dreams as a young entrepreneur has led me into a leadership position that is truly entrenched in risk. In other words, the foundational expectation of entrepreneurship relies on one’s ability to roll the dice with their money, or reputation, in an attempt to support an idea, or enterprise. An entrepreneur is truly answerable to each of their successes & failures, but a serial entrepreneur, one who leads with hearty intuition, recognizes that the biggest risk is not taking one at all.

As I sat next to said friends on a beautiful, bright day at the beaches of Cape Cod, MA, my hard-working, highly-intelligent, & already successful friend proclaimed one of the most profound, life-changing statements I have ever heard. In a metaphorical manner, he said, “You know – what you are striving for is eerily similar to this beach right here, right now.” With a speechless look of perplexity, I gazed into his direction, pondered further into puzzlement, & hoped he would provide more clarity into his original statement. Enthusiastically, he continued with, “Well, think about it… we came to this beach today knowing exactly what to expect while knowing exactly what we needed to bring. That’s how I show up to work everyday — the beach is already built, the expectations have already been standardized, I bring my shovel & pale, I wear my flip-flops, & I look forward to hearing the ocean.” I felt a tickle in my stomach as a slight smile sprung on my face awaiting the conclusion of his creatively insightful comparison. “What you are doing right now is building that beach for everyone to eventually show up to & ultimately, be inspired by.” Truth be told, his metaphorical message allowed me to see beyond the risks that could have – candidly – deterred me back to a more customary path.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into the MENtal health field due to my gleaming inner-calling to help people. More specifically, I knew that male athletes needed help & nobody was talking about it. Truthfully, being at such a young age & losing people I loved to depression while also experiencing my own MENtal health struggles changed the trajectory of my life forever. That’s what got me into the industry. I want this to be crystal clear because I believe some “non-profits” have this incorrect notion of purpose: I am not in the business of business, or even money. I am in the business of people, & relationships.

At Men’s X Mental, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, men are able to access a myriad of unique, online resources such as an application thoroughly correlated to the MENtal well-being of student-athletes titled, “The Zone.” Moreover, there are a multitude of alternative ways one could support the cause/brand & spread awareness while doing so, such as our growing line of MXM merchandise, or our new brand partnership with “Stadium Custom Kicks”

At mensxmental.org, you can become familiar with MENtal health signs, symptoms, & statistics while also immersing yourself within the powerful stories told by 200+ male athletes from across the country. At Men’s X Mental, our goal remains steadfast in helping males better themselves on & off the court, while continuously cultivating communities.

A large part of today’s discrepancies fall into a category of emotional intelligence, or lack thereof, in some capacity. To my understanding, being emotionally intelligent refers to one’s ability to empathize & see certain situations from somebody else’s perspective. Not only from a general societal point of view, but from a new take on the digital world where more than 70% of business is performed online. Fuze that with a budding generation of instantaneous results & 3-second attention spans — one must recognize that if you want your message to be heard, you must not only bring it to the forefront of conversations, but also to the level of understanding & interest from the people you want hearing it.

When asked about separating factors within the non-profit world, my answer is not only the authenticity behind our mission, but the straightforwardness in which we are normalizing these imperative topics. Furthermore, through our social media campaigns, branding, & merchandise, we aim to make MENtal health “cool.” Not in the sense of being a quickly forgettable fad, but in the scope of listening to our clientele & prioritizing the exact items they do. All this goes to say that our modern marketing & digestible messaging have been our biggest success points & “separating factors.”

For men, these discussions are often silenced & unheard, but to breach the initial boundaries of protection, one must first learn to listen. Men’s X Mental has raised the microphones to these male athletes’ voices by providing them with their own platform to be transparent & included within a vulnerable community of other men who, also, acknowledge that it is okay to not be okay. As a former collegiate athlete who turned into the CEO of a non-profit organization, I must honestly admit that reading the realness of the stories written by the athletes on our website has been the most proud & powerfully rewarding aspect of this entire journey. At the end of the day, these special men are the reason I took a leap of faith directly out of college. This is what it is all about… this is what we are all about. I do not care if you are an entrepreneur, doctor, teacher, or lawyer – you are truly only as good as the company you surround yourself with.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Respectfully, a story of unequivocal resiliency would be the mere narrative of my 4-year college career at Babson College. When I think of resilience, the meaning of the word has an assumptive correlation to adversity. It’s the defining principle in one’s ability to get knocked down countless times, yet repeatedly stand right back up. I am never one to back down from a challenge; my parents instilled that in me. Prior to arriving on campus for my freshman season, I was stripped of my athlete identity as I underwent hip labrum surgery that required nearly 11 months of rehabilitation. After successfully recovering & steadily preparing to play my sophomore season, I learned that I had torn the labrum in my other hip. After another surgery in January 2020, the world shut down amid the Covid-19 pandemic, thus limiting my junior campaign to a shortened season of only 10 games. As a senior, I battled mononucleosis, covid, & a nagging hamstring injury while also juggling the responsibilities of building Men’s X Mental. After experiencing my darker days & being away from the game that I felt so connected with, I taught myself how to take a “glass half full” approach where I came to recognize that there was a greater purpose for me in this world beyond the orange ball that I bounced in a game. During my final season, my two worlds of being a business owner & basketball player collided when I was able to play in my first MXM sponsored event that was held at Harvard University. The pinnacle of my career was certainly solidified when I entered the game that was live on ESPN & scored a 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of a Harvard defender. After all of my work to get myself back on the court, combined with the countless hours of building an organization that set out to authentically assist & inspire others — this was a storybook ending to the chapters of my athletic career that I did have a chance to pick up the pen & write for myself.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I believe we have been born into this common belief that our life’s chapters are somehow already written for us before even granting us an opportunity to pick up the pen & write them for ourselves. One of the largest lessons that I had to unlearn was this predetermined, societal norm where upon graduating college, one must assume a well-paid position at an established business where they are to follow strict orders, prioritize their yearning for financial freedom, & join an all-inclusive club of like-minded individuals who refrain from chasing their dreams, or pursuing their personal passions.

After receiving my undergraduate degree from Babson College in 2022, it became extremely evident to me that entrepreneurs & their unique ways of thinking stand apart from most conventional thinkers. Babson College has been globally ranked as the #1 entrepreneurship program for nearly 30 consecutive years, but even most of my graduating class went on to pursue career endeavors within companies, or other organizations, that have already been previously built from the ground up. I do not negate the fact that being able to detach from the average income a Babson graduate typically receives within their first year removed comes with its own sense of privilege, but I stand firm in my belief that my beloved alma-mater taught me how individuality is a skill that nobody could ever take away from me.

Unlearning the “normal” sequences of life events has pushed me to explore the unbeaten path & consequently, carve my own path for others to soon follow. Leadership takes courage & to me, courage is defined as the ability to stray from normality regardless of what others may say, or think. In this fragile world – there are leaders, & there are people who follow those leaders through the fires they walked through first. Leadership is a difficult, yet daring task, but great leaders always dare to be different. In the face of a growing MENtal health epidemic, I pioneered a movement for the well-being of male athletes where we all could partake in difficult conversations that went unspoken about for so long.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mensxmental.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mensxmental/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mensxmental
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mensxmental
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mensxmental
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mensxmental

Image Credits
Images by Luke Schlaifer, Jared Colton, Matteo Greenberg & Dimitri Stathopoulos