Announcer: Thanks for joining the Re-Think and Re-Tool podcast
with Mehul Mankad. MD where we take a look at the people side
of healthcare and new ideas about enhancing overall well
being so welcome. The doctor is in the house.
Mehul Mankad: Welcome to Re-Think and Re-Tool sponsored
by Alliance Health. This is Mehul Mankad, Psychiatrist and
Chief Medical Officer for Alliance. What if you had a
successful career spanning a decade and a half as a
professional athlete? What would you do as your second act in
life? Would you rest on your accomplishments and keep taking
victory laps? Or would you harness your skills and status
for a greater purpose? spending a few minutes listening to Steve
Smith, one of the most successful wide receivers in NFL
history, and you will immediately know his answer.
Let's get started. All right. Steve Smith, himself. Legendary
drummer for the band Journey.
Steve Smith: Yes, yes. I actually do know that in Steve
Smith, the drummer Steve Smith, a football player. We both are
bald, so haha.
Mehul Mankad: I imagine y'all don't get confused very much.
Steve Smith: No. Did you know there's another guy though? That
is Steve Smith, who's a cricket player in Australia. Did you
know that Dr. M?
Mehul Mankad: You know what I when I was doing my research on
you? I came across the cricket player. He's a little bit
younger than you and the other Steve Smith.
Steve Smith: Yes, he is. We've actually talked to social media.
So that's pretty cool. We're supposed to meet up one time,
but you know, this whole COVID thing? Right? Right. Well,
Mehul Mankad: I would like a picture of all three, Steve
Smith, that'd be cool.
Steve Smith: That would be actually if you put both Steve
Smith's on outside of me in the middle, that'd be a reverse
Oreo.
Mehul Mankad: So Steve, I again, I want to thank you for spending
a few minutes with us that the piece that I want to hear about,
if you could share, you know, you have done so much as
professional athlete and have been very successful. And now
you're kind of pivoting to career number two, as a pillar
of the community and a philanthropist. And yeah, I'd
really just like to understand how you get from point A to
point B.
Unknown: Well, that's a that's a fantastic question. And I'm not
going to shortcut it is basically it really started for
me. I had the unique opportunity to work with a lot of
organizations here in Charlotte, Charlotte. They do a few things
very well. One, you know, obviously banking is coming to
Charlotte, left and right. You know, 100 people a day are
moving to Charlotte left and right. Wow. And then a kid
sports, right. So my kids have been here. But then there's
another thing that a ton of community service, right
Charlotte does is a lot of organization, just a lot of
community based organizations. There's a lot of organizations
for profit, that still service that can give services to the
community. And so I had the opportunity to work with an
organization called Samaritan's Feet. And with Manny Ohonme and
Manny and Tracy Ohonme, and I had the opportunity to do that.
But in my football days, I would do it. I would do a lot of
internships. Trying to figure out you know, what's shocking is
I didn't believe I was probably going to, I didn't believe I was
gonna get beyond seven or eight years playing professional
football. And so I was always in offseason, always doing
something I was always interning. I took a two year
internship through Morgan Stanley. I tried to get an
internship with Pepsi. I tried to get internship with the US
Postal Service ups. FedEx, I was always trying to figure out
because I really believed that this football career wasn't
going to last forever. And what was I going to do? That was very
problematic at home because I always wasn't present I was
always on the go. And, and so because of my involvement with
mariners feed that allowed me to really see a unbelievable
organization to see how they were doing things. However, I
was challenged because they were I was still a young man who had
desires of seeing the world. Right? I'm I love to travel,
wanted to, you know, impact the world wanted to be wanting to
be, you know, husband, father, just all these different things.
And so when I was working with Samaritans Feet, there were
times where, well, I have commitment with Samaritan Feet,
but then I had a commitment at the house. So I had a commitment
with the Carolina Panthers. So I had a commitment here, I wanted
to go on a trip here. And I wanted to do this. And so with
all that, there were some days that working with Samaritans
Feet was not at the top 20 of my list. I want to do other things.
And I believe the reason why is because it wasn't my mission, it
wasn't something that touched me. I didn't grew up in Africa,
I visited Africa several times, I didn't I grew up in Africa
with no shoes, I did not understand the things that many
a home may had gone through as a young man to get to America. So
because of that, that really did not. It wasn't my drive every
day, like it was Manny's. And so I started to and you know, and I
say this, with all due respect, I wasn't unimpacted by anybody
for breast cancer. So breast cancer awareness was I
understood it. But it wasn't something that impacted me. And
because of that, there were days where I'm like, man, I don't
feel like I don't feel like serving. I'm not interested in
their mission statement, because it was not my mission. And I
didn't create the statement. And so it'd be, you know, and so I
started to so I took a little time off. And then I started to
say, if I want to do something, I have to do something that has
impacted me. And so by doing that, so when I started my
foundation, I sought out permission first from my mother,
to tell our story of what we experience. My mother is a
survivor of domestic violence. Me as a child of witnessing my
mother survive domestic violence, who was not my father,
my father did not touch my mom.
Steve Smith: And so by doing that, we started the foundation
was helping folks in domestic violence, helping mothers in
domestic domestic violence, and then it kind of spread because
there's also you don't want to cannibalize yourself to where,
well, there's an athlete that's talking about domestic violence.
And then you have all these people like Safe Alliance,
Turning Point, all these organizations here in Charlotte,
in the surrounding counties and cities, that are have been
around 2030 years doing great work. And so we so when I
started, I actually started my foundation by hiring a
consulting firm to run it. And it was a private foundation. And
so by doing that, we started helping them in partnering with
local organizations like Safe Alliance, right, giving their
kids opportunities to go to summer camp, while their
mothers, and some of the handsome man fathers would
rebuild their lives after fleeing a situation of getting a
ton of courage. And helping them as they go look for work and go
on job interviews and do the counseling, they were able to
these kids were able to hang out in summer camps, while their
parents get back on track. And so that was some of the things
that we did. And then you know, and so it just kind of gone on
from there. And then we start to realize in domestic violence,
that this the psychological, or should I say the lack of
psychological support, and what they experienced also, in those
processes of, you know, coming out of domestic violence, and so
we were approached about doing a medical clinic. And there was
with 658, Project six, five, eight a great foundation, they
approached us that, hey, would you partner with us in doing
some things, and so we sat down and coincide I was in Baltimore,
tore my achilles. And now I have all this time on my hands. And
so I'm meeting with Project 658 on this on this clinic that they
had a concept about. And so I was and I'm like, well, why
where's this coming from? Well, they were doing clinics on the
weekends for like, 100 people. at a time. And so they
approached me about partnering with him with a clinic. And I
heard him we met and we met him we met. And then knowing what I
was dealing with going through my injury, I was like, you know,
I know I'm struggling, mentally, we need to be able to I will do
it, really. And I said, this, I will, I will assist and be part
of helping us get this clinic off the ground under one
condition. And they said, what actually it was two conditions,
two conditions, one that my foundation owns the building.
And that kind of didn't sit well, like, Well, why? Because I
believe in ownership. I don't believe in you know, renting, I
think renting is your you're making other people profitable
by renting. And two, I said, we must do counseling. If we don't
do counseling, I'm not involved. If we do counseling, I'll do it.
Mehul Mankad: So speaking of counseling, we're about to take
a break. And when we come back, I want to hear more about one of
the big projects that you're involved in, in the Charlotte
area. But we've got a we've got an important question to ask
Steve. Right when we come back.
Steve Smith: At Alliance, we see healthcare differently than
some. Every day we walk alongside the people we serve on
their chosen path to recovery and self determination. We
believe in health care that concentrates on the whole
person, including support that promotes physical, social,
emotional, and financial well being and housing security,
helping people live healthier, more satisfying lives. That's
the lions way.
Mehul Mankad: So Steve, when you were at the peak, the pinnacle
of your athletic career, my guess is that you were on a
special diet that you were in this kind of training mode.
Would you agree or no?
Steve Smith: A special diet?
Mehul Mankad: Well, you know, like high protein, whatever,
like, you know, whatever the trainer's say you're supposed to
be doing. So, you know, my question to you is now at this
stage in your life, are there things that you allow yourself
to eat? That you did not before?
Steve Smith: You know, I would say my waistline was say a
little bit more sweets than usual.
Mehul Mankad: Any any sweet in particular?
Steve Smith: I love Red Vines. Okay, like crazy delicious. Not
too Red Vines old school. So when I go to the theater, Red
Vines and popcorn, and I kind of try to eat them at the same
time. That salty. Sweet. I got you. I've been eating Red Vines
since I was a kid. Probably seven, eight years old.
Mehul Mankad: Wow. All right. All right. Well, you heard it
here at Red Vines. Steve Smith. So you were talking about
counseling and the importance of counseling, one of the elements
that seems to be lacking in the Charlotte area that you're in
the process of fixing is this concept of behavioral health
Urgent Care? What what is your vision for something like that?
Because I don't think a lot of people understand what that even
is. So let's
Unknown: be honest, I have a dog. We know we have a family
pet. And we'd love it. And if something were to happen to her
right now, we can take it to urgent care. That's right. If
you know I've broken a bone before one of my you know, my my
actually our son did not see our dog tiga fell backwards braces
fall and fractured his phone. Right. Okay, and we took him to
an urgent care. All right, okay. However, there is no urgent care
for the mind. There's urgent care for physical. There's
urgent care for animals. But there is nothing for the mind.
And I had I heard it before it was cliche. I had a I had a
sports psychologist on staff that I met with once a week
starting in February 2002 till about probably about 10 years
that allowed and allowed me to understand the power of my mind
the power of negative self talk, the power of resetting,
visualization, of doing your work and then going back out
They're in deja vu. So I was and my, my sports psychologist
primarily worked with golfers because of golf is such a
psychological sport. Oh, I see. Right. Sergio Garcia is a great
example of a guy who's at a young age who had all the
potential but was unable to psychologically keep it all
together. And football is a very psychological and emotional
sport, but more emotion. And I believe even more psychological
because the emotion leads to success. Mistakes. Become an
unhinged, unfocused, right, you can tell, you know, you can't
tell us much on TV, but inside of a stadium, you can sense
momentum shifting, in a ballgame. And generally, when
momentum shifts with a team, you see, you can look at the
sideline, you can start to see things becoming unraveled. You
can see body you can see people's body language, are they
hunched over? Are they are they spinning onto the field? Are
they walking and moping? Right? Those are the things
psychologically that as athletes we noticed we pick up on we we
look we analyze scouts are looking at that. Is he
emotionally capable? Is he emotionally? Is he is he an
emotional headcase or not? And obviously, you know, you talk
about, you know, in a pandemic, you talk about the Last Dance
with Michael Jordan, the best guy in that that I thought was
very misunderstood. But psychologically, he knew what he
was doing. Now, he got off the hinges at times, but Dennis
Rodman knew exactly what he was doing how to do that. And so for
me, this behavioral health, or we call it BHUC, just behavioral
health, urgent care is a place where people can get assessment
and understanding because understand this, right, I'm a
father. I'm a father of four. Not one of my beautiful kids
have ever gotten sick or had to issue at nine o'clock in the
morning, like when everything is ready. Like when when when the
nurses are in, they've had a cup of coffee, when we're ready on
our off day. They always get hurt, get sick, fall under
weather. Tough times come at the wee hours of the night or
morning. I've never had a kid puke at 10 o'clock, and after 10
o'clock in the morning, when I'm ready, and I My schedule is
clean. They generally come Oh, Mommy, Daddy, my stomach hurts
at 1,2,3,4 in the morning. That's right. And so I believe
this urgent care is a great opportunity to 24 hours a day,
365 days to be able to get assessed and helped. In the wee
hours in the times, at seven o'clock in the afternoon when
everything's closed, to be able to do the same thing that we've
unfortunately done with our kids, which is when they you
know, they get physically injured, what about when they
get emotionally injured?
Steve Smith: And our BHUC, behavioral health urgent care
gives us an opportunity here in Charlotte for the very first
time to address to hold to embrace every aspect of
behavioral health that affects everyone. And most importantly,
starting at the age of three, and up.
Mehul Mankad: Wow, wow. So all kinds of people are welcome.
Steve Smith: Every kind of every shape, size, age, creed, color,
race, you name it.
Mehul Mankad: That's amazing. When you are struggling
yourself, what keeps you going? Why do you do what you do?
Unknown: Right now journaling. Right now I'm in that phase
where I'm journaling. I'm really writing out you know, how I feel
and what I'm feeling. It's been probably a year process now for
me that I actually have 43 years no years old at the first time
in my life. I actually know how I feel and why I feel that way.
Mehul Mankad: Well, Steve, I want to thank you for your time
and for your contribution to making Charlotte and this world
a better place. Well, I
Steve Smith: appreciate it all. Mmm, Alliance, Day Mark,
Mecklenburg County have done that outstanding job of allowing
my foundation also shout out to my Executive Director, Michelle
Hunt, allowing us to go down this path in trusting us with
Mecklenburg County's most important people.
Mehul Mankad: We appreciate you. Thank you.
Announcer: The Re-Think and Re-Tool healthcare in the new
era podcast is produced by Alliance health a North Carolina
public managed care organization. This show was
produced by Brandon Alexander our associate producer is Denise
Dirks and executive producer is Doug fuller. View our show notes
and hear other episodes at Alliance health plan.org forward
slash podcast thanks for tuning in.