Taking the bye week to talk about the importance of Eight Minutes.

September is Suicide Prevention Month. As you all know, we talk about this kind of stuff regularly around here. It's important. If you need help, ask for help. You are loved, and you matter to people.

Today, though, I want to take the BYU bye week and talk about a different aspect to suicide prevention. I want to talk to all of you who aren't currently struggling. In a lot of respects, this newsletter applies to those of you who are struggling as well, but the target audience is those of you who are not struggling.

Simon Sinek tells a story about his friend Maria Shriver. One day, he had a conversation with Shriver and she opened up about how awful her week had been. Simon was almost annoyed with her story and asked her why she didn't reach out to him when she needed help. In videos, he's explained the interactions something like this:

"I did," she said.

"No, you didn't," he responded.

She then proceeded to pull up her phone and show Simon all of the text messages she had sent that week.

"Hey, how are you doing?"

"Hey, do you want to come over tonight?"

"How are you doing?"

"You mean those texts that look like every other text you have ever sent me? How in the world was I supposed to know that those were cries for help?" he responded.

This is a common occurrence for so many of us. When we hear stories of someone who is struggling, we very frequently say something like, "I had no idea they were going through this. I never would have guessed."

Jalen Moore had a magical run to a state championship during his senior year at Sky View High School. He hit a buzzer beater in the state tournament to push his team forward. During the championship game, he beat cross-town rival Mountain Crest to get a ring. He was one of the most exciting basketball players I've covered.

He parlayed that standout high school basketball career into a scholarship at Utah State, the local school where his dad had played. He was an instant contributor, starting five games as a true freshman. By his senior year, he was one of the best players on the court. He averaged 17 points per game as a senior. It was good enough to earn him a guaranteed two-way contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.

It seemed like everything was going Moore's way. He went from stud high school star to local legend in college to a shot making guaranteed money in the NBA. That's the dream.

But before Moore was going to start training camp, his brother, Grayson, noticed that something wasn't right. Jalen knew he could talk to his brother and, one day, he mustered up the courage and told Grayson what was going on. Jalen had been suffering panic attacks, and the thought of leaving for Milwaukee was breaking him. He explained in his own words in The Players' Tribune.

"My family went wild the day I signed with Milwaukee. A few hours after the draft ended in June, my agent called and said the Bucks wanted to sign me as a free agent. I was going to actually play in the NBA. Everybody was excited — patting me on the back and taking their phones out to call all of our relatives. It was as happy a scene as anything I’ve witnessed in my entire life.

But it wasn’t how I was supposed to feel. Even before I hung up the phone, I sensed something wasn’t right with me. I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. And my heart was beating out of my chest. It was awful, but strangely familiar. It was all happening again. It was kind of how I felt on that airplane when I thought it was going to crash. Only now I was on the ground. I was in my own house. And I could feel that I was about to lose control.

I was about to have a panic attack. Every time I tried to take a breath and calm myself down, it got worse. It eventually got to where I couldn’t even hear what everybody around me was saying. It was just like white noise in the background, and the sound of my own voice echoing through my head. At first just asking all these questions: How are you going to do it? Where will you live? When are you going to leave? What if you’re not good enough?"

Grayson could always tell something was wrong and was always there for Jalen. He'd make sure that Jalen was okay. He never pried into the details of what was going on, but Jalen knew he could count on him. One night, when Jalen finally mustered the courage to tell someone about the things going on in his mind, it was Grayson he confided in first. Grayson listened, he loved, and he helped Jalen tell his parents.

The story of Jalen's panic attacks and dark place isn't about Grayson, it's about Jalen. But Jimmy Moore, Jalen and Grayson's dad, described Grayson as the "superhero" in this story. Because Grayson was there, Jalen knew he had at least one friend to help get him through it.

After Jalen broke the news to the Bucks and told his family, he still felt the grip of his anxiety. He would go to stores in Logan and get anxious about leaving the car. Grayson would encourage him but frequently would end up going to stores alone. Still, Jalen knew he had someone who was in the foxhole with him, someone he could trust, and someone he could talk to. Though he did not say in these accounts that he felt suicidal, Jalen was struggling with his own mental health. He needed a friend.

If we break down Jalen's story even more, we learn about the battle that many people are feeling but might not be able to vocalize. For months, Jalen struggled with panic attacks and had all kinds of emotions in his daily life. He turned to Google to try and diagnose what was going on, but things only compounded from there. It wasn't until he was able to get it out and let someone else into the foxhole with him that he was able to start progressing past the suffocating emotions.

That's how it feels. When you're the one in the foxhole, you're convinced that nobody else would understand, or that people will laugh at you before they help you.

A person trying to deal with crippling anxiety or depression knows the end of the story. They know it so well, they close the book or turn off the movie before they read it.

"People will laugh at me if I tell them, so I won't tell them."

"Nobody will miss me, so I'll just leave."

In my personal case, "I know I'll die if I fall asleep tonight, so I will just stay awake."

The "knowledge" feels so real when you are in the foxhole that it truly feels indisputable. That's why it's so hard to reach out or to say something. And that's why everyone who isn't struggling is so critical. One might think they know the ending to a story, but sometimes it's someone from the outside who helps us see that the story isn't over.

To be aware of someone, we have to be looking for them. We have to genuinely care about them. We have to want to see them get better. We have to truly love them and want the best for them. If we don't, it's easy to get lost in our own world and miss the subtle clues someone is giving us indicating that they need help.

If we jump back to our story between Sinek and Shriver, there is a really cool ending. After Sinek had said he had no way of knowing that Shriver's texts were a cry for help, Shriver came up with an idea. She had read a New York Times article that explained it only takes eight minutes of human connection to help someone feel comforted and a little more peaceful. She realized that it was hard for her to ask for help, and that's why her pleas became white noise to Sinek. Saying, "I'm really struggling and I need you. Can you please help me?" felt really big. A lot of people in the foxhole feel that way.

So she decided she wouldn't ask that question. Instead, she'd just ask if Sinek had eight minutes.

"Hey, do you have eight minutes?"

That became a codeword for two close friends. Whenever someone needed eight minutes, the other knew what it meant. And everyone can find at least eight minutes in their day to help a friend.

My heart and mind go a million different ways when I think of the month of September and what so many people are going through. I believe mental health is truly becoming the biggest health crisis that our country and world faces today. Trying to find ways to help feels daunting and overwhelming.

I covered a high school basketball star who went on to his dream college and lived up to every expectation and found a path to the NBA. How could anyone know he was struggling?

I was a relatively successful guy in his early 30s who was making stupid TikTok videos and creating content every day. How could anyone know I was afraid to sleep?

It's September 23. That leaves us with another week before the month ends to find a loved one who needs some help and eight extra minutes of our time.

Eight minutes by myself or by yourself won't fix the world. But it might help fix someone's world. And if the few thousand people who read this also find eight minutes, well, that adds up to a whole lot of minutes that are making a difference.

And if you're someone who needs to talk to someone but you don't know who to talk to, you know how to reach me. Just ask for eight minutes. That's all you'll have to say.