Wes Woodson’s Journey and Mission
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White from Vive 18. And today we are hanging out with a new friend, Wes Woodson. And this is crazy. Maybe we’ll have him tell you the story of how we met, but I wanted to talk to Wes because Wes is a mental health educator, public speaker and author dedicating to help young people feel seen heard and supported. With over 10,000 students reached, he uses storytelling humor and hope to transform how schools approach mental wellness. And there’s so much to unpack here because Wes, I think that’s what we want. We wanna help youth feel seen, heard and supported, and we want to help them build mental wellness. So Wes, number one, thank you for being on the show. Like super excited to get to know you. This is gonna be really fun.
Jake, I’m excited to be here, man. And it’s so fun how we actually met and we’re get into that, but I’m honored and very much grateful to be here with.
Yeah, Wes, tell us a little bit about just like the good old college intro. Where are you from? What’s a little bit about your background and that makes you care about this work that you’re doing.
Yeah, so I’m actually originally from Boston, Massachusetts. I currently live in Dallas, Texas, but right now I am traveling all around the country with the one mission of helping students everywhere believe three words, you are enough. Because when I was younger, I didn’t believe those three words. I grew up in a small suburban area where I constantly felt too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids, didn’t have a reason to fit in. And as I got older, I was learning all of these things I wish I learned in high school, middle school and even in elementary school. So now at the age of 27, I travel the country with the mission of making mental health education more relatable and accessible to hopefully help that one kid not feel the way that I did, alone and embarrassed and ashamed.
Dang, the way you just introduced yourself, we can do a master class on that. Like, you know exactly who you are, what your story is and what you do, which, I mean, I don’t know if you’re listening to this podcast, just a quick note, go back and listen to how Wes told us who he was and ask yourself, can I do that in 30 seconds when someone asks me what I do, where I’m from? If you can, your organization is gonna grow.
That was really good.
Thank you, thank you, thank thank thank you, thank you. I spent time on it. mean, honestly, I think for me, when I started in the public speaking space, I had to understand like, how am I gonna communicate? Because I can talk about this forever. If we could go hours about this, right? Or go passion about it. But obviously people have the attention span of a goldfish. So I had to really focus on how can I kind of capture my passion in under 30 seconds or less. So I’ve definitely spent time in the shower, like we’re playing on my head.
My fiance has definitely heard me explain myself like a thousand times. Just to be able to speak to that one person to understand who I am, what I do and why.
Yeah that’s cool. And hey, congratulations, you said fiance.
Yes, getting married in 363 days. So yes. Who’s counting though? Who’s counting? Who’s counting? Thank you.
Who’s counting? 363 days. Oh, that’s cool. Dang.
Love that. Okay, so we know a little bit about you. The way I love to do these interviews is for us to leave with a little bit of your knowledge and expertise by the time we get done in the interview and to help me understand how you can serve us. Can you give us this overview when you go into a community for speaking or training or you even, I just learned this about you, you have a mental health media company. How are you transforming the lives of young people or the professionals that you work with? What’s the transformation that you look for?
The Power of Storytelling in Mental Health Education
That’s a great question. So when I think about all of my work, it starts with the fundamentals of storytelling. And the reason why is like when I would be in middle school, I would have guest speakers come in. In fact, there was a older gentleman that came in when I was in sixth grade and he did an anti-bullying presentation. And it was a story about his younger son, Ryan, who actually died by suicide. And I remember sitting in that audience and this grown man who is quite literally triple my age.
I feel so connected because he’s telling my story. And that feeling of feeling so seen in a room full of 100 students, that is what I do today. So the power of storytelling creates this ability to almost empathize with a total stranger. Because when I walk into schools or youth conferences, students and faculty will look at me and they’ll think I’m a student. And they’ll be like, who is this guy? You know?
I walk in with a pink shirt, with an Afro, with the Jordans on, and they’re like, who is this guy? And then I start talking. And the way I start talking, I don’t lecture. I never wanna lecture, right? I wanna humanize who I am as a person in the first minute or less. So I actually show very embarrassing photos of myself, like slides. Like I’ll show the fact that my parents dressed me up like I was a 55 year old white guy.
In fact, being in this small suburban neighborhood, I had a shirt and tie at five years old. It was hilarious. I looked like I was going to save you 10 % or more on car insurance, like literally. But I do that because you want to have some humor in it, right? I think traditionally when we think about mental health conversations, they can be intense, right? And I think that’s what actually keeps people so far away from having these conversations.
So when students and teachers see me up there having fun, talking about anxiety and depression, real serious things, they have this thought of like, maybe I can do that too. And that is the transformation we see. We see an increase in help seeking behavior. We see more connection over having these deep, serious conversations. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from schools after the post survey meeting that we all do.
And they tell me things of like, actually had kids go home and tell their parents that I want to talk about me having anxiety. I want to talk about actually finding a therapist. Can you help me? That’s why I do what I do, to close that gap. And I love it. I really do love it.
Dang, okay. And that’s powerful because I think that as you become a professional to help young people, number one, I’m gonna highlight that the person who inspired you was three times your age. They didn’t need to pretend to be like you. They didn’t need to do anything. It’s just that their story was heard and they were vulnerable in front of an audience. And that’s a great piece of permission we can give every adult who works with young people.
You don’t have to change. You don’t have to wear the same shoes as them. You don’t have to dress or act or talk like them. We play a unique role as a caring adult who gets to share our story. But then, and maybe that comes with packaged with some information or stats or strategies to help them. But part of that vulnerability is to number one, you laughed at yourself, showing those funny photos, you know, because I bet someone in the beginning, and I do this too, I don’t want to come up to a platform and tell them how awesome I am. That is going to create distance. Let someone else say a great intro about your credibility and where you’ve been, and you show up and you show how you’re there to serve them and how relatable you are. Because look at this, check this out. I struggle with this too. Like that kind of stuff creates the bond and the closeness that we want. So I love that you explained that to us.
Creating Connection Through Vulnerability
Yes, and I love how you actually kind of reviewed it because when I hear you say it, I’m like, that’s exactly what I do. And I love it because when we think about different generations and how we can actually foster connection, sometimes what I have seen and what I have observed is those who are maybe older than me will think, I can’t relate to Gen Z. Like my mom, perfect example, my mom is 65. She feels all the time.
I can’t relate to Wes’s generation, but the reality is you really can. And here’s why. I always like to tell people who are older than me and even younger than me who have this feeling of imposter, I say, how can you humanize yourself? Because we all have things in common. For instance, I had a sixth grade guidance counselor. Again, sixth grade was a very pivotal year in my life. Mr. Walsh. And Mr. Walsh, when my parents first got divorced when I was 12, Mr. Walsh, he would actually find me hiding in the school bathroom. I didn’t want to eat school lunch in the cafeteria. I just felt so ashamed, so anxious about around big crowds. So he found me hiding in the school bathroom one day and he pulls me into his office and in my head, I’m thinking I’m in trouble. Like this is it. Like they’re gonna tell my parents that I’m hiding in the school bathroom, not eating school lunch and sit in his office and this older white guy with a bald head, we just start talking about the Boston Celtics.
Bridging Generational Gaps
And that was like the first bridge, right? Because I thought there was these borders. I thought, he’s older than me, he won’t get the fact my parents got divorced, he don’t know what that feels like, he doesn’t get me. But then he started talking about the Boston Celtics. We started to create this connection around sports. So what ways can we as older people, right, find those common grounds with younger people? I think it’s more than possible. And that’s, I think about Mr. Walsh all the time in that example.
Dang, that’s cool. And I’m one of those guys, Wes, where I watch the YouTube recaps of NBA games. I do not know any players’ names. Like some kids in our youth group and that I talked to, ⁓ they’ll spout out names and stuff. And I’m like, dude, I’m just learning your name. Anybody I see on TV, I don’t know it. And at times I felt intimidated, like, like you said, I can’t relate to you. I can’t talk sports with you. What can I talk about? But what I’ve learned over and over again is it doesn’t really matter what we say. It matters that we listen. So if that student is wearing that basketball jersey or the certain type of shoes and it’s got the Jordan logo on it, man, that gives you permission to say, hey, are you a basketball fan? Tell me who your favorite team is. It doesn’t mean that you have to be able to talk about sports with them.
But you can definitely listen and make them feel seen and heard. And Wes, I, so we got in touch, just met online literally like two days ago. And as soon as I saw your page, I was like, oh, I need to talk with you on our podcast because you had this video teaching, you taught me some real tangible ways how to connect or how to help a friend who might need it. ⁓ And I don’t know if you remember what you posted, but even if I just like checked into this podcast today and I’m like on the drug prevention power hour and I’m like, I learned this today, just that small clip would be worth it. Can you teach me that again?
Navigating Grief and Supporting Loved Ones
Yeah, of course. And it’s so funny because I learned that through my fiance, if I’m being quite honest. And here’s why. So my fiance, she won’t mind me telling you this, she lost her mom to cancer two years ago. And going through grief is incredibly painful. It’s not linear, it’s unpredictable, it has all these different stages to it. And I don’t like using the word stages because it almost makes me feel like I’m saying it, there’s an end to it. There’s never really an end to it. But there’s a way to navigate and she’s a lot better now today. But in the beginning, I had no idea how hold space. I had no idea how to hold space for a loved one, my partner who was struggling. There were nights where she was crying and I just wouldn’t know what to do. I would just kind of like look at her, I would kind of freeze. So what I had to learn, she handed me this book one day.
I’m gonna butcher the title, but it was a book about grief and how to support someone who’s literally going through grief. And in chapter like seven of the back of the book, she gave me this like sticky note. She was like, I want you to read this chapter. And this chapter was how to support a loved one who was experiencing grief. And how it broke down, it was just breaking down these kind of three simple steps. And I didn’t like just jack it, but I wanna make it into my own language. But the first thing I really said that I found pretty helpful, the three words that every human being needs to hear more of when they’re experiencing something that is challenging or a form of adversity, it’s not, love you. It’s not even you are enough. It’s, I believe you. How can you say, I believe you? How can you believe their perception? Because how they are perceiving what they are experiencing, that’s true to them. But a lot of times we wanna fix it. We wanna be like, no, just do this, just breathe, just calm down, right? That never works.
And when I was doing that to my friends, it never worked. It never works. And after you can say, believe you, how can you actually affirm what they’re feeling? Because I think sometimes it’s one thing to say, I believe you, but then move into solution mode still. How can you say, I believe you, and I actually can’t even imagine how that feels right now. That sucks. It’s okay to say that sucks. But the last part, your body language is so important. It never works.
Being there for someone, especially if you’re in person, I know we’re doing this interview virtually right now, but sitting next to somebody or even kind of walking next to somebody, your body actually communicates more words than your mouth ever could. I’m a firm believer of that. When I’m in an argument with my fiance sometimes, we get into debates, all couples do. If I’m standing across from her and she’s five-five, I’m five-ten, just height difference alone. And my voice is deeper than hers, it’s gonna come off no matter what I’m saying, I’m attacking her. But if I’m sitting next to her and I’m saying, how can we get through this together? The body is communicating, I’m with you, not against you. And that’s what I walk students through, of how can you support, I take that same framework to offer that to students, how can you support someone who’s going through a rough time? How can you say, believe you? How can you affirm their perception? And how can your body language communicate, I’m with you, not against you?
Yeah, I love that for so many reasons. And what comes to my mind is the whole fix it mentality, which I think I relate to. It’s like, ugh, you’re going through grief and that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to sit, for me, just the awareness of, you’re going through something. What you need right now is maybe someone to listen to, not to fix your problem. And then, at the very, even if you feel like, I want to help, it’s probably more of a question rather than going to fix it mode, right? Believe them, be with them. And I love the fact that you mentioned posture. Maybe it’s not standing across from them. It’s taking your arms from a posture of closed arms cross to open and then being beside them. I love that. And then I’m still thinking though, like, Is there something you can ask them to be helpful without trying to fix them? And in my mind, it’s like, hey, is there anything that you need right now? is that okay to ask at the end of being with them, sitting with them, or do you wanna avoid that altogether?
Empowering Conversations: Agency and Support
That’s a great question. And I actually learned this again through my fiance, Kat. The question is not necessarily, how can I support you in this moment? Which is great, which is a fantastic question. A more helpful question, I do do this with parents as well who want to support their children who are experiencing an emotional crisis. People want to be reminded of their agency, right? When you think about when you are in a moment of panic or a moment of distress, you feel like you can’t breathe, you feel like you have no sense of control. So the quicker you can remind them of their agency, that’s the more empowering stance they can have. So the question is not necessarily how can I support you, but the question that becomes, do you want strategy or empathy in this moment? Give them the permission to choose, the ability to choose, because some people want empathy. Some people just want you to hold space and hear them. Some people want strategy. In every environment, every situation is different. It’s not just a one size fit all.
I definitely use that in my relationship. use that at work with my team. I use that with my friends. And it’s so helpful because when you give someone that ability to choose, okay, how do I want to be supportive right now? Because a lot of times we project help to people. We never give them the chance to actually understand and not even understand, but how do I want to be helped right now? And I think that’s so magical.
When I’ve been on the receiving side of that, my goodness, I’d be like, no, I want everything. I want a vet right now. Yeah, that’s cool.
And the fact that you’re, I love that you use the word agency. And for anyone listening, it does not party your vocabulary. It’s the belief that you can control and do something with your circumstance, right? Like I am so empowered to do something. I might not need you to fix it. I just want you to listen and then I will take action when I’m ready type thing, which really resonates with us in the drug prevention field because solving problems for young people is not equipping them to become leaders and to become problem solvers, but rather saying, hey, you can be an advocate to yourself and your friends and you can change the world and you don’t need us to do it for you. Like that’s you. It’s such a empowering posture to have.
And I think young people desire that from their mentors and they’re the people that look out for them. It’s like, stop trying to fix me or diagnose me or enable me. I can do incredible things. Can you just remind me of that when I need it and listen to me? So that’s really, really cool. Wes, the other thing I personally relate to is your fiance, Kat, sounds pretty cool because she probably needed you to do something. And she gave you the book on it. I love that.
Read this just read this right now. I read on a flight and I was like, alright, okay I have to not that nothing was fixed automatically, but I had to definitely take take a humble piece of pie and Definitely, you know, so she even the book she’s like read this thing right now my gosh, Wes, I can tell we’re going to be friends. So you’ll meet Emily. And for anyone listening, you probably know Emily. She’s our events manager at Vive 18. So she does your contracts and invoice and event planning with you. She is so good at doing exactly what Kat did, telling me exactly what she needs. Like, hey, Jake, you’re dropping the ball on this. She’s like, Jake, can you just put your hand on my leg while we drive? Like if we’re driving and I’m in my head, she’s like, hey, can you put your hand on my leg? sure. Yeah, like she can tell me exactly how she needs to feel love right now. And we don’t have to play a guessing game of, yeah, why didn’t you do this for me? Or why didn’t you do this for me? She’s so good at telling me. And now I’ve taken a playbook out of her life to say, why would he be mad that she didn’t do this for me and didn’t anticipate my every need that’s a recipe for disaster. I should be more like her and just ask her for what I need.
Yes, yes, yes. And I get it. It is hard to do that, right? It’s a lot, it’s it’s a much of a, very much of a superpower to say, to be able to do that. Be able to communicate your needs when you need it, because you don’t know how the other person’s going to receive and respond to you asking for that need. But that’s all power to Emily. I hope to meet her one day.
For sure, man. That’s so cool. What else can we do as people who work with, you know, young folks? Like, how can we help them feel seen and heard and cared for in other tangible ways? If we’re maybe, maybe we’re leading a student club or we’re doing drug prevention or mental health classes in the schools. What are some things we can take from your playbook, Wes, to help do that?
Celebrating Small Wins in Recovery
Yeah, I like to talk to a lot of professionals about celebrating the small wins. ⁓ One thing that I have found with people who are battling addiction of any kind, whether it’s alcoholism, whether it is drug addiction, or even for me, when I was younger, five years ago, actually, I say younger, but that wasn’t that long ago, five years ago when I was experiencing a lot of suicidal ideation and I was sent to an intensive outpatient program, that’s where I learned a lot of these things that we’re talking about now.
I had to learn that my brain had very much little evidence of proving that I was enough. And what it was, what my brain was telling me, all these things that I’m not enough, I don’t belong. As I covered in the beginning, I felt like I was too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids. So I had a lot more of these negatives, self beliefs, these negative core beliefs.
And what my mom did a great job of one day after I got out of the intensive outpatient program, she encouraged me to make this list. Now in corporations, when you want to go for a promotion, you would present almost like a brag sheet to your manager. And that brag sheet will be a list of every project you’ve probably led or things you’ve done in the organization that have would prove that you deserve a promotion. So the same concept applies where for me, I had to build better core beliefs. And what my mom encouraged me to do, she said, I want you to write down anything you’ve accomplished in your life, whether it was your first soccer trophy you got when you were a kid, all the way to getting into your dream college. And it’s not that external successes will build our self esteem. I’m not saying that. But what I’m saying is, it’s almost like this practical tool that you can use. It’s almost like direct evidence for proving the opposite of what that negative inner dialogue is saying. So what I say to people who work with people who are experiencing suicidal ideation or coming out of addiction in recovery, helping them understand how to celebrate the small wins, because it could be very, very, very isolating and feel like you’re not making much progress at all. It feels like you’re going up against this big Mount Everest of a journey. But when you can celebrate those small wins, what happens is, you remind that person they’re not a perfect person, they’re a progressing person. And that’s why I love to say, and those things are very powerful.
Not a perfect person, a progressive person. I love that, man. And that breeds action because you’re like, yeah, I did something difficult before. I’ve accomplished something before. I’m not this lie that’s in my head. Dang, that’s cool. Kudos. Kudos to your mom making you, hey, bring out the paper and pun. Draw this out for me. One of the big things in prevention as well is like, you mentioned agency before and there’s this key outcome we want to produce with young people called self-efficacy, which is very much that agency and that belief that I can do difficult things, I can change my community, I can make an impact because then you don’t become a victim of your circumstances. And I appreciate your vulnerability to be like, man, I didn’t feel black enough for my black friends or white enough for my white friends.
Who am I? Where’s my value? Where do I fit in? And I think that’s just, man, that would wreak havoc on your brain and your identity. So you need to celebrate those things that you have to say, man, my identity is not in any of that stuff. I can latch onto something way more important, like who I actually am, my character, my faith, my values, all these things that can help define us.
Yes, I couldn’t have said it any better. That’s one of the actually one of the other things I learned in the Intensive Outpatient Program was the importance of faith and service. Both have which been a cornerstone of my recovery journey. Believing in something outside of yourself has been such an amazing, amazing community. I wouldn’t say it goes further than being a tool, but a community finding other people who are on similar paths.
The idea of service, when you are in this posture of serving other people instead of focusing on your own suffering, you’re building empathy and generosity and even gratitude. One of the mantras that I journal about often, and I encourage anyone who’s listening to this podcast to challenge yourself to answer this question. It’s based off this mantra that I made up, I don’t even where I got it from, but I made it up in the shower one day. it was, today’s reality was yesterday’s prayer.
Today’s reality was yesterday’s prayer. That mantra, whenever I feel like I’m not appreciating where I am currently, whether it’s I don’t feel far enough in my career or I don’t feel like I’m a good enough partner, today’s reality was yesterday’s prayer. There is one thing I can find every single day that I did not have or was experiencing before. So that positive appreciation really changed my life.
Wow, that’s cool. Today’s reality is yesterday’s prayer. I love that. One last question before we just kind of, want to end with how people can get in touch with you and what kind of things you’re doing working with different organizations. Because if they’re like me, they’re thinking, how can I get West in my community? And how can I teach some of these things that you’ve developed? My last question for you is what hat things are you seeing? If you could take a canvas, ⁓ a West view of you’re working with youth and here are the top things that they’re struggling with right now, and here are the top tools that they need to be taught, what would be your perspective on that?
Understanding Youth Anxiety and Connection
Great question. Right now, in terms of the college side of things and even down to secondary education, high school and middle school, what I’m seeing is tremendous anxiety. But it’s not about what you would think. It’s not just about academic performance. It’s not just about the sense of belonging. I would go as far as saying, given the current political landscape, a lot of colleges and universities and even high schools and middle school students, they’re feeling this angst, this level of unease. And I feel like what they need to be learning now is understanding the circle of control. When you think about the older students, whether they’re, I’m talking about 17 to 22, that demographic, they’re really focused on consuming news and TikTok, all that information, but how do we actually teach students positive social media hygiene?
I really do promote that as well. How do you practice boundaries around social media consumption, which does really impact your overall wellbeing. On the second side that I’m seeing is a disconnect in the household between parents or guardians and then students. And I believe it’s almost like a framework of instead of there being bridges, there’s borders or fences. So with my programs that I do, I offer a lot of parent education teaching parents how to actually have the mental health conversation back at home. Because a lot of the students, they’re wishing that their parents just understood or were better at active listening. They don’t use those vocabulary words, but they say, I wish my parents would stop telling me to just go to church and pray it off. I wish my parents would tell me, just take a nap. And those are real valid experiences, right? So a lot of the parent programming that I do as a speaker, I really help parents understand my three framework model. O, how do you observe? What are the signs you look out for, for your student who’s going through emotionally challenges? I, how do you actually intervene to have this conversation? One of the best ways to intervene is not to do it before bed or before school. It’s to try to find the right moment, such as like going for a walk. Again, your body language, walking side by side with them. Points where there’s no eye contact, that’s very helpful.
And then C, the last part of the framework is how can we make this a connection so they’re not in it alone? I think a lot of parents who have children who struggle in schools and in this children don’t feel they can actually talk to their parents is because they don’t have a model for vulnerability. So how can parents actually model vulnerability in the home? And that’s what we talk about in some of my parent educational workshops.
Wes, that was incredible. I love your, your steps. You got the acronym, easy to remember, observe, intervene, and. Wait, what was the third one? Were you side by side connect? Connect.
Connect, connect. How can we make them feel they’re not alone in this?
That’s good. And I definitely want to dive in. how can our listeners and myself get to know more about what you’re doing and maybe even the things that you you’re working on or offering on how we can work with you?
100%. So you can find me at WesWitson.com, that’s spelled W-E-S-W-O-O-D-S-O-N.com, and come visit me and find out more about my student workshops that I do, my parent educational workshops that I do. Me and my team are also building on a mental health talk show called I Have Anxiety, Thanks For Asking, and it’s all about trying to facilitate human-to-human connections around the mental health conversation. So I would love to work with anyone who’s listening and I love to be a resource to where I can be.
That’s awesome, Wes. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. It’s really cool. If you don’t mind me asking while we’re on air, how old are you?
Introduction to Drug Prevention Strategies
I love answering this question. So I have to tell a quick backstory. One time I’m presenting in a school in Florida and I check in, I go into my presentation spot in the library and then I go to leave and I’m leaving the school. I’m like walking out, like whatever, I’m leaving. A school resource officer chasing me down the school is like, hey, get back to class. I’m like, man, I pay taxes. What do you mean get back to my gosh, he thought you were a student about to skip out of school and he was gonna Dang, that’s hilarious. good bad, but I’m 27 years old. I’m 27. Yeah.
Okay, 27. You’re a young one, man. You’re a young one.
But I got a baby face, if I’d had the beard and the hair, I’d have looked like my baby, you know?
There you go. That’s so cool. Well, Wes, I can’t say it enough. Thank you for taking the time being on the show for everyone that’s listening. You can check out the website, connect with Wes. And then as always, thank you for the work that you’re doing. You’re saving lives. You are changing lives. We don’t always see the fruit when we’re in it, but you’re planting these seeds, you’re making moves and you’re impacting people in your community. So if you need any help whatsoever, on this side of this programming that Wes is talking about, go check out weswoodson.com. If you’re looking to start student led clubs around drug prevention and mental health, go to vive18.com. And remember we are better together. We can lean on each other. And if there’s any resources you need, hit us up. And I want to say this because this was such a good episode. If you know a friend or a young person that needs to hear this, click that share button send it on Instagram, tag them, TikTok, LinkedIn, whatever you use, tag that student, tag that school resource officer, that advisor, that educator, because some of these tools that Wes is talking about, they need to be out there so that we can help students feel seen and heard and cared for. And we’ll see you on next Monday for another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour.
