Great Minds: Matt Heath discusses mental wellbeing with Kieran Read

Being a professional sportsperson is a dream for many. Money, adulation, getting paid to play a game. Yet, like all of us, elite athletes find it tough sometimes. The pressure is intense and the lifestyle weird. Happiness in professional sport is something Kieran Read knows about. He enjoyed a hugely successful 15-year career with some crazy highs and some deep lows too. Over that time he experienced major changes in thinking around mental wellbeing. I'm a big fan of the man. I once overstepped the bounds of our friendship by texting "I LOVE YOU!!!" after a great All Black performance. He replied "Thanks mate". Last Thursday, I zoomed Kieran at his Canterbury home. He's slimmed down from his All Black days and looks happy and healthy in rugby retirement.

Kieran, how did you deal with the hurt of losses?

It changed throughout my career. When I first made the Crusaders, a loss really hurt. I'd dread going out in public. I felt like I'd let people down. I feared going into shops and running into people who wanted to talk about the game. Over time you prioritise processes. You go back on Monday, review the game and focus on the next. Then you're not thinking about that loss as much. It's driving you to do what you need to do but you've got a process to work through the hurt. Also, once you have a family, you go home and your kids don't care. Win or loss, you can still have a good day with them. A loss doesn't have to change how much you enjoy what you're doing.

What about the highs? Dealing with the comedown from a huge win must be interesting?

Yeah, strangely it is tough. Those highs are huge. You come home from a tour after being away for months and winning and suddenly you're doing dishes and washing up. You feel a bit down. A lot of what makes it difficult is the structure. Your life is planned out. What you're doing, where you're staying, what you eat, when you train. Then suddenly there's the offseason and there's nothing in your calendar. "What am I supposed to do?" I made sure I'd create time to get out and exercise hard early in the day, then I could enjoy being at home.

Is personal mental health something players and coaches talk about or is it looked at mainly in terms of performance?

When I first started there wasn't a lot of focus on well-being. It was mainly in terms of mental toughness for playing. But over the past 10 years, it's changed. Well-being became important. I don't think it's across all sports enough yet. You get to the highest level and people assume you're well equipped at dealing with everything. That you can deal with what the coach is saying, what people expect of you and what's happening at home. But it's hard to do that without help.

Isn't pushing the limits of mental and physical toughness the difference between people like you who achieve at a high level and people like me who do not?

Haha well, there's a balance. You can't be comfortable. You're not living a normal life. It's about doing more than other people do. If you want to do something extraordinary you have to really push yourself. It's a hyper situation and it isn't that nice. It's unpleasant. You gotta be able to handle it. It's complex. Maybe you can handle it in terms of performance, but a lot of young people struggle to handle what's being said about them externally.

How did you deal with that?

I didn't read the papers. I didn't read social media posts. If you're out looking for the positive, you're going to get negatives too. You want to keep yourself in a steady state to create high performance in a sport. If you played badly, you know it. That motivates you. You don't need to read what people think. But it was easier for me. Social media has changed. Young players are expected to grow their brand. I didn't feel that pressure.

Kieran Read during a press conference in Tokyo. Photo / Mark Mitchell

As a captain, when your team got behind you would smile in the huddle. You seemed to take a moment to calm the team down rather than yell.

You want to be yourself in those situations. If you do that, people are more likely to listen. It's finding the right time and the right message and getting it across the right way. So I aimed to get people to zone in. To be there in the here and now. Then we can listen to me or whoever else it was talking. Yelling and screaming, I don't think that's the way to go. You're already pumped up. This is a test match. You wanna knock the opposition over. But right now you need to just bring it in. We need to listen to this message, now and then go deliver what we need to deliver.

You've retired from sport to a lovely family. How's the post rugby happiness?

I think being a parent can bring a new story to your life. It changes perspective. You know, it's love. It's what we need. You can find it in different ways if you don't have a family and some people don't want one. But I believe you have to find a way to connect with other people. That's what brings happiness. That's where it is for me right now, that's where my happiness is derived from, the connection with my wife, family and friends and seeing my kids grow up. It's really cool. You don't know when you're a kid, that you're being brought up a certain way or that you're getting values ingrained. It's just what you are. Man, my parents were awesome. It's a really cool responsibility to be a parent.

With that Kieran had to get back to being a dad. He may have cracked the code in both his career and life. It's impressive. I might text him "I love you" again. If he hasn't blocked me.