Mental Health Champions: Why & How Mia Zambarano Of ‘4 The Athletes’ Is Helping To Champion Mental Wellness
An Interview With Michelle Tennant Nicholson
Don’t do it alone. While I have had many individual successes, I find that the most exciting and ground breaking aspects of my life and career happen when I have been part of a team, allowed myself to receive support or guidance, or have been part of that support and guidance for others. We are pack animals. When we feel connected, we can feel inspired and the possibilities can be endless. My teammates, husband, family, business partners, friends, and other networks have not only helped my growth tremendously, but they’ve certainly made it more fun.
As a part of our series about Mental Health Champions helping to promote mental wellness, I had the pleasure to interview Mia Zambarano.
Mia Zambarano is a licensed mental health therapist and mental performance expert. Mia specializes in consulting highly competitive teams and individuals on enhancing their mental health to optimize their performance. As an entrepreneur, mother, and former Division 1 soccer player, Mia understands the importance of offering support to this high performing population, and is currently working on building a more widely accessible platform for supporting mental health and mental training for athletes.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I Grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey in a very small town. Throughout my childhood, school and sports were both very important to me. I started at 4 years old with Karate and then with soccer. I participated in other sports including basketball, lacrosse, and horseback riding, but my favorite and where I excelled most was in soccer. By the time I entered my regional high school, I knew soccer was going to be my focus. I was a competitive person and enjoyed that aspect of my life very much. It was definitely reinforced by my competitive and athletic family!
I grew up with a big family, and strong family values. Although my parents were divorced when I was very young, I got to spend important time with both of them and both sides of my family. I was incredibly close with all of my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. I always felt encouraged to pursue my goals and dreams whether it was related to athletics, academics, or my profession. For this, I am extremely grateful.
Because I came from a small town where at the time when I was very young, no one I knew had the shared experience of a split family and other things that came along with that, I didn’t know how to share my experience. This led to wanting to support others at a young age through friendships and athletics, and ultimately later in life as a profession.
You are currently leading an initiative that is helping to promote mental wellness. Can you tell us a bit more specifically about what you are trying to address?
I have been practicing as a licensed therapist for many years now. After time in the field and developing knowledge and training in evidence-based practices, I realized that there is so much benefit to the information and skillsets I was learning. I also came to realize that in traditional therapy, there are certain limitations in terms of who you get to work with. I don’t feel you should need a diagnosis to get support with your mental health and wellness, and I also found that those asking more of themselves seemed to be an under-served population. Those who are “high performing” seem to be associated with the assumption that they “have it all together”. I think we’ve seen enough lately to show that at the end of the day, we are all human and we all have mental health just as well all have physical health. I shifted my practice towards supporting people of highly competitive and performing nature as it resonated with me and my skillset. I began to focus on highly competitive athletes, business professionals, and entrepreneurs with the common theme being mental wellness and performance.
As a former college athlete, this population is near and dear to me. As I leaned into this work further and created my signature evidence-based program, I saw that there was even more of a need for it than I initially realized. After working with one of my teams, a former player from the team had approached me about an idea for a platform specifically for college athletes to discuss and support their mental health. It is an ongoing project (4TA: 4 The Athletes) that I am very excited about!
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
As I mentioned, I myself am a former collegiate athlete. I spent my whole life training, traveling, and competing. That is where I developed some of my best friendships, and some the best memories I hold. That being said, there’s another side to competitive athletics that in my opinion gets normalized and therefore not acknowledged the way it should be. While we may see athletes as super-human, they are simply human. We all have our peaks and valleys, and I witnessed many of my teammates go through some deep valleys. These were both related and unrelated to sports, while still directly impacting their experience on the field as well. Because you are trying to hold certain expectations as an athlete, I felt and witnessed it being difficult to be vulnerable and ask for support. This takes a toll on more people than we realize. The more we ask of ourselves, the more we need to give ourselves. We are thoroughly trained physically, yet where there is a complete mind-body connection, there is (almost) no training offered mentally or emotionally. This, in addition to seeing heartbreaking stories in the media about college and professional athletes struggling with mental health reinforced that I wanted and needed to be doing more for this population; so, I did. I came up with a signature performance program that incorporates mental health and training and now I am working with another incredible former collegiate athlete to bring a unique platform forward that won’t just be talking about it, but also offering ways to incorporate change and bring about support.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest them. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
I have always had big dreams and ambitions. I credit myself with having a creative mind and always knew if I was going to stay in a difficult field with high burnout rates, I was going to need to make it my own and something I was very passionate about. That being said, I would be lying if it was as easy as one “aha moment”. I knew I had a talent for the type of work I was doing in terms of therapy and supporting others. Throughout my time in practice, this looked different. It took time in the field and growing my experience and expertise to find my niche and an area I truly felt I could create a significant, large-scale impact for others.
While it wasn’t one moment that got me here, there was a moment I recall where I realized I needed to go full force with putting things into action and reinforced the need I suspected amongst the highly competitive athlete population. I woke up one morning and read about a female college soccer player that had taken her life. I began to cry. I didn’t know her, but knew the reality was I certainly could have. It hit home in a scary and impactful way. Knowing that there was a possibility I could support others to not only manage but to thrive in their mentality was certainly a major lift off point.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
I have had many incredible experiences in terms of people I have spoken with and have had the ability to support. As far as interesting, I would say that the surprisingly positive feedback and acknowledgement for need has to be it. In the beginning of creating 4TA, we sent out a survey to current college athletes from different schools, sports, and genders. While the numbers in responses were only in the hundreds at the time, the outcome was pretty mind-blowing. All those who took the survey (anonymously) agreed that sports had impacted their mental health both in a positive and negative way. There were other statistics gathered that indicated significant stress, pressure, and that those who participated would be open to support in this area.
Throughout my time working with both teams and players individually through my own program, the vast majority have agreed that they either didn’t feel able to access the other support if it was there, didn’t feel the support that was offered to them was sufficient for their needs, didn’t know whether the support existed, or that they didn’t realize how much they would benefit from it until they experienced it. I found this to be very interesting in all honesty. Since then, the interviews, conversations, and experiences I have had with high level athletes (current and former college, and current and former professional athletes) have seemed to echo these trends.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
Absolutely. I felt scared initially to niche down on one specific area. I have an incredible mentor and group of women who I have been supported by in building my business and visibility. I truly believe that my own business, as well as 4TA, would not be where it is without this mentor and support system. The mentor I speak of is a highly successful and competitive business woman who also happened to be a former competitive athlete. It was an amazing experience to hear not only her interest, but support in unapologetically pursuing this path. While not all of us choose the route of being a highly competitive athlete, there is a high likelihood that we will raise them, know them, love them, or cheer for them.
I also have to give credit to all the people who have stepped up in terms of the mission to support athletes’ mental health and their willingness to have difficult discussions. It’s not easy to be vulnerable, especially if you are someone who feels they have an image they need to uphold. When I initially reached out to people who I felt could speak to their experience, I didn’t know what to expect, honestly. It may sound cheesy, but my heart lit up with the overwhelming response of support and those not only willing, but wanting to share their experience.
According to Mental Health America’s report, over 44 million Americans have a mental health condition. Yet there’s still a stigma about mental illness. Can you share a few reasons you think this is so?
I talk about this often, and I believe there are a few reasons for this. I think that while mental health is being discussed more than in the past, there is not always the accessibility in support for it. I also think that there are not only assumptions, but also barriers attached to who can or feels they can access it. Another stream of thought I hold is that we are not educated on it the same way in which we are educated in other areas. There is nowhere in a mandated school curriculum where mental health is thoroughly discussed, even in terms of understanding the basics of emotions and how our brain works. This is still baffling to me and something I have wanted to work on for younger ages through high school as it is part of the human experience and how we function, whether or not we like it.
Even in acknowledging these perspectives, there are additional factors including that mental health is something not necessarily tangible, that the brain is an extremely complex system in terms of how our mental health operates that we still don’t fully understand, there are cultural impacts and assumptions related to it, there is a difficult history and language associated with how it was treated because of the lack of knowledge and understanding, and the list goes on.
In your experience, what should a) individuals b) society, and c) the government do to better support people suffering from mental illness?
We need to stop treating mental health support like a luxury or something “extra”. It is a necessity, and we would be better as individuals, teams, businesses, and a society if it was recognized as such. More support in this area would only yield higher functioning peoples, systems, and outcomes. This starts on an individual and family level while carrying through at the educational, professional, and self-improvement levels.
When I began my work in the field, I was grossly under-compensated. The work and the hours were intense, although highly rewarding. While it is not the only profession that experiences this, I feel it is one of the main ones where it is extremely high demand with unmatched support and compensation for the workers. It is hard to ask people to dedicate their time, finances, education, and professional life to something that does not seem to be supported. This yields a lack of resources and decreased quality in the overall readily available support. Normalizing that attending to mental health is a necessity and something that should be main stream while investing in those who provide informed and evidence-based support would be a fantastic start.
What are your 5 strategies you use to promote your own well-being and mental wellness? Can you please give a story or example for each?
The first is treating self-care as a priority. I feel that the term has been used often while being given different meanings, and even a pop-culture twist. The true meaning of it is the quality in which you take care of yourself and meet your needs. If you don’t do this for yourself, everyone and everything around you experiences that impact. People will say they don’t have time for it or find it to be selfish, but the reality is you are only depriving yourself and others of your full potential. I would by lying in saying that I haven’t been guilty as charged in not prioritizing my own self-care. That being said, each time it leads to illness, overwhelm, and a setback in terms of creativity and productiveness. If you don’t attend to the basics, your brain won’t prioritize the higher-ticket items.
The second would be bettering myself with ongoing education and learning. I personally enjoy learning and bettering myself as an individual. I know that my quality of work, relationships, and outcomes would not be the same if I did not give myself the space to do this. This mostly comes in the form of reading, podcasts, and trainings. I love hearing different perspectives, information, and motivation for self-improvement and how that has such an incredible ripple effect. If I had not taken the time to invest in myself and my career, I would have not only limited myself but would have not been in a place to create and offer the services I do now. My husband and I have also picked books to read together that involve deep conversation, perspective, and ways to push ourselves to better versions. It’s been a really great and special experience when we do this.
The third would be, don’t do it alone. While I have had many individual successes, I find that the most exciting and ground breaking aspects of my life and career happen when I have been part of a team, allowed myself to receive support or guidance, or have been part of that support and guidance for others. We are pack animals. When we feel connected, we can feel inspired and the possibilities can be endless. My teammates, husband, family, business partners, friends, and other networks have not only helped my growth tremendously, but they’ve certainly made it more fun.
The fourth would be boundaries. There are different types of boundaries and it is so important to acknowledge them and what you need in order to protect yourself so you can continue to show up as the best version of you. Boundaries are a means of creating safety, and without safety and security, you’re not going to function at those higher levels. For me, I continue to work on time, informational, emotional, physical, and other types of boundaries. I have not always been good at setting and sticking to boundaries, especially time boundaries. I’ve found it’s a great way to defeat yourself before you even have a chance at real failure. This has been relevant both personally and professionally.
Last and certainly not least; don’t forget to enjoy life. I jokingly say I have an old soul but am young at heart. I love being silly and taking time to do things I truly enjoy. What’s the point otherwise? I think so many of us lose perspective. We work so hard or get so focused on the outcome, we forget to revisit the purpose and the journey. I believe that if we don’t replenish ourselves and have fun in life, we’re living in an unbalanced energy exchange. I think this is why so many of us experience burnout. I remember after starting my business, my husband had a day off and I had a chance to be with him, my son, and my Rottweiler Tyson. I remember saying, “I’m sorry I can’t be with you guys, I have to work”. I realized after the fact that a huge motivating factor for starting my own business was so that I could prioritize that time and not miss out on those priceless moments in life. It’s something I’m always working on and reminding myself of!
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources that inspire you to be a mental health champion?
There is a lot of fantastic content available and coming out about self-improvement, mentality, and supporting yourself and others. One of my favorite authors is Gabrielle Bernstein. While she is not a licensed therapist, she speaks to mental health and mentality in a way that is both inspiring and relatable. Her book, The Universe Has Your Back, was actually a huge part of giving myself permission to pursue doing more as a therapist, consultant, and advocate.
I also greatly respect Jay Glazer for what he is doing in outwardly discussing not only his experience, but holding space for others to discuss their experiences with mental health in the highly competitive world of sports. Having a male figure who is willing to show the reality of being human and having mental health through his social media platform and his recently launched podcast is incredible.
At the end of the day, a lot of my inspiration for doing this work is internal or comes with the direct work I’m doing as therapist and mental performance expert. I hope to be someone who can provide resources to inspire others to do the same!
If you could tell other people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Remember the ripple effect. Pursuing your desire to help through your strengths, interests, or ambitions will only help others. I also don’t want people to undermine their potential for impact. We are all different and have different experiences, perspectives, and skillsets; you never know who and how you can impact others. Don’t assume you can’t do anything or don’t hold value. Don’t assume it’s been done before so you can’t do it. Build your connection with others, find a means to offer support or be informed, and see how it positively impacts everyone involved! Take the first step and don’t hold back.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow our social media on Instagram: @4theathletes_ & @thementalperformanceexpert
Connect with me on LinkedIn: Mia Gardner-Zambarano
Websites: www.4taplatform.com & www.thementalperformanceexpert.com
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
About the Interviewer: Inspired by the father of PR, Edward Bernays (who was also Sigmund Freud’s nephew), Michelle Tennant Nicholson researches marketing, mental injury, and what it takes for optimal human development. An award-winning writer and publicist, she’s seen PR transition from typewriters to Twitter. Michelle co-founded WasabiPublicity.com.
