Being one of the highest-rated UFC coaches of all time can quickly put anyone on the map. Such is the case with Kevin Kearns, who has trained elite UFC Championship legends throughout his impressive career. On top of being a top coach, he also trains nonathletes with a high level of care and support and is also an effective motivational speaker to law enforcement staff, colleges, multi-level corporations and the US military.
Kevin Kearns is not only adept in training the physicality of athletes and non-athletes, but he is also an advocate of mental health. He believes that mental illness is the culprit behind the struggles, which is notorious for its stigma and prejudice of the general public and affecting the ego of those suffering from it before their diagnosis. Mental illness has received much global attention, as was the case with Simone Biles. She admitted the need for psychological help that could have jeopardized her physical health, which increased the risk of physical injury during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Even though Kevin Kearns has gained immense notoriety by training fifteen top UFC athletes and being named one of the top five UFC coaches, he is not spared from the struggles of mental illness. In his fantastic book There’s Light In the Tunnel: How to Survive & Thrive with Depression, he provides positive and practical advice based on his own experiences of deep human vulnerability and depression. He wrote how examining the self could help people face their own demons.
Kevin being bullied incessantly for years and then the death of his father when he was 12, being adopted, and undiagnosed years of mental illness to motivate his performance for coaching martial arts and exercise. Kevin firmly believes that revealing his demons to readers in his latest book will encourage people with mental illness to seek help through treatment and take control of their lives.
In the first few chapters of his book, he explains the connection between the human ego and mental illness. Unfortunately, he was also guilty of stigmatizing mental illness before being diagnosed with severe depression, which he overcame through ECT treatment.
“I needed to release my ego that was associated with being a master coach and reflect on some of the times in my life where I exhibited the disease,” says the expert coach. In the book, Kevin shares the night that led up to an attempt at taking his own life, the darkest night of his life. He recalls that event as a night filled with fear and anxiety. Before that night, his personal life was a huge mess, and all hope turned into anxiety and fear. That was amplified by the moving out of his two children and his marriage resulting in a divorce. These events placed enormous stress on his physical, mental, and spiritual being.
Carrying the pain and lessons from his struggles with mental illness, Kevin Kearns has learned to live by this belief for many years: that the first step is to seek help. He stresses this essential lesson to his clients, audiences throughout the United States, and anyone in need of assistance suffering from emotional impulses and mental illness.
A few years from now, the champion maker envisions himself helping many people who desire to win against their mental illness. Among his engagements as a motivational speaker, Coach Kearns will be offering workshops and lectures on psychologically coping with mental illness. His plan is to follow Grant Cardone and or Dr Wayne Dyer’s footsteps in the next few years.
