Pace’s Pollard Excels in the Lessons of Life

Once in a while, you discover a story so special, you’re completely inspired to write it. You find yourself in awe. What makes it even more interesting is this individual is still in high school.

That someone is Hayes Pollard, and at the young age of 18, he already knows a lot about life. A senior at Pace Academy, Pollard will attend Dartmouth College next fall as a member of the Class of 2030. What comes as no surprise is Pollard already has amassed a following of young men and has created programs for his peers sharing remarkable insights to help other teens.

Pollard commented, “Entering high school, I was struggling with my own confidence, motivation, and purpose in life. I slowly started picking up healthy habits out of a deep desire to change something because what was going on wasn’t working. This resulted in accelerating my own self-improvement journey and, by the end of freshman year, I was a different person.”

Determined to pivot and put himself on a meaningful track, Pollard did the opposite of what many kids his age might do.

He explained, “I deleted all social media, started studying, reading in my free time, working out, studying stoic philosophy, and having serious conversations with my friends trying to influence them positively. Late freshman year alongside my good friend Roan Dutta, who had begun a similar trajectory of self-improvement as me, we started the school club and met maybe once a month still not that serious and just with a handful of my friends who came to support me and that meant a lot to me.”

Entering high school, I was struggling with my own confidence, motivation, and purpose in life. I slowly started picking up healthy habits out of a deep desire to change something because what was going on wasn’t working.

As Pollard continued these open conversations, no subject was off limits. Pollard said, “We talked about whatever they were feeling, including discipline, being uncomfortable, and the beauty of hard work, but it all remained very surface level without much action on the part of the club members. Sophomore year, we stepped it up pulling in a larger more diverse group with 15 to 20 people at every meeting, I would pack healthy snacks for our meetings, and we started meeting every other Tuesday for 20 minutes, diving into more complex topics such as stoic philosophy, humility, and antifragility.”

Junior year, Pollard and his group began meeting every Tuesday and regularly pulling crowds of 30 or more. He shared, “The club began to shift as I shifted my focus away from simply improving myself and helping others with self-improvement and shifting towards teaching others the tools to help others. To make the world a better place, the concept of tikkun olam. We discussed how to effectively give advice, spread gratitude, and actionable steps to support someone who’s struggling mentally. Senior year, we’ve continued that legacy bringing in boys and girls from all grades, making the club more of a space for authentic and vulnerable discussion mostly for young men to be honest, that’s who usually comes, and making it more participation than speech-heavy, getting club members teen mental health first aid certified.

“With my friend, Dylan Nelson’s, help we brought in a speaker from Atlanta’s section of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to talk to the whole school and had the club join the Out of the Darkness Walk for suicide awareness at Piedmont Park. I’m grateful for how nurturing and supportive the school has been including my dean (Mr. Ewing) who is the faculty proctor of the club, our director of mental wellness (Mrs. Millaway) who often attends club meetings and supports us, and my friends who have been completely supportive of my transformation and attending all of my meetings even when they didn’t have much direction.”

Alongside some peers and his school’s counselor and director of mental wellness, Pollard joined the health and wellness council late junior year, in addition to the health and wellness club which he began freshman year, to ensure that the awareness and help he has provided while at Pace remains a constant when he leaves. They have brought in inspirational speakers, such as two-time Olympic gold medalist in women’s soccer, Lindsay Tarpley, and given Pace students the opportunity to be taught teen mental health first aid, of which more than 50 upper school students signed up for. Just trying to make the student body feel more supported and give them opportunities to reach out when in need of support is Pollard’s mission.

Pollard continued, “I was mostly inspired by my own journey and the profound beauty I had found in the world after bettering myself and becoming someone I’m proud of. My family’s disciplined example helped me as well. Similarly, the influence of stoic philosophy and Marcus Aurelius’, ‘Meditations.’”

We discussed how to effectively give advice, spread gratitude, and actionable steps to support someone who’s struggling mentally.

As for the benefit for students, Pollard observed that there are actionable steps. He added, “For example, after last week’s meeting on reading, I got everyone who didn’t have a book to read and brought them to the library or talked to them about the genre they might be interested in and brought them one of my favorites.”

When asked what parents and other teens can learn from his mission he shared, “Most importantly, for parents, is setting the example. What you do and how you act in front of your children is far more important than what you tell your children to do because we tend to follow what our parents do not want us to do. I’m grateful for the example my parents set for me. I am proud of the man I’ve become and most proud of the fact that many members and friends of mine have told me that the work I do has completely redirected and even saved their lives.”

He said, “As co-editor-in-chief of my school newspaper, I find that the most profound stories are those with seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the way, because the obstacle becomes the way. As the stoic philosophers say, ‘the impediment to action advances action!’”

Pollard hopes that, at the very least, he will influence people in a positive way, making them more grateful for the gift of life. He said, “The stillness and importance of being present that I encourage our club members to cultivate will allow them to live a more fulfilling life. In my life, I simply want to help people, that’s all. While helping others is great and important, I wouldn’t be able to do so if I hadn’t first helped myself.”

Pollard reminds us, “We all have a responsibility to take care of ourselves, so do so.”