Inspiring Resilience Through Sport, Storytelling & Advocacy
Speaker, Author, Athlete 

Kotaro Umeda has lived in four countries, played professional soccer on three continents, written five books in three languages, and spoken to thousands of people across corporate boardrooms, university campuses, and community centers. Through all of it, three values have remained constant: discipline, courage, and faith. He first wrote them down as a high school freshman in a goal-setting class, after a teacher told him his dream of becoming a Division I athlete was unrealis

For most of his athletic career, Kotaro Umeda didn't talk about mental health. He performed through it — the anxiety, the identity pressure of being the only Asian player in the room, the loneliness of competing far from home in Brazil, Portugal, and Hong Kong. It wasn't until after his playing days ended that he fully understood what it had cost him to keep silent — and what it meant to finally speak openly. Today Kotaro is a committed mental health advocate through the Nati

Resilience isn't about never falling. It's about what you do in the moments when getting back up feels impossible. Kotaro Umeda knows those moments well. As a first-generation Japanese immigrant who moved to the United States at age six, he navigated a childhood shaped by cultural barriers, financial hardship, and the relentless pursuit of a dream that most people around him said was unrealistic. He went on to play Division I soccer at the University of Louisville and became