Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Day 6 - The Calm Before the Gold: Mental Preparation for the Gymnastics All-Around Final | The Game Inside The Games

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

For an Olympian gymnast, a lifetime of preparation leads to a single event – an event that totals just four exhilarating minutes of performance, expression, and competition… an event that will either make or break their wildest dreams. On Day 6 of The Game Inside The Games, gold medalist Nastia Liukin and high-performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais uncover the intense psychological landscape of one sport’s most iconic events – the Women's All-Around Final in gymnastics. They explore the mental strategies and pivotal moments that define an athlete's performance, revealing an unprecedented look into an Olympian’s mind when they step onto the competition floor.Nastia recounts her gold medal run in vivid detail – from the intensity of warm-ups to her mindset walking down the tunnel and the intricate details of the competition unseen by viewers at home.  Through Nastia’s experiences and Dr. Mike’s expertise, this conversation illuminates the razor-thin mental edge that separates champions from contenders on one the world’s biggest stages.This episode is brought to you by Hitachi Solutions and Microsoft.Hitachi Solutions is at the forefront of innovation with Copilot for Microsoft 365._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Day six from Paris. The women's gymnastics all around is coming up and we have the perfect person here to pull back the curtain on that experience. Welcome back or welcome to The Game Inside the Games on Finding Mastery. I'm Dr. Michael Gervais by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist.

And I'm Nastia Lukin, Olympic gold medalist. And we are here in Paris. And in this special series, we unlock the psychology of pivotal, often unseen moments that can make or break an athlete's dream. What's it like to focus a lifetime of experience into one performance, a single moment? What goes on inside the minds of the brightest stars while the whole world is watching? Welcome back to Paris and let's dive into the game inside the games. Welcome back to Paris and the game inside the games presented by Microsoft Copilot. I'm Olympic gold medalist, Nastia Lukin. And I am sport and performance psychologist, Dr. Michael Gervais. And together we're bringing you an inside look at the games like never before. Okay, Nastia, we are coming up on what is probably one of the

most popular events at the Games, the Women's All-Around Final. It's the event that captures the world's imagination every four years. Yeah, it really does. It all comes down to years and years of training to just about four minutes, 90 seconds on a four-inch wide bounce. I mean, that's just a little bit wider than your cell phone. That is-

To put it in perspective. That is amazing. 90 seconds on the floor exercise, five seconds if you're on the slower side on vault and 45 seconds on the uneven bars. So you go into it knowing that you have to deliver in that exact moment. You don't get another chance.

You don't get another try. I'm honestly not sure how it's done. And I kind of want to explore that a little bit more of like, how are you able to do that? Yeah. Let's, let's do that. Let's bring the audience inside that moment and give them a view like they've never had before. So I'm going to set the scene. We're going to take it back to the warmup hall first. So a few hours before the competition starts, you're in the warmup hall and you're doing all four of the events as a group top eight. So it's all seated. So the qualifying round, you, you start from scratch scores do not carry over, but that is your

way to get into the final. So you start on vault. If you make the top eight from the qualifying round. So top eight best gymnast in the entire world are all marching together now. So talk about being right next to your closest competition, whether it's your teammate from your country or somebody else, you know exactly what is happening to the person that you need to hopefully beat. Not that that's your goal, but you see them right in front of you. Describe two parts of that. What is your ideal competitive mindset? And then when you're off from that, what is that like? You know, I think you don't fully turn off the whole time. I think when you're going up on the event and when you're standing there on the side, like I remember watching someone on the balance beam before me

but i wasn't even watching i was looking past it because i was trying to focus on the beam visualize my routine when somebody else was on the beam so i didn't even see what was happening on it. That's cool. So you're, you're totally dialed in on this fine team. This is the, that level of focus and concentration is special and it's not something net new to you at the Olympics, but that's the level of dialed in. Yeah. But that's the level that you hope to be in. Okay. So is it, but when I say competitive mindset, are you, is it more free? Is it more aggressive? Are you like kind of smooth? Like it's like, everything's just eloquent, you know, or is there an edge to it? It's all of those things because each event requires almost a different kind of mindset and a different energy. So for ball, you kind of have

to be a little bit more aggressive and powerful. And, you know, especially for me, I wasn't as physically strong as a lot of the other gymnasts. So it really took a lot out of me. Then you go into the uneven bars. That was my best event. I knew that if I had any mistakes on that event, I had absolutely no chance to end up on top. That was the event that I knew there was no room for any error. So the nerves were just through the roof. Okay. So that's not mindset. That's like the, the demands of the moment, but knowing the way you're perceiving it, knowing the demands also kind of put me into the mindset of basically I had to get my mind into such a state of high confidence because I needed to deliver.

There you go. Yeah. And how do you put, how do you become confident? That for me was training. So you, you develop confidence based on the body of work that you have. For example, we have 30 seconds of warmup on each event as a, as a group, you have a 30 second touch. So that means you March to the next event and you all have 30 seconds to kind of touch the equipment, do your routine, and then you all get down off the podium and the competition starts. So for example,

for me, I needed to have a really good warmup. Oh, this is really dangerous. I know this is really, so there's two, I can't believe you. I mean, you're really good at what you do because this part of the mental game doesn't sound like it was totally dialed in, but listen, this is me from the cheap seats. Well, you know, like, so for, yeah, sure. Maybe. So it's two ways to look at it.

Some people like to just get it out of their system, have a warmup, whatever they want to do. For me, it was instilled in me that anytime I got up on any event, you're not just like loose and warming. This isn't warmup. You have to treat it like a competition and not just the competition because people are watching, but because what you do out there, then your mind can only remember that last time you did it. Okay. So confidence comes from what you say to yourself. And so your body of work helped you speak to yourself in a way to say, I can do this. Let's make it happen. Let's get after it. So, so confidence comes from what you say to yourself. And what I hear you saying, it was resting on my body of work. Awesome. That's incredible. So you had a rich, deep body of work, but then it sounds like you didn't quite know that it was really coming from what you're saying to

yourself about yourself. I didn't know that, but I didn't know it. Like I would be the first to tell you that don't think I don't want to mess up. I don't want to fall off the beam. I don't want to do this. Like that's not how you thought. Absolutely not. I would always say I want like, what can I do in order to make this the best possible routine of my entire career? And so as much as we have the actual choreography that our body does and the skills in our routine, I would also have a mental choreography throughout my head, throughout the entire routine. Yeah. So directionally you were pointed in a productive, positive, optimized, like, let's get it. That's what I want. I'm seeing and feeling it.

No concern or even thought in my head of, am I going to make it or not? It's how well am I going to make it? Okay. There you go. And that, I remember my dad, my dad instilled that in me. That's great. And then, and then there sounds like there's one more thing that I said, there's two things that sounded risky or dangerous is that if you're, um, what'd

you call it? 30 second touch. Yes. If your 30 second touch wasn't quote unquote perfect, great, whatever. I would be like, how's she walking? Oh, now she's got to go to work mentally to get right. And that, that's a little bit as opposed to like, okay. So there was an athlete just the other day that I said, um, oh, we're

talking on the phone. And I said, how'd you do? And she says, great. And I said, how'd you do after that, that one mistake? And she said, um, oh, no issues because I, I know I have great hands. And so it was instant. It was a flash. She's a radical competitor. it was like not i know my my stuff is good so yeah i mean i loved it no that's that's awesome i think i feel like i was able to do that in my head i would never like i don't know i'm very superstitious too okay so i wouldn't like to say that i would think those things and nothing against this athlete. I think it's just, everybody works in a different kind of way. Oh, she didn't say it either. She didn't say it until I asked. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, but even that I wouldn't

have even told you, what would you have said? What was the question? So after that wobble, you had on the beam, like in the warmup, um, it was during the game. Okay. Yeah. After the wobble you had on the beam yeah like in the warm-up um it was during the game okay yeah after the wobble how'd you let go of it and got it when you went over to bars turning i'd have to say like turn the page yeah like i don't think i would try to justify my level of you know confidence or skill based on something that happened in the past, I guess. I don't know. It's a good point. Like everybody needs to know how their process is very personalized. Absolutely. So in the warmup, going back to that, for me, if I had a good 30 second touch, I was more confident. My mind was always confident, but that just boosted it a little bit more versus if you have a fall and this has happened actually. And I think a lot of people

took note of it. So Suni Lee, who is the reigning Olympic all-around champion, and we'll get into that. She had in the 32nd touch, had a bad fall, just not dangerous, but it was pretty significant. She fell on her face. Yeah, yeah. Like flat on the mat. And the first thing you're actually taught is how to fall. So to an outsider, that kind of looked, you know, kind of scary. But to us, it's just the way you fall. Just flat. Flat, in control. Yeah, absolutely. But still, it gives you a slight headache. You know, the mats aren't

that soft. So it kind of rattles you a little bit and this is the 30 second touch again how does an athlete handle a flat fall on your face moments before a routine that matters so much that is her strongest event and this is where like when we talk about the game inside the games it's in these handful of moments between the 32nd and when you've got to ready yourself to go compete and do the thing. And only the great are able to do it. Yeah. So I love this part of it. And if you don't train this, you're kind of making it up on the fly as you go. And of course, you've had 16 to 20 years of training at that point. I don't know how old she is. Maybe it's 10 years of training.

So there is lots of practice. How did you do it? How did you go from a rough 30 second touch into getting yourself completely ready? It was hard. You know, I think for, for Suni, she bounced right back up. She threw it out of her mind and she went and did the best part of her life. So that shows the mental strength. A hundred percent. Like that to me shows more mental strength than having a good 30 second

touch and having a good clean routine. There's another similar, and I know we're, I'm pulling out a little bit of the gymnastics, but just to paint the picture, this is not uncommon. This was at another event is that the final prep was done and the athletes were basically walking into their 30 second touch it was a different sports but it's similar to it and the referee comes up to them and says hey good luck out there this is a tough one you only have something to lose wow first of all back up the ref is allowed to talk yeah interesting isn't that we do not speak to the judges yeah this was a call it a delegate it wasn't the actual referee judge it was somebody that was someone speaking to you and breaking your focus like moments before you

step onto the beam onto any no matter what sport it is but it throws you off and imagine that you have this is a tough one good, this is a tough one. Good luck. This is a tough one. You only have something to lose. Not to bring this back to me, but this similar situation, pretty similar happened to me

moments before we walked out into the competition arena in the all-around finals. Top eight, as I mentioned, all in one squad. We're standing at the chalk bucket at the end of the vault runway.

I speak Russian. The Russian gymnast next to me in Russian says, you know what, Nastia? I really hope you win today. Wait, your competitor leaned over and said, I hope you win? And nobody else can understand. No one else speaks Russian. And so I immediately think,

it makes me a little sad that i went to thinking this first but is she trying to throw me off oh you thought oh yeah because who is competing against you and tells you that i i right i can't imagine so that so that was just my first thought occam's razor like the most it's not that what a nice person in this moment. I hate that. That's where my mind went, but how could it not when you were competing against her for the biggest competition of your entire life and her life. And I, so I, everything like stopped and I was like, just be nice. You know, maybe she means well. And she, she did. She absolutely meant well. So I just looked at her and smiled and I said, thank you. Because like, I didn't know what to say. I hope

you went to like, I don't know. This is like, you know, the first moment someone says, I love you. Yeah. And you're just like, and I remember thinking, why am I getting this in my head now a little bit? Should I take it with confidence? Like, where do I go from here? And so then I just kind of smiled, said, thank you. And I went on with my way. We marched into the arena and in that moment, and that's the moment that these athletes are going to be feeling.

I remember standing in that tunnel right before you march out into the arena and it's, you know, you see 20,000 people. They're screaming, they're chanting, but it's completely silent in your head. Oh, look at that. And you're literally standing just laser focused. Do you remember where you were? Yeah. It was this tunnel, basically. And you're standing there in line as you're about to march into the arena

and you're kind of looking into the arena and you see people like on their feet flags are going you know and it was quiet in my mind complete silence and then i hear my heart beating. I was going to ask, what was your body doing? I was nervous, but I was so calm. I had never been more calm in my entire life. Explain that, that I was nervous and calm. It was the first time in my entire life, that competition, that I, every other time I would tell my dad, who was my coach, that I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. Every single time I would tell my dad, who was my coach, that I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. Every single time.

I can't remember a competition that I didn't feel that way. So you're like redlining when it comes to an activation state. Yeah. And you're still able to perform well. I mean, that model got you to the games. Yeah, and it just became a common, like, and that's kind of what he knew the right things to say. But, you know, it became a consistent thing where I actually never got sick. It was just like in my head. And for the first time I was so calm. And then that scared me a little bit. Just, just like for a split second, because I kind of felt like, wait, why am I not more nervous? Am I not in the right state? Am I too flat?

Yeah. Am I too confident? Yeah, that's exactly it. And I mean, this, this game inside the games is the trickiest place because it's so much easier for my life and for like me personally. And I think for most people is to see something concrete and tangible, to see a behavior and to work on, you know, having a masterful behavior. It's so much easier, but the mastery of self inside is it's invisible and it requires more attention. It requires a more delicate appreciation for just how many options there are where one little, one little thing, like good luck. You have nothing, only something to lose or into your point. I hope you win.

Yeah. Who tells you that? Who tells you that? And I'm going to, speaking about that, I'm going to take it back a little bit. So the night before the competition, I actually had this dream and I've never had a dream about a competition in my life like the night before. So again, I'm starting to think this is weird. And it was the all around finals. I was in my pink leotard matching pink scrunchie. And in this dream, I went through all of the, all four of the events, stuck my vault landing, had never done that in my life. So I knew it was a dream. Great bar routine, one step on the dismount, great beam routine, great floor routine. I land.

I know I've won. I'm coming down the steps off the podium. I give my dad a hug, and all of a sudden, I wake up, and my arms are out here as if I'm about to hug him. It is the middle of the night. Physically, your arms are- Physically, I'm laying in bed, and my arms are out here because I'm embracing him to hug that I just won.

I look beside me, and Sean is asleep. I'm thinking. Wait, Sean is your competitor. Just to be clear. My competitor and also roommate. Yes. Great friend. Yes. With my arms out here. And I'm thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go back to sleep. That felt so real. And immediately I'm thinking, no, wait, that felt so real. I want, I want that to be real. And then I fell back asleep, like for a little bit, it was very hard to fall back asleep, but I, I was trying so hard to like make myself go back to that because I wanted to experience the rest of that. Wow. So you wanted to go back into your dream. Yeah. Because that's, that's the dream that I had been dreaming about my whole life, but I've never it yeah there's a there's a double entendre here that so that's called lucid dreaming and you actually can

enter back into lucid dreaming if there's not too much adrenaline i think there was a little too much you couldn't slip right it's hard to do it's really hard to do it's and so so when i woke up the important part for me yeah before you wake up was that you're like oh this is amazing oh yeah go back and play that movie keep let me do that again like i'm getting a free view of it right okay that that's exactly what it was yeah i was getting a free view a preview of what was to come a beautiful yeah perfectly painted oh my god of what was to come just hours after that. That, that is awesome.

And then when you woke up and when I woke up, I had never felt a sense of calmness and confidence the morning of a competition that I'd ever like ever in my entire life that I had in that moment. Did, did you look over at Sean and be like, Oh, watch out.

Like everything. I'm so sorry, but I am completely dialed in. I am a force to be. We didn't speak like at all that morning. Like it was like at all, because we were, when we woke up that morning, we knew it was game on. Not that we were like competing against each other, like from getting ready or anything, but it was like, we were focused.

And I bring this up because of that confidence, that confidence that in calmness that I had marching into that arena started from the dream. It was almost as if I knew what was going to happen and I just had to let it happen. Easier said than done when you're on a four inch wide balance beam. But when I went in, this is where I knew that I was right. Kind of in my mind, we went to our first event. It was vault in the 32nd touch. I had a good ball and I took one step on the landing. And my dad looked at me and he said, that was good. That was good. Just do the exact same thing, but try to stick it. And I accidentally kind of almost laughed and he looked at me like are you crazy

like what is happening dad i'm actually trying i know but because i'm so superstitious and so is he i would never ever have told anybody about that dream until after oh i did not nobody knew about this wait you were laughing because you knew because i knew that i was going to stick it why was he telling me to stick it if I knew I was going to stick it? You knew you're going to stick it because of the dream? Because I did it in my dream. And so he's looking at me like, are you okay? And you're like, no, I've already seen this.

Yeah, yeah. I already know how this is going to play out. My hair just like, that's really cool. So I went. It sounds wild though. It absolutely does. This is not the normal process. I've never had this in my entire life.

Yeah. Have you spoken about this much? A little bit, but not like, not in like detail. And then when I told, you know, I told my dad after the competition, he's like, well, you could have told me because I was like almost having a heart attack. I was so nervous the whole time. That's amazing. Stopped my landing, by the way.

And that solidified exactly what I thought. Sticking that vault landing made me realize, okay, now I, now I, if I was like, not so sure, now I for sure know how the rest of the competition is going to play out. Nastia, thank you for bringing us inside what is happening at the all-around finals in gymnastics for many of the girls.

I doubt they're having the dream that you're, that's a really kind of different kind of thing. Never had it sent after that too. But the calm, the silence, the heartbeat, the deep concentration, all of that is our trainable skills on how to manage those, how to work with those. And it's an exciting time to be able to watch these finals

with your rich insights. So thank you so much. Thank you. Before we go, we want to talk about our partners. Our AI insights today are brought to you by Hitachi Solutions and Microsoft. Hitachi Solutions is at the forefront of innovation with Copilot for Microsoft 365. Okay. I just want to calibrate for a moment.

The other day, you used Copilot to write a letter to Sean Johnson. And the idea was that it listened to our conversation, it transcribed the main insights, and then got you going on the letter. How was that for you? I think sometimes the most daunting part of something like that is getting started. And so I think that's what was so helpful to me. Of course, it's not the final product, but to get started and see something on paper was extremely helpful. It's one of the ways I use it as well. I love it for that reason.

And so Copilot is an incredible tool. If you want to check out the takeaways from every episode, head to our website at findingmastery.com forward slash the games. Nasi, this has been a great conversation about gymnastics and the all around. And I want to keep this going with you. Yeah, absolutely. So we ran out of time today, but come back for part two tomorrow and we'll see you then from Paris.