Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Finding Mastery: Welcome

Episode Date: August 1, 2015

Dr. Michael Gervais is fascinated by the psychology of high performance, in rugged environments. Throughout the past 15 years, Michael has been in the trenches with some of the best performers in the world – some who shift how we conceive what’s possible — others who have pushed their own boundaries — ranging from hall of fame athletes to action sport game-changers, entrepreneurs, Mixed Martial Artists, to musicians who influence the rhythm of the world. He’s excited to share the many paths toward mastery and provide very applied practices that we can all use to be and do more in our time together._________________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.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Hello, everyone. Okay. First, I just want to start by thanking you for tuning in, for being able to take the time to be interested in this podcast. And it's just not lost on me that right now our world is so cluttered with information and there's just so much noise that's constantly bombarding us. It's becoming increasingly difficult and challenging to find what I call the true signal. And I'm honored.

I'm grateful and honored that you've chosen to tune in and spend your most precious gift, the gift of time and the gift of deep attention by tuning into this podcast. So I just, I want to just lead off by saying thank you. The goal of this podcast, the original design was really set up so that, um, for so that I could learn, so that the guests could learn, and hopefully that, you know, anyone listening can learn. And what we're hopefully designing is a learning environment on how the best in the world, or some of the best in the world, push in to pursue their potential. And really, you know, cultivate their day-to-day activities to figure out how good they can become. And it's that becoming that we're talking about finding mastery. And what good is the information if we're learning, learning, learning, and we don't share it with others?

And that was the second idea is that I've been in the trenches for a long time with people that are really good at what they do. And I'll talk about that in a minute. And it's just, for a long time, it was just this black hole of information. And I wasn't able, and by law, because of my licensing, to not share that with anybody. And so this podcast is meant to design new conversations and have new conversations with people that are pursuing and exploring mastery in their own life so that we can learn and share. And each episode, if you will, the way that I've tried to structure this so that it's just not an interview process is to really structure this and have three main pillars that run through each episode. So the first pillar is, you know, what is their journey? What is the guest's path to be able to understand where they came from? And the second pillar is what is their framework?

You know, and that's really no more complicated than how do they understand how the world works what what is that framework and how do they understand how they fit in the world and the third pillar is what are the mental skills that they use in their pursuit of mastery of craft in their own lives so that hopefully you know we can we can all enhance and deepen our own journey in our own life, whatever it is that, um, you know, we're pursuing in our life now. And, you know, I'm just not interested in tips and tricks and hacking. I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in exploring is, you know, what are the robust and sturdy practices that some of the best in the world use to become their very best? And, you know, it's not meant to be a pithy conversation and it's also not meant

to be overly heavy. It's just a curious conversation, hopefully between two people to get at, you know, to really land on these three pillars. What is the journey that's led them to now? What is their psychological framework? Again, which is how they make sense of the world and how they see themselves in it. And then the third pillar being, what are the mental skills that they've developed to be able to adjust to whatever comes up? And it's that ability, that last part of the mental skills, the adjustment, you know, what I've come to understand is that people that are at the top of the game and when, whenever we're in a, our most immersive experience, that there's this deep sense of trust

that allows us to basically trust that we've got what it takes to be able to adjust to whatever's about to come up. And with that deep trust and, you know, technical skills and mental skills, we can adjust to anything. And there's an incredible theme that I think is going to come up in these interviews around that sense of trust. Okay, so the way that this first started, this podcast experience first started with me is that I set up some technology and I did my research about what is the right stuff to be able to set up a recording, microphones and recorders and all that good stuff. And I did a couple mock interviews and then I asked friends and people I trust for some feedback. And it was really, they all came back with the same feedback. And I said, Mike, you have to be able to explain to people, you know, who you are and the context and the texture of what's guiding the conversation. And, and yeah, just to pull back the curtain and, and talk a little bit about yourself. So that's uncomfortable. I don't do that often, but I'm going to follow their lead and see if I can kind of paint this swath a little bit about

maybe a little, just a quick history of how I've become interested in this topic. So for the last, I don't know, 15, 16, 17 years, I've been in the trenches with people that are hungry. And I mean, they are flat out hungry to explore their potential. And most of this has been in sport. many different domains, whether that be music or business, you know, varied arts, you know, all different types of performers, because what the commonality is, is that we take our minds everywhere we go. And the craft is actually less pertinent to, you know, what comes with that, which is how we train our minds to be able to do whatever it is that's important to us. So some of these people for the last, you know, 15, 16,

17 years have been the single best in the world and others have just been on that path and, and they're just pushing into their own personal potential. And, you know, I think it's important to note that I've been extremely fortunate to work with some of those folks who excel in the most hostile environments in the world. And some of those are hostile because of, you know, the harshness of the environment they're in. And some of that hostility comes from incredible pressured moments and pressured experiences where they have one shot to really demonstrate their skill, their craft, what they've been working on for the last eight, 12 years. And if they miss that opportunity, they've missed much. And what they've taught me is they've taught me so much about just how fragile life is and

and that's not meant to be a it's not meant to be a light statement and it's just some of these folks are really operating in very rugged environments and injury is something that takes place and, um, or can take place. And, but maybe more importantly, what they've taught me is that more so than physical injury is the emotional injury that comes with not showing up and not being all of themselves for what they've trained for. And I can't wait to unpack some of these insights and, you know, have people continue to have these conversations about how the rest of us can, can live more connected to our potential and the trainings that we can instill and cultivate for us to be our very best. Okay. So all of that kind of esoteric stuff being said, it might be useful

just to kind of ground this a little bit in an academic path that for me, that really laid the foundation for research and theory and, you know, the study of best practices. So it started in the field of psychology as an undergrad and with a minor in philosophy. And, you know, that was great. And I learned so much about, you know, the basic foundations of psychology and the philosophy study. It was a particular thread called epistemology, which is this very esoteric field about, you know, how do we know what we know? So that wasn't kind of giving me exactly what I was hungry for. And I went back to school and got a master's in kinesiology. So moving from psychology over to kinesiology, which is the basic study of, you know, muscles in motion. And so I got this

nice little foundation about how our body works. And it's a basic foundation, but, you know, a deep appreciation for how nuanced that science is. And then I went back to school for PhD in psychology with a specialization in sport. And it's, I don't know, it's probably good to note that I'm in California, I'm a licensed psychologist, and I spend nearly 100% of my time now focused on the psychology of optimization, if you will, like, you know, working with people that are extremely dynamic and pushing the ledge of, of what's possible and really leaning into what their potential is. And some of them are actually changing the way that we understand how, what's possible for the human race.

And, you know, as time goes on, I'll, I'll explain some more of that. Okay. So what set me down this path was when I first realized as a young athlete, and I'm, I'm conjuring up a story in my mind when I was 14 or 15 years old. And I was hungry for progression, for this idea of getting better, but I just wasn't able to tap into that, my stuff, if you will, during formal competitions. And so I was able to perform at a pretty high level

when it was, you know, practice, if you will, but I couldn't do my stuff when competition was, when it was, you know, practice, if you will, but, but I couldn't do my stuff when competition was formal competition was set up. So it set me down this path, um, to, to want to understand how can I, uh, what's the difference between practice and competition and, you know, at a much deeper level, uh, as time has progressed, I'm much more fascinated with the convergence of three areas of life, which, you know, the first is if you think of a, like a Venn diagram in your mind right now, how can we maximize our mind, right? How can we use our thinking, our psychology, how can we use our mental skills and abilities to train our

mind to explore our own potential? Like we have a mind and it is the natural state of our mind is, it's, I don't, it's so chaotic. I mean, not, not in a crazy way, but it's so easily distracted from the, the truth of this moment that when our minds constantly wander, it requires a disciplined mind to bring it back to this moment. And so what are the ways that we can train our minds to be more fully here now in quiet moments and in rugged moments and even in hostile moments? And so that's one domain. And the second domain is our body. Like, how can we maximize, you know, the output of this amazingly intricate and robust and finely tuned ecosystem of our body? And that's where it's the combination of those two that, of mind and body, that we are able to understand those who have mastered a craft, what that means to optimize our minds and body. And then there's this third area that along the way that I have a deep appreciation for, which is to explore deep meaning in life.

And, you know, what are we doing here? And I pause because it's like, that's the question. What are we doing here? And, you know, many people will call this the spiritual aspect of life and, and it's how the spiritual aspect and mental and physical aspects all lay on top of each other. And the, those three, uh, intersections is what's really, you know, at the, at the center of me wanting to understand what it is that we can do to practice and train and cultivate and develop skills and abilities

for us to be pure and be pure, whether it's in a quiet or rugged environment. And that's what I think those that have mastered a craft have been able to teach us or can teach us. Okay. So that's a lot. I'm hearing this other thread in my head right now that that's a lot of information that I digest and, and it's just, maybe it's because there's no, um, there's no story to this yet. But the last part of this is I think that it's important to share a few basic assumptions that are embedded, that will be embedded through these podcasts. And the first assumption is what I've come to learn is there is no single path to mastery. There's not one way to arrive there. And those that have mastered a craft or are hungry to master a craft, the varied paths that they've taken are whatever you can imagine. I mean,

each person has their own path, which I found to be really, I don't know, refreshing that there's no six steps or 12 steps or there's no 14 know, there's no 14 ways that you have to master to get to this path of mastery. There are, there are as many ways to get there as you can imagine. Okay. The second assumption is that everything you need is already inside you. And the idea behind this is that everything we need is in us, but that leads to this third assumption that it's through relationships that we become. And it's the relationship that we have with our environment, with our spiritual side, the relationship we have with ourself, with others, the relationship we have with our craft. It's through those relationships we become who it is that we're working on becoming. Okay. So those are some basic assumptions that will be guiding through

most of the conversations here. And again, this podcast is meant to be fun. It's meant to be light and heavy. It's that dichotomy. It's meant to be thoughtful and spontaneous. It's hopefully a very purposeful process so that we will have some takeaways that we can all use in our own life to become our flat out very best. And that's the big hope. All right. So just, you know, to kind of close this up, it, it might, I think it might be valuable just to know a bit more about my, the basic framework that guides my life. And, you know, just to give you a sense of, uh, some of those, um, I don't know, very foundational elements that, that will be behind my questions and my curiosity with people. And it's, it's pretty clean. And for me is that at my center,

I describe myself as being a spiritual man with a deep regard for the mystery and wonderments of life. And I'm highly curious. I mean, really curious about what it means to explore potential, the potential we hold in us. And not only what does it mean, but what goes into it. And there's this, as I talked about earlier, there's this, um, there's this factor of trust that we need to, to move up against. And there's, there's as, um, vulnerability that's required and there's risk-taking that's required. And, you know, I, I can't wait to, to dive into these conversations with people that are, um, you know, pursuing their very best and living in a way that has meaning. And the meaning that we're looking for is only found and experienced in the present moment. And the importance to be able to practice and train our minds that it comes along with the ability to be fully present. And the way that I'm making sense of this right now,

you know, I'm a work in progress too, but the way I'm making sense of this right now is that for us to touch our potential, it requires us to string together many moments where we're fully present and engaged and we're expressing and being connected to this moment. And so it's the collection of those strung together, fully present moments that allow us to reveal and touch our potential.

So, you know, this podcast is just based on experience, my experience, the guest's experience. It's rooted in deep observation. I think something that will spring out of these conversations is that people that are really switched on are, they're good observers of the things that are important to them. So it's just, it's grounded in experience. It's rooted in observation. It's meant to be an applied conversation so that we can take away practices that we can incorporate in our own life. And then, you know, all of this is really guided by science. And I've just learned so much from insights of others. I'm excited to be able to have those conversations, share those, provide a platform, not really a platform,

it sounds so big, but just provide a way to people to share what they're most fascinated by that are hungry to explore mastery. And I've borrowed, hopefully respectfully, from so many teachers in my life. I just can't wait to share all of this with you and, and, and, you know, let's just get on with it and let's, let's hopefully get connected on this idea of finding mastery. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community and if you're enjoying the show

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