Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How a UFC Fighter, Olympic Skier, and Extreme Climber Master High-Pressure Moments | The Mindset Roundtable

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

How do a UFC fighter, Olympic skier, and extreme climber manage high pressure moments? This is an episode unlike any we’ve done before.Last summer you may remember that a few members of the Finding Mastery Team, along with Olympian and X-Games Champion Kaya Turski, UFC Champion Vitor Belfort, and famed climber Tommy Caldwell, went aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, while she was on deployment in the Western Pacific. We were there to work with the crew on mindset and high performance. Now these men and women understand high stakes environments. They know what it takes to live on their edge and push the boundaries of what’s possible. They do it everyday, and it was so inspiring. While we were on board, we recorded a podcast with the ship’s Commanding Officer, Captain Daryl Cardone and the Commander of the Air Group - Captain Patrick Corrigan. It’s a great episode. If you haven’t listened to it or watched it, I really recommend you go check that out HERE. Now… before we went onboard, we were stuck at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, waiting out a typhoon that was wreaking a little havoc in the western Pacific. The weather was terrible, and we were all waiting in the hanger for the storm to blow through. We had a high performance psychologist, an MMA fighter, a climber, and a world class Olympic skier… it’s like the start of a bad joke, yet there we were. So, we decided to make the most of our time. We sat down on cases and whatever we could find in the hanger and had a conversation. A kind of roundtable... It was a wide-ranging discussion that delved into adversity, resilience, and high-performance mindset. Each of them has faced extreme challenges, from high-altitude survival to fight-night pressure to life-threatening injuries. And in this conversation, we break down the mental frameworks and strategies that helped them do more than survive; they emerged stronger and more invigorated than ever.If you’ve ever wondered how elite performers navigate fear, setbacks, and the unknown, this is a conversation you will want to take the time to listen to. _________________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. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And this episode, it's unlike anything we've ever done before. So last summer, you may remember that a few members of the Finding Mastery team, along with ex-Games champion and Olympian Kaya Tertsky, UFC champion Vitor Belfort,

and famed climber Tommy Caldwell, went aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, while she was on deployment in the Western Pacific. While we were on board, we recorded a podcast with the ship's commanding officer, Captain Daryl Cardone, and the commander of the air group, CAG, Captain Patrick Corgan. It's a great episode. If you haven't listened to it or watched it, I really recommend you make the time to do that. It released last July, and you can just go to findingmastery.com slash podcast and search Reagan. It'll come right up. Now, before we went on board, we were stuck at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa waiting for a typhoon to pass through, and it was just wreaking havoc in the Western Pacific. The weather was terrible. There we all were waiting in the hangar for the storm to blow

through. And we had a high-performance psychologist, an MMA fighter, a climber, and a world-class Olympic skier. It's kind of like the start of a bad joke. Yet there we were. So what we decided to do was to make the most of our time. We sat down on whatever we could find in the hangar, and we had a conversation. It was kind of an impromptu roundtable. It was a wide-ranging discussion that delved into adversity and resilience and high performance

mindset. And each of them has faced extreme challenges from high altitude survival to fight night pressure to life threatening injuries. And in this conversation, we break down the mental frameworks and strategies that help them do more than just survive. They emerge stronger and more invigorated than ever. If you've ever wondered how elite performers navigate fear and setbacks and the unknown, this is a conversation you will want to take the time to listen to.

So with that, let's drop into the special roundtable from a hangar at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The views expressed herein are solely those of the persons expressing them and do not represent the views of the United States, Department of Defense, or Department of the Navy. Mike, do you want to just lay down? So how did you guys get into what you're doing? So I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I was born in a broken family. So I was very hype.

So they discovered that I was considered a genius, but in the sense of, like, can we put him to sleep? He can do things. So they found the sports as a way of, like, can we put him to sleep? He can do things, so they found the sports as a way of like, can you put his energy there? So- And so he can't sleep, you were restless.

Yeah, like I was like all over the place and very active. And I think back in the days, I think this, that's just attention. Just like people make up when you're special kid, they make up rules, like they want to put in mats. And I remember they put in mats, but actually I was very active. I was just active.

And sport was my thing. So I grew up in a very rough area. So it was bully. I was a stutter kid, so I was bullied. I was a stutter kid, like I stutter. So I remember my teacher said, read an essay, and I was reading, he said, you stutter?

I said, yeah, I stand. So my first bully was my teacher from school. So, and it was funny because back in the days, they don't have the word bullying. Now it's bullying. So I think sport driven, but I mean, martial arts just was a place where I can express myself and feel, just feel like, take ownership of who you,

the insecurity that was designed and created in me. I think every kid is like a little bit more like you need the reinforce of a teacher, your parents and I think martial arts gave me that. You're capable of doing. So the martial arts in the beginning was it about like protecting yourself from things like bullies or was it it sounds like it's a little bit of both you had the protecting yourself and then you had that like finding something that made you feel full. Yeah, I think martial arts, everybody should do, I call martial scientists,

is the way you discover yourself because the weakness is strength. And I mean, we all, we all in a martial, we always fighting something, you know, you fighting your disease, you're sick, you fighting your, so you always fighting something or you wanna achieve something. You either in offense or defense in life, in every area. But martial arts teach you to be relaxed, teach you to kind of, okay, someone's choking you, you

say, okay, let me take my time, don't tap, you can fight. so martial arts so in every martial arts teach you a different principle since jiu-jitsu teach you you're in a very bad situation use your leverage you know using his strength against himself so and then you have the strike you overpower someone and then you have the wrestling like in wrestling you can never run back you can never go back to jiu-jitsu you can stay in your defense mode and let the other guy. So every martial arts has your strength and your weakness. And then you discover this in yourself. I started working on what I'm good at, not what I'm not good at. So I think that's called the, I don't know how they call it in psychology, but you know working in your

strength not in your weakness. So I think that's kind of it. Cool. So I'm Kaya and I'm from Montreal, Canada. Grew up there in the in the cold so started off on skis really early on in my life but quickly transferred over and spent my time in the skate park. Aggressive inline rollerblading. It's a really niche sport. Pretty uncool, I know. But I loved it. I loved it. I really thrived in the skate park. And when I was 17, I hadn't skied in about 10 years, tried it once and just fell in love.

Everything transitioned really well. I learned my balance, my air awareness, my understanding of transitions, and I just thrived on the mountain. And I love the speed, I love the air, I love the intensity that freestyle sports brings to my life and the challenge. And what I love about my sport of slope-style skiing is it's a judge sport. So difficulty, amplitude, execution, creativity, style. And I was obviously always a wild child. Loved pushing, just exploring those edges, pushing my limits, seeing how far I could take myself.

And I was also a really creative kid, always in the art room, crafts and so slope style skiing was my perfect outlet I loved it I was on the on tour for about 12 years x games world champs olympics for team canada you still compete at what age so I competed in rollerblading first internationally I became pro rollerblader when I was 14. Then I switched over to skiing at 16, and it took me about six months to sign my first pro contract. So really, yeah. You've never been on skis before that? I had been when I was a kid, but not in the park or anything,

just really cruising. So when I made that switch at 16, I just, I knew there was something there. And I was still in high school, convinced my parents, like, hey, I want to move out west to Whistler. Let me give it a year. And my dad was a professor, and he's like, I don't know. School was very important to him. And I said, let me try this. I just, I have a deep feeling that I can do this.

I can be really fucking good at this. And so I moved out to Whistler, actually Squamish, so about an hour away. Took the Greyhound bus every day by myself. Skied by myself. I was self-taught rollerblading and self-taught skiing. Never been coached until way later on in my career. So, yeah, self-made and love to fly. That's me. I'm that kid you know my sport we fly up to 80 90

feet doing yeah we're going maybe 45 50 miles an hour forward and backwards upside down upside down doing like double course double flips now how you train that you go to a gym and kind of yeah so obviously a lot of physical training agility training have to have really quick feet because the impacts are are hard but you also have to have your muscles turn on instantly right a lot of visualization because it's really dangerous so i need to absolutely not just see the trick, but feel it, really feel the trick. I've never attempted a trick in my life without being convinced that I can land it, because I've done it in my head several times.

So you create your own tricks? Yeah, I create my reality. I create my run in my mind before I do it. And by the time I'm doing it on the hill, it's been done many times. And I know I can do it. I've got it. That's dangerous. Who taught you that?

Thank you to know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I don't know. It was my gift. It was a gift to me. Yeah, really? Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of,

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Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery.

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There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right, look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good.

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them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. It was just a natural byproduct for me. Like, okay, I need to feel and see this thing. I mean, it was my way of keeping myself safe. I wasn't, I wasn't rogue. Of course, I have a different relationship with fear than most. I can kind of entertain those limits, push those limits. But I have this incredible trust in myself

because I've thought it through. And if I attempted everything without thinking it through, I'd be dead. I don't know. I'd be crippled. I don't know. It just, it was automatic. I visualized and it was stuff for the skate park first. And then I'd land the tricks. I was like, okay, let's just keep building. So like at the skate park, or once you got into skis,

you didn't have peers that were like teaching you how to visualize at all. Like it wasn't something you talked about. No, actually I remember when I started first working with you, you're like, how did, where did you learn that? how did where did you learn that i just struck me then it struck me now like i personally didn't have any coaching in in my sport so it was like it was the culture that would kind of teach you there wasn't like a coach and then and then i translated that once i found something that i really loved which is the science of excellence. There was a structure in the university setting, but I kept just going further and further trying to figure out a solution that worked for me.

It sounds like that's kind of similar. It's what kept me safe. It's what built trust in me. And I had the building blocks. And again, I couldn't go for it unless I saw it because I knew that the consequences were just too high the risks are too high when you're when you're doing a it's a real that's a real like that is no you cannot stun that like someone cannot do for you like no no if I'm going for my switch double core 1080 I I need at least 60 feet. I can't do it on a small jump.

So I need to know. I need to be sure I can do it. And so I visualized it a thousand times before I did it. And I landed it second try. That's pretty easy. Yeah. Anyway. You didn't practice in foam pits and stuff, right?

They didn't have that stuff back then. So when I first started, no. Because I started back in 98 rollerblading. Yeah. And then skiing about 10 years later later on in my career we had access to foam pits water ramps trampoline so when i was a red bull athlete i had we i worked with the red bull coach matt was the best and so that's where i i took some of my like bigger tricks to the next level let's say. Yeah. Cool. Well I try not to fly in my sport most of the time. If I'm flying things are going wrong. Little tiny bits of time in the air. But you know, big ones. But anyways I'm Tommy Caldwell. I'm a big wall free climber which is not gonna be... I use use ropes just not to be confused there and I'm

best known for a lot of different types of climbing but probably you had to put one out in front of him was climbing the dawn wall on El Capitan there's a cool movie about it but yeah I got started super young I did have a great mentor in my father, not really a coach per se, but like a life mentor. Climbing didn't really have coaching at that time, but he showed me how to be in the mountains. And his main gift in life, he still has this today, honestly, is to reframe adversity as adventure, which is this thing like makes things

that are hard seem great. That's what brings you to life. So he would take me on kind of these outdoor, these kind of insanely dangerous to other people climbs when I was really young, but it wasn't dangerous because he was so experienced, but we'd get in these kind of hairy situations and I could see his eyes light up. And I didn't understand how much of a gift that was at that age, but it served me so well so as I got older and got more and more into climbing I started to kind of crave the adventure like I would seek it out and so I started climbing

big walls and I thrived there and then I had this experience where I went to Kyrgyzstan my first big expedition, and I got kidnapped by an Islamic group of militants and held hostage for six days. What? Yeah. What? Yeah. They put one gun to you?

Yeah. Yeah, it was gnarly. And you hang, you cannot do this, so... You were climbing? You were climbing? Mid-climb? Yeah, we were 1,000 feet up a wall and sleeping in our portal edges,

and they came to the base. Ah, you see. We're not hanging. Yeah, we were a thousand feet up a wall and sleeping in our portal edges and they came to the base. You're not hanging. No, we were sleeping. They shot up at us to signal that we had to come down and we came down and they raided our base camp and we escaped in the end by me pushing a captor off a cliff and us running for it. So it's like just an insane story. But this was this experience that was so kind of traumatizing. I was 21 years old and there was four climbers and I feel like the four of us didn't all respond in the same way but I came out of it with this kind of like this like I was traumatized for sure in a lot of ways but after a year or so I was able to like really feel a lot of ways, but after a year or so, I was able to really

feel like I need to live every day to its fullest. Life is tangible, right? It can be gone any minute. And then I also had this side of me that it was like I went through such a hard thing and because of the tools my dad had given me, I turned that into strength. And so I really got my feet back underneath me I was starting to pretty quickly and then I chopped off my finger with a table saw which is terrible for a rock climber and then

let me just kind of slide a couple in there and I had a similar thing that you were telling me about earlier where my doctor came and he's like you're not gonna be able to professionally climb anymore your fingers are so important and And my girlfriend at the time when the doctor left she was like fuck that guy has no idea what you're capable of and I harnessed that and I Those two experiences together created this Like incredible growth in my life. I just had so much like fire and zest that I was able to come out of all of that and use it. So you use what your dad taught you.

Yeah, yeah, the adversity that I had. Yeah, the adversity I had, I was like, I can harness this. My whole career been dealing with fear. Comes a lot of creepy doubts. And I understand that fear has doubts. Fear is good, doubts are bad. So, kind of created these things called, I recognize, I rebuke and refrain.

So when I recognize, I have maybe five seconds to recognize. Because if I let it go longer, that builds up and I think negative emotion tends to creep a fighter. So we have so many fights. Muhammad Ali with George Foreman is an example. You can never let a person get into your head. So that's kind of like trash talking thing works. You have to create your own reality.

So the reality, so the way I prime my mind is just going through my process and remind me of who I am. That's my identity as a as an athlete. So that's helped me a lot just to be able to silence everything and but especially the inner voice that comes and trying to like like it's like almost like a wood, you know that bird, how do you say, wood? Woodpecker. Woodpecker. How did you learn, or when did you learn to do that? How did that come to you, to stop that negativity and catch it? The first fight, I was so afraid

I'd sign a contract with God. That was a way of kind of saying, God, Minnesota, I was very, it was my free to write it. You know, give me that thing. I was, God, so I was very, it was my free to write it. You know, give me that thing. I was very selfish, but was aware of expressing with a napkin in the way in. And then I signed a contract to do it. I just had to fulfill it.

Contract with yourself? Yeah, like with a napkin and I signed. I said, God, if you give me that fight, I would do this and this and that. and I signed. I said, God, if you give me that fight, I would do this and this and that, and I signed. So now I have to go and do it. It's almost like I was very naive, but I was very selfish. I asked, give me the victory. If you give me the victory, I will do this for you.

But since I signed it, I have to go and accomplish. Now going back was selfish, but it was the only way I knew it. You still have the napkin? Did you keep that? No, I wish. The way I prep for competition or for bringing my best, trying a new trick, again, it's usually really high risk out there for me.

So I visualize the night before. If it's a competition, I visualize the night before if it's a competition I visualize the run twice that's it it has to be done perfectly from top to bottom usually eight features ish so if I mess up midway through I have to restart about a minute is the run so two is the total so you'll you'll keep going until you get too baked? Yeah, exactly. So Landit, I mean, visualization, the feeling, the trick, the crowd, the noise, everything. And then when I'm dropping in, I always had this one song that I would loop during my training that would fuel me. And when I was in the start gate and they were like, ready to go, I had my little iPod shuffle in one ear and it's like, as soon as I heard it, it was go time. And that was my cue to let everything go.

It's almost like a tennis player, like, you know, when they, they whoop the racket, you know, like Nadal. Yeah, Nadal, you know, doing his. So you do all that and you had your. It was almost like part of a routine. Yeah. You know, I had my lucky underwear, too. My Joe boxers.

But, yeah, the music really cued me in, and as soon as I dropped in, nothing else existed. Just trusted all my training, everything I found. It was solid. It would differ from week, like, from competition to competition. Yeah, but it was hip-hop, usually. Yeah, like, just hyping me up, you know? So when I was younger, I really struggled being ready. And that's what led me to the science of it.

I had no process, no plan. I was over-rotating and focusing on what they were going to think of me if I didn't do well, whoever the they was. And so I had no ability to be in the present and then when i first came to like understand there are better ways um i was looking for a thing to calm me down to focus me to help me build confidence i was looking for something and there's lots of good skills that i would do some breathing stuff i I would do imagery and, you know, I would have a pre-performance routine. But that always felt short to me.

It never gave me the fullness that I was looking for. And so then what I what I do now is like, so my performance now is like giving a public speech. It's like I'm not doing sport, obviously, is that i've made a fundamental decision in my life that there's no such thing as a big moment and that might not be what works for people but i back into it there's no such thing as a big moment there's only this moment and if i can practice being all of me bringing myself forward in this moment then i over time I'm practicing being all of me a lot throughout the day when you say there's no big moment you don't make nothing bigger than what it is now than what it is right now yeah and that being present

is creating the state of flow like you it does help you here yeah so I don't have to try to do these things to be okay and it gives me way more time to practice being me you know present is what we're talking about calm confident here focused adjusting being in love with the unfolding moment like that's what i want the state i want to be in but i can't wait for the stage moment i can't wait for the starting day at the Olympics. I never had that moment, but I can't wait for those moments. I need to practice as often as I can. So it first hit me, like, there's no such thing as a big game. There's this game, big half, big quarter, big play. There's just this play. So that's, it's more of a position in life than it is for me a tactic now those tactics work the science is awesome around them and i use them i use them sometimes still he's like one coach told me to say victor

how many rounds how many rounds you fight you say just one round if you if you win finish if you don't you go you have one more more and you have one more so it's like you counting the rounds is a very stressful thing yeah oh two to go oh two to go is that i think that anticipation that's what's killed like that you know that that kills the moment or that kills the opportunity in the moment like where you just say like that agency present in present like you're in the corner just just read three breath yeah yeah oh my god i have two more you start overthinking and you cannot be in the moment that's such a yeah one moment at a time yeah one step at a time i had a note on my sleeve that said one step at a time in slope style skiingstyle skiing, there's seven, eight features.

Often, if I was scared, if weather was poor, for example, I would be scared. Feature seven, feature eight, I'd be thinking about it. And then I'd be messing up, right? Right at the beginning. I'm not. So it's like one step at a time. That was my cue.

One moment at a time. So that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find it so like you guys are great competitors, right? And it seems like the visualization always worked really well for you. For me, when I tried it, it just made me kind of too nervous. Like, so I've taken the opposite approach where I just, I kind of don't do any visualization. I just start going, I just go up there and start climbing. Sure. I kind of don't do any visualization. I just start going. I just go up there and start climbing. And I feel like, yeah, I feel like what I do is so much about minimizing the emotional reaction, minimizing the risk and just executing. And so it's, it feels when I talk to you,

it feels like the anti-strategy in a way. Are you, so are you a risk manager or a risk taker? I'm a risk manager for sure. Yeah, like climbing is, no, no. I'm like actually really adverse to risk, I would say. Most people would look at you and not understand that analysis. Yeah, I mean climbing is not an adrenaline sport. If adrenaline happens, something's going wrong. And so I'm really trying to be in places

that should probably induce some adrenaline and having none. How do you do that? Yeah, that's really cool. That's the yin and yang. Everything comes together, right? Same with you. And actually, all three, right?

It's an adrenaline sport. Actually, that's like a name in the industry. And are you trying to be calm? What are you trying to do? Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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I think for me, it's more like, it's not the fear of failure. It's like when you fail, it's almost like you embarrass yourself. I get knocked out. What's the worst? I remember my wife, what the worst can happen? She told my daughter, the worst that can happen with your dad,

you get knocked out. At least someone goes to war, sometimes they don't come alive. Your dad just gonna get knocked out. My dad? Yeah. Like it's funny because to understand- So you're not afraid of being hurt.

That's not the thing. For me, it's not the first. So this, I remember was like, man, I get knocked down. I'm gonna get embarrassed. I'm gonna let people down, you know? So I used to think, and that's not a good way to think because I think that you don't fight your best fight when you don't fight to win.

It's like the lion trying to be something else, he's not gonna be able to hunt. So I felt like you have to know what type of fighter are you. Some guys, they're more like in the endurance type of thing. I am a lion, and lion hunts in certain way. You cannot try to be someone that you cannot. I love that. And I mean, sometimes I wanna prove

I can fight two, four rounds. I get off my strength. So you just got to know who you are, what type of animal you are, and just be that guy. And like what you're saying, like your sport, you cannot have adrenaline. Since her sport, you might be full of adrenaline all the time and you got to control it. Yeah. So how do you work through sticky spots? So I don't want to over practice.

I don't want to do imagery. I want to have, like the only thing I'm doing that's stressful really is like rich, deep, honest conversations with my wife, you know, because she's a truth teller and she holds up a mirror and I see myself in those conversations. But I'm not sure if that's how you would answer it. Like if you're on a ledge or whatever you would describe it,

you're on, you're trying to find the next hold. And not- Yeah, the next hold. I'm thinking about what's the next one I'm gonna grab. This here? Yeah. So what do you think? It's hard to answer it in the context that you're thinking.

I think in climbing, you're like, how do you grab the next hold? I mean, sometimes you don't, you fall off and then the rope catches you and you get back on. But when I think of such sticky situations, I think of like unexpected danger or a storm coming or something. No, you're in something that just feels heavy.

And honestly, the way that I've learned to get through that is generally to use humor. Like there's nothing that's more, that feels better in the mountains than being in something that should be kind of extreme and bringing lightness to it. Those are the partners that I look for that can do that. Yeah.

Smile. Yeah, you smile. Yeah, you have joy. Because sometimes like you think it should be scary, but it's just in your head. And if you do that too much, what's the the problem like too much of anything is a problem right yeah like if you actually are close to death and you're laughing that's not good but I think so much the time in what I do you just it just seems kind of scary or

it seems uncomfortable when it really isn't all that dangerous and so that's when you can break the word can you give like an example of it like I did this incredible climb with Alex Honnold in Patagonia a bunch of years ago where the people had been trying this thing for like decades. They would always talk about like this conversation with death and this big scary mountain that they were trying to climb and all these scary things and Alex is just such this like no big deal kind of guy and he just would always make jokes and we realized that the heaviness that they're bringing to it wasn't necessary like we're up

there doing the same thing but just kind of like laughing our way through it and it turns out that it yeah it was really uncomfortable but it it really wasn't all that dangerous and I think that's the case and in my sport a lot of the time you know the framing of it goes so far right like what I do is dangerous or what I do is serious. Yeah, like you have to really get good at discerning what is actually dangerous versus what it just is, emotionally feels dangerous and learning how to control that emotion.

That's good. Yeah. It's like I surf in big waves, you know, like sometimes it sounds scary, but you just start small. Then they get big, so. I quickly i asked i asked a guy say how do you just have the big start small when i'm when i'm in the ski you know and the toe in the wave starts small it builds up in the middle oh even when they're surfing a big wave you're selling it's like it's a small little thing and then before you know it it's it's a monster but i mean for us it's a monster right away because we're watching.

But I mean, for us, he's there. I'm in the ring and I don't see it as a big moment. Wherever, she doesn't see it. She's in the moment. Sometimes you're close. When I see this thing, I want to close my eyes. Yeah, right, yeah. You literally cannot see it.

If I see you compete, I get more nervous than I'm competing. close my eyes yeah right yeah you like you literally like you cannot see it like if i see you compete i get more nervous than i'm competing it's the thing i that we forget is like you were climbing trees maybe at age four and we forget all of the climbing at four and five and six and now we see you climbing these radical walls and you were wrestling that as a young kid or you were rollerblading like we lose track of that when we're just watching yeah it's important to remember all the time that we put into it in my sport it's high high adrenaline like you but i can't operate on fear i have to size it up my feet but then i have to as soon as I drop in, if I'm thinking

mechanically about what I need to do, it's not going to go well. I got to really sink in and... Is it all about your subconscious? Your conscious got to be, you got to trust the process. It's trust. It's full trust. It's, yes, there's danger. And I recognize that but

But knowing what I know and knowing what I've trained once I've decided I can do it I'm just going out there to prove to myself To show and then we'll land what I already know I've landed and then what means sounds like fast for you or It's I don't even know if it's slow or fast. It's just It's no time. It's I don't even know if it's slow or fast. It's just it's no time. It's just In it. Well, how about that fundamental commitment? I've seen it I've already felt it and I want to prove to myself that I can act physically do what I mentally saw It's yeah, but it's not an ego thing. It's not I gotta go out there and prove it. It's just I I See the feature. I see the feature i see the

jump i i'm gonna do switch 1080 on it i see it already or i feel already now i'm just gonna go do what i already know in my mind what are you trusting well you said it's about like trust what do you what are you trusting my speed sense my air awareness my ability to set the trick perfectly. So that's a trust of my abilities. Yes. How much of it is a trust of like, even if I blow it, that I'll be okay. Cause I'll figure out whatever life happens then. If you were to wait those two, is it more about, I'm trusting my abilities to

navigate or it's the bigger trust that like, no, I know how to figure things out. I know that if things go wrong in the air, I know, I know how to fall. I know how to catch myself. I'm very aware of every, you know, microseconds, like milliseconds. I I'm, I'm so in it that when I'm taking off, if I take like before I'm I'm in the air, I know something's gone wrong, and I'm going to fix it. I'm going to correct it. I trust myself totally. So it was like a year after Kyrgyzstan, and I was getting my feet back underneath me, and I was at this part in my climbing life, like, there weren't really professional climbers back then. There wasn't enough money in the sport, but I was like one of the first people that like had the chance of being able to do this full time and

if i had cobbled together enough money to buy this like 400 square foot piece of crap little cabin and i was i borrowed some tools from my parents and i was just fixing it up and remodeling it and not knowing how to use a table saw and i ended up chopping off my finger with the table saw just terrible as a climber like very very bad like the type of climbing especially that I was doing is all about finger strength and it was especially bad because like the doctor told me you know everybody everybody around me is doing the math like if you're going to be the top of your game and you lose a finger that's like 10% of your strength gone. They call it three fingers. This finger is one of the most important ones. Yeah and so I was in the hospital and my doctor, the doctor tried to reattach it.

I spent two full weeks in the hospital, went through three blood transfer using several surgeries. We tried everything we could and then Before you go there like what when you when it when you cut it yeah in that moment like what was the first thing that you how did you respond to that moment yeah i mean the the immediate reaction was like my climbing life like it like so that was the guy i didn't care about how my hand looked it was like the immediate thing was like climbing like my hand my life is about my hands did you think you okay we're gonna fix this it's gonna get fixed or was it like oh kind of yeah like i i was like we'll sew it back on you hear those stories of that working yeah and so yeah you had i had hope in the beginning so

yeah i have all these experiences in my life where i'm like i've i've been through some major stuff and i feel like i should be more traumatized than I am but I've never really like gone to therapy I've never tried it so I tried it recently I tried to go to therapy to just like see if we could I always wonder if I'm gonna get old and like it's gonna all hit me at some point and I'm like have a mental breakdown or something I just don't feel trying to I don't feel traumatized the same way everybody like looks at me and even other people in Kyrgyzstan they all are like pretty majorly traumatized the same way everybody like looks at me and even other people in Kyrgyzstan they all are like pretty majorly traumatized and I just

haven't had that so I tried to go and nothing I didn't find anything really honestly I talked him through the story it felt slightly emotional but I was like, I know, I think I know. I love this because sports psychology, the emergence of sports psychology was to study how the greats do it and then decode it. So we would study you to say, well, how did you do it? Because you went through something that was what most people would consider traumatizing, a couple of different ones and you're not.

So wait, hold on, how'd you do you do it well i think kyrgyzstan maybe what helped me is um the way it ended it was different for me than the other people on the expedition because i was the person in the end who had to who made the hard decision like i decided to kill someone you know i think people kind of wonder like would they be able to do that would they make the decision and in a i mean one of the hardest things that can happen in your life, would you have the power to do that? And so even though it was really terrible in a lot of ways, it was empowering in a way because I knew afterwards

that when things are really on the line, I now know that I have the ability to react. And so I think that probably healed me. I would want to know, this is me personally i don't know how anyone else would respond but i would want to know that i took action yeah rather than i'll tell you like this is going to sound yeah like i remember when i was a little kid and there was a sound in the room and it was a dark room and i'm like nine years old, something like that. And I remember I got really quiet. I thought there was someone in the room, like an intruder. And I got really still and quiet.

And even to this day, I remember like when I realized that was my first response, I'm like, that's not going to get me through life. Like to be tight and small and don't be seen and don't be heard. Like, so I I I see me in you like what I have that ability as an adult now to say oh yeah take action I think you'd probably be able to do it nice truly you know and I mean you gotta know when and I think that's what you succeed you pick the right time. So because if you would've do early, wouldn't work. So it's reacting on the right time. It's like when you're sharing with me for the story,

I say you waiting for the right moment. And that's what it takes a hero is just not, hero is not the moment, you just create, you're waiting for the moment. Basically you create that moment of the situation. That is kind of what I think we're talking about is like the readiness to be in the moment, whatever the moment calls for. Do you see it that way or is that me layering on something to it?

You mean in that experience? Yeah. The readiness to be in the moment? Like you, all of your life experiences, that you were ready for that moment. Probably in retrospect, but I didn't conceptualize that in the moment, that's for sure. But in retrospect, I'm like, yeah,

the things my dad brought to my life, the way that I was trained, the physical abilities we had to endure for six days, like all these things added to the eventual successful outcome i suppose and so i feel really lucky to have had that life experience of the past before that the past before that yeah what do you hope people take away from that part of your life experience i think what i started with the idea that you can that you can experience these really hard things and then and then turn them to have them fuel you towards bettering yourself i like what you said about the you know adversity yeah turning adversity into

adventure yeah i can see that on your story and dad actually said that or did you create that? No, that's a narrative that I kind of developed. Like that's what he did without having words to put to it. Yeah, adversity to adventure. Yeah. I mean, he was an adventurer by heart, you know, and he loved. He lit up the moments of adversity. Yeah, like when I was a little kid, I remember climbing a big mountain with him in an intense thunderstorm and running down as lightning crashed all around us.

And then we got into these trees and you could just see this excitement. He's like, this is what life is all about. Like, not only is this gonna prepare you, it's also a great story to tell to our friends. And you know, he's just like loved that kind of stuff. As long as we weren't actually getting hit. You know what I love about you?

You tell a story and you laugh. You smile. Yeah, right. Like, you're the type of guy, like, you want to be on your team when things go off the fence. He's like, you smile. You make that moment be more relaxed. What were your guys' moments or phases of life that were like? Hardship. Yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

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checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-r-l-a-b.com slash finding mastery like before my title fight i go home and i heard my mom and my wife hey your sister has been missing i said what and then we stay like three days on the street looking for her and she's missing so like for, for me, it's like, what? And I mean, it's unacceptable. And I mean, someone missing. And I know was something, she went to lunch, have lunch and she never came back. And the thing was strike me on like, someone knows. Someone saw someone, not just one,

no one get missing in center of Rio de Janeiro. So I find strength to fight but i went to a big depression after so you know in in psychology i don't know how they call that but i found strength to fight and become a champion but when i come that i didn't respect the time that I need to myself until I combat that. And until I forgive, let me live my life because I'm trying to. So you held it all together. So I went to depression.

You used all of it to fight, and then you were champion. And then I become champion. And then it just fell apart. Just fell apart. But then I went to a deep hole yeah and then i came back i wanted revenge i wanted i wanted i want payback and then i discovered if i don't forgive i cannot love anymore and i was not loving my wife not loving my kids so it's like

i was just angry and i mean that's not a good way of living so you have to it's like, I was just angry. And I mean, that's not a good way of living. So you have to, it's almost like you have to rebirth. And of course you never kill someone. But I mean, I hurt a lot of people before. Feelings, promising. So, and then I went through a process of calling everyone I could to ask forgiveness. So I remember I called my cousin and said,

hey, I'm calling you because I lied that day I told you that I didn't have time to have dinner with you I will be I just didn't want to go so I start being honest with people yeah it's like a 12-step program yeah yeah but I mean a lot of people and I I started to remember people that I didn't have content. I do in my mind. Now, I want you to forgive the people that hurt you. So you ask forgiveness. Now you have to do the opposite. And I was going through it.

And it was the best thing I did in my life. Because honoring a contract without seeing requires faith. That was the hardest thing in my life. So powerful. My story starts two months after I signed my first pro contract. I quote-unquote made it. I was ready. I was on fire and i showed up to a bigger event which is a

singular jump or performing a big trick over 50 60 feet i was 18 years old and this bigger was constructed it's often on the ski mountain but this was constructed on scaffolding in the san francisco giant stadium about 10 floors of scaffolding so huge and we trained in the San Francisco Giants Stadium, about 10 floors of scaffolding, so huge. And we trained in the morning, competed in the afternoon, went for my trick 540, executed it well, landed backwards. So 540 is one and a half rotations. Landed backwards, maybe about 530, so a tiny bit off. i knew it i found myself slipping and sliding on stairs they were two by fours nailed in along the the landing for the crew to walk up and down and because it was in the heart of the san francisco giant stadium the sun was beaming and the snow had melted and

exposed these stairs so i found myself going backwards at I don't know what speed, just mobbing down these stairs. And I'm frantically, frantically trying to grab onto anything I can to stop my momentum, but I'm just gaining speed. And then all of a sudden, inevitably, I caught an edge and bam, just hit like a ton of bricks. And I didn't lose consciousness. And I remember thinking, this is what it feels like to break all of your ribs. Of course, the wind was knocked out of me and people rushed towards me.

And within seconds, I started coughing blood. So that's when they knew it was really serious. Rushed to the hospital, emergency surgery. Wake up two days later, heavily sedated, feeding tube, machines beeping all around me. Doctors came to see me and informed me that I had basically hit so hard, I sliced my pancreas right in half over my spine. Oh my gosh. Clean break. I'd also lacerated my kidneys, bruised my lungs, but the pancreas is the big you.

And doctors straight up told me, we have never seen something like this before. We don't know how you're going to heal. We don't know if you'll be diabetic because your pancreas is a major digestive organ and plays a big part in your insulin. 18. First event on the scene. First event after signing my first pro contract when I'd made it. We don't know if you're gonna become diabetic.

We don't know if you're gonna maybe develop pancreatitis in your future. You might be very sick. We just don't know. And this is how it started? This is how it started. That's crazy. You might be able to ski, but you're probably not going to compete. You won't be able to take these kinds of impacts because you now have half a pancreas because they removed

that. They weren't able to fix it. So obviously I'm I mean, what are you talking about? I just started. This is this is just the beginning for me. Obviously, I'm shattered. I'm feeling all sorts of emotions, anger. But I don't know. I had this nugget inside of me that was like, if there's any fucking chance, I'm going to make it. I'm going to do it. So flew home and was sick as a dog, really nauseous, lost about 30 pounds. On top of that, I have an incision about six inches tall on my stomach and about an inch deep and they had, it got infected. So they had to let it, they opened it and let it heal from the inside out. Second intention healing. That's what it's called? Yeah. Healing by second intention. So they have to open it so the infection doesn't continue to go inwards.

Wow. So for three months, I had to go every day to the clinic to get it packed and cleaned, packed, so on and so forth. So every day was a struggle. Obviously, I went through a major depression at first. But I don't know. I, I, I I'm stubborn. I'm stubborn. And, and I didn't want to take no for an answer. And so I, I just, it was day to day. I narrow, I had to narrow the focus and I didn't know, obviously I wasn't sure if I could get back, but I knew that if there was a shot that I would. And so I did a lot of

visualization. I would just healing imagery. No performance performance, but not to not necessarily to get better, but it's because that's what I dreamed up. That's what I longed to do. So if I couldn't be out there, I just, I would lie in bed and I just I would kill to be out there and I slowly got stronger I slowly was able to sit up straight walk straight and nine months later Got on the hill in New Zealand Almost made my debut back blew my knee out. So my first two years on the scene Boom boom boom. I've taken a lot of hits early on, blew my knee out. That's a little cherry on top. So the second time I went

back to my doctor now, okay, you're, you're not going to ski. Like you're not going to recover from this, but this is a general doctor. And by now it's like, I know my will is so much stronger than this, but it taught me that I can overcome the impossible or almost the impossible. Everyone outside of me doubted it, and I did it. And I went through that knee injury, so I was two years off. My first two years on the pro scene were off, and then I came back. This is adversity for real. This is what goes.

I think what you just mentioned, this is crazy. The simulation, what they do, adversity and adventury. Like you only know how strong you are once you go through it. If it's all easy, when you hit that block, I've seen a lot of athletes not come back from a knee injury because they just don't believe it. It's mental. The injury goes here. Your injury never came here.

I mean it dabbled, it dabbled. I doubted but I know because my belief, my vision was stronger and then I went on to, you know, I hold the record for most X Games gold medals in women's free ski history. So I did all right. You did very all right. You did all right. And the thing I wonder, we all have these kind of similar stories and we came back from them, right?

But that doesn't happen to everybody. And I really wonder, is that our nature? Is it nature that let that happen? Can't we different? Or is there like something? Yeah, like what is that? How do we get to the bottom? Like how do we make this useful to other people? yeah yeah it's a mistake this you did it and somebody who's

really struggling is less than in some kind of way we don't we don't really know um there's a genetic component there's a biology there's an environmental there's a cultural there's a psycho psychological there's lots of there's access to good medicine a lot like there's a cultural, there's a psychological, there's lots of, there's access to good medicine. Like there's lots of things that go into the mix. It's a combination of things, no? Yeah. There are some best practices that are pretty well understood when people are going through a traumatic experience, but it's not for everybody. Not everybody has access to those. This is why like you didn't go and work with the psychologist based on your trauma right it's I have that right yeah yeah it's not about the strong person it's something that I did

I had to go get I needed help you know and so but there's something about the way that you've navigated internally that there's an unlock there's something about the way that you've navigated internally that there's an unlock. There's something there to better understand. Is it about preparation ahead of time? Is it about like we had? That was your answer. Yeah, for me it was. But yeah, so I felt like the trauma I went through was like the right dose. You know, it was proper.

But if it would have been too much, maybe I would have never come back to it. So in my case, I had people around me like my spiritual father challenged me and I say stop someone just say stop yeah you can you this thing can do it for the rest of your life and you're gonna be miserable you know and faith was a huge part of it obviously and I'm a big structure because faith without action is not faith yeah and that's why people realize like faith is not like I'm gonna I'm a big believer because faith without action is not faith. And that's what people realize. Faith is not like I'm going to pray and I'm going to give God one week.

If he doesn't do it, I'm going to give him. No, I'm going to believe it until even if he's not coming back, it's solved. For me, the case of my sister is solved. I can live my life. And now I understand whoever did, they don't owe me anything. They don't owe me anything. And that gives me strength and gives them great condemnation. Because I believe everything you plant, you reap. Good or bad.

We are gardeners. Yeah, we are gardeners. We are gardeners. Yeah, we are gardeners. We are gardeners, yeah. And the other thing I think is really, really important is having the support structure, the community around you. So you need to love those people around you so much because at some point you're going to need that back. It takes a village to invisible.

No one does it alone, 100% of them. There's some fundamental commitments that all of us made. And then we stuck with those over time. And I love your dosing. It didn't feel like it was too much. That's a really cool takeaway for me. So before we go, I want to give you a sneak peek at next week's episode, because it's one you definitely want to tune into. I'll be sitting down with the immutable president of Microsoft Americas, Debka.

We're diving deep into the power of purpose, both in leadership and in life, and how emotional connection drives success. That's Wednesday, February 19th. Make sure you subscribe. And while you're at it, tell a friend. It means so much to us. 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 the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening also if you haven't already please consider dropping us a review on apple or spotify

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