Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Mikaela Shiffrin | The World's Best Skier on Pressure, Passion & Perseverance

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Success - in any arena - often demands a delicate dance between fearlessness, finesse and dedication. Mikaela Shiffrin, a true luminary in alpine skiing, has mastered this equilibrium like no other. With an astounding 88 World Cup wins to her name, Mikaela stands as the greatest alpine skier in history. Period.She's a two-time Olympic Champion, seven-time World Champion, and five-time Overall World Cup champion. But Mikaela's influence extends far beyond the slopes. In 2023, Time Magazine recognized her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the ESPY Awards named her the Best Athlete in Women's Sports. And she’s done all of this before the age of 29.Clearly Mikaela has talent. Confidence. Discipline. But what sets her apart, as you’ll hear, is her commitment and honesty to work from the inside out. She’s developed incredible abilities to tune out toxic mental noise, perform at the knife’s edge, and bounce forward when it gets hard. More than anything, her success comes from her unflappable courage in the face of challenge - or as she says, “the confidence to try” - and try again and again, even if things don’t work out.Off the mountain, and in this conversation, Mikaela is equally impressive. We delve into Mikaela's remarkable journey, from her early days on the slopes to her unparalleled achievements in alpine skiing. She shares insights into handling external pressures, maintaining a process-oriented mindset, and embracing an honest approach to self-coaching. Join us as we explore the mindset of a true champion and learn from Mikaela's clarity, intensity, and passion for the sport she loves._________________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. I know I can do the work it takes to win again. That's the most free I've ever felt in my career. Just standing here being like, I don't care that I didn't win. I know I can work hard enough to get back in a position. I might never win again. And I don't really care about that either. I just care that I'm willing to work hard enough to do it. 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 I'm so stoked to welcome the absolute legend, Michaela Schifrin, to the podcast for this week's conversation. She's earned the title the most successful skier in the modern era. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist. She's won 14 medals from 16 world championship races as of February of this year. And she's been named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. And in case you're wondering, she's only 28 years old. So what does it take to become the winningest alpine skier of all time? Clearly, Michaela has talent, confidence, discipline.

But what sets her apart, as we'll hear in this conversation, is her commitment and honesty to work from the inside out. She's developed incredible abilities to tune out toxic mental noise, to perform right at the knife's edge, and to bounce back when it goes wrong, when it's hard, when it gets difficult. More than anything, her success comes from her unflappable courage in the face of challenge, or she says, the confidence to try and try again and again, even when things don't work out. When it comes to high performance, Michaela is living and breathing the standards for greatness.

So with that, let's dive right into today's conversation with Michaela Schifrin. Michaela, I am so excited to finally have you on the podcast. I have wanted to have this conversation for a long time. You're obviously world-class in how you approach life and what you do on the snow. So I'm really excited to have you on. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It is such an honor to be talking to you. Awesome. Okay, good. So, and what timing? I mean, with 2020, 2022 being, I don't know, seemingly from the outside, the toughest year of your life, but I don't know that for sure. And you might course correct that, but it was definitely one of the harder years I

would imagine for you professionally. And then to come out this year, like on an absolute tear, breaking the record for the most cup wins in history, 88, like amazing. How about that? Yeah. How about it? I don't know. I don't know what to say to that. I know. I mean, it's amazing. And also the best female athlete, you know, by the SBs for 2023, like, okay, so you're on it now. Yeah. I want to start with the quote. Yeah, you are doing okay. I want to start us off with a quote by Lindsey Vonn and she wrote this about you. She said with Serena Williams stepping away from tennis, there's room for another big female global sports superstar. And Michaela can fill that opportunity. She's really stepped into the spotlight and done a great job moving the needle for our sport. She's competing against

herself at this point, and she could reach 100 wins. It's just a matter of how long Michaela Schifrin wants to keep at it. The sky's the limit for her. So first congrats on that. Yeah. What do you feel when I read that? On the one hand, I feel really quite honored. I feel honored that anyone would say anything like that about me. Um, and especially that somebody of such enormous caliber in my sport would say that about me. It's, um, yeah, it really, it's quite flattering. And I never really think about myself from that perspective of like, you know, now that Serena has stepped down, who's going to take her role? Because I look at so many athletes, female and male athletes, and I just, I feel like there's more than one role to be played. And hopefully we have this, you know, we have all of the great athletes,

and especially if we're specifically talking about female sports right now we have all of the great women athletes coming up the ranks right now and performing maybe they've already established themselves maybe they're about to but there's so there's so much to watch there's so many athletes to root for and to to be motivated inspired by. So I'm kind of trying to take this approach that maybe it sort of takes a little pressure off me, at least in my own mind, just to think that there's no one person who's carrying that torch. It's got to be all of us together. That sounds like aspen trees. It sounds like the Waka Papa philosophy. It aspen tree is just to be clear, they're all connected underneath the ground. That root system is the same as Waka Papa, which is

New Zealand idea. I was wondering if it was a Kiwi thing. Yeah. Did you know about Waka Papa or do you know but it sounds like yeah it's this idea that we're all we're all in this together and there's heritage and lineage that's supporting us and we're in it together even if we're yeah only with each other for a small amount of time so all right um let's let you bring up pressure you from a very young age were like the one and you had, you had some of the greats looking and knowing, looking at what you're doing and knowing about you, even from a young age. How do you work with pressure and maybe what are the sources of pressure that you felt as a young kid? And then we'll compare that to the sources that you feel now? I have to say that the people around me have been so incredible. I mean, I probably should have felt pressure when I was younger because there was a lot of, there was quite a bit of talk about phenom and the next greatest skier. And there was quite a fair amount of talk. But for whatever reason, I think for a lot of reasons, and I think especially because my parents were very

kind of driven by the philosophy of just like work ethic, work hard, enjoy what you're doing, be passionate about what you're doing every single year. I mean, since I was eight years old, probably even before that, they would kind of sit, my brother's two and a half years older than I am. And they would sit us down and say, you know, Taylor, Michaela, do you still love skiing? Do you want to, do you, do you want to keep doing this? You want to keep being part of the club? Do you like your friends in the sport? Do you feel good where you are? And we were always like, yes.

They asked me this literally while I was racing on the World Cup my first couple of years. It's like, so how do you feel about this? You're 16, 17 years old. The rest of your teammates, the rest of the World Cup, they're, you know, five to average 10 years older than you are. And how do you feel being in this space? That's quite, probably quite different than what you, I don't know, are used to kind of, and it was always, it was so much of a self-driven motivation. And they were so supportive of that, that I never felt like with externally people talked and we got excited and everyone was excited about the potential for

me. But my parents were always like, Hey, one step at a time, let's just continue to enjoy this. And like, we don't have expectations. We have, we have idea what like we think you're amazing, but we have no idea what you can do. And that I think the most important thing for me was that people closest to me didn't ever set expectations like that. So the talk that the phenom talk, the pressure, it was all external. I felt like I had a very, very strong bubble surrounding me of my closest, closest friends and family. It makes perfect sense. You are the emblem for what all of the research, your parents, you know, the way that they raised you and your dad's no longer with you, but like that's the emblem for creating a healthy identity, for creating a stable base. Let me decode that, make sure I'm hearing it

correctly, is that if there's three conversations we could have, right? We could have conversations about the outcome, which is later and not in our control, which obviously creates anxiety. And for folks, it doesn't have to, but it can. There's conversations about performance and there's conversations about the process. It sounds like your family spent more time talking about much process oriented and because that's when you have fun like the winning lasts for literally if you actually measure it it lasts for probably one one thousandth of a second the moment you cross the finish line and actually win the race and the rest of the day the rest of the year while you're training that like, that's where it's actually fun. You know, it's so literally is the process. That's if you don't like that part, then you

really, you should probably find something else to do. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people.

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And that's why I've been leaning on David protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? 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. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie

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Like why, what is it about the snow, the mountain being on edge? Like why that sport? And do you think that with your family makeup that it could have been anything? It could have been, you could have been you know um any physical activity i guess or even artistic activity because that foundation is there i think there was a potential for it to be a number of things i i did love soccer growing up i i sort of stopped playing and started to shift more towards skiing when i was around probably 13 or 14. But tennis, I've played not competitively.

I don't know if I could manage it in a match, but I've played a lot since I was little. My mom has played her entire life. She's loved it since she was little, little. So she is like my favorite tennis partner and I use it for cross training. And I think I have potential in other sports. You know, we started skiing as a family. My, my, both my parents skied, they both raced right up into college.

My mom stopped racing in college so she could go to nursing school because the nursing program didn't allow her, allow them to compete in sports at the same time. My dad raced through college. Um, and we just kind of had skiing almost built into our blood, at least the passion for it. I would say I was born in Colorado up in the mountains and I like skiing was a natural thing. We did, we had short school days on Friday and we would all, as a class, we'd all go off on the mountain. And I sort of had a natural instinct for it that seemed a little bit, maybe more, a little bit better than my classmates, I suppose. I didn't really know this at the time,

but there are some pretty funny stories about ourki Friday groups. And one of our really close family friends told this story, and I won't be able to tell it nearly as well, but basically the long and short of it is we're all skiing down the mountain and the teachers are trying to group us into, you know, our categories, like our different levels of groups. And I come down and more or less they say, we don't have a group for her. So you've broken the mold from an early age. Yeah. But that was a lot because my parents taught me and they taught my brother the proper

technique of skiing from the start, literally from two and a half, three years old. They sort of showed us the feeling of the outside ski and all these different technical aspects of the sport that probably seem like it's like they're kids, let them play. But from both my mom and dad, they both had this perspective like play all you want, have a blast. But if you want to really enjoy doing something, you want to do it kind of well. And that's, that's when it's really fun. Like you want to learn and improve. And then as you, as you improve in whatever that is, you start to really find some enjoyment in it. It's like not fun to play piano when you just banging around on the keys and there's no melody. But when you start banging around on the keys and there's no

melody. But when you start to learn how to make a melody, then all of a sudden it becomes fun. So you don't have to be like an expert at everything, but just being, just having like a fundamental basis is important. And that was, that was basically what they instilled in my brother and me from the beginning. So by the time we were doing these ski Fridays at school, I already had a really technical, a strong technical base. I think my first time in an actual race course was in a NASCAR course. Just, you know, on the mountain, they would have these kind of public mini race courses that we could ski. And the first time I skied in a, in a race car course, like the NASCAR, I immediately, like, I didn't love to ski ski. I loved hot chocolate and French fries.

When I got in the course with the gates and I had sort of a guide and a goal to get, you know, getting to the bottom as fast as I could. All of a sudden I was like, I'm done. I'm, I'm a goner. This is my, this is my sport. This is my identity. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. So if I were to, okay, there's like obviously on the world stage, but for everything, there's a combination between, uh, psychology, genetic coding, environmental conditions, and then part of the psychology is like the appetite to refine the skills, you know? So like this deep motor to get good at it, environmental conditions, genetic coding, and the psychology to manage, quote unquote, pressure and monotony and all the other things that come with it.

Yeah. pressure and monotony and all the other things that come with it. Of those four, do you say, ah, pretty balanced? Or do you say, look, I hate to say it, but I'm kind of a genetic freak. Or do you say, look, I got to kind of point to the environment because my parents gave me a base or my mind is just like, I've invested in my mind and I can focus and I know how to find calm and I know how to generate confidence. Like how do you balance those four? And it's not lost on me that I'm asking the best in the world, literally about those four conditions. So I'm excited to see where you take it. No, this is so interesting, actually. I love this conversation. Okay. As far as genetics go, both my parents were incredible athletes and their parents like my whole family in

general it's a it's certainly a general athletic genetic code I guess but I would not say like I would say my brother is a much greater athlete much better athlete than I am just overall coordination my brother is also much quicker to adapt to any kind of stress or load or practice than I am. So maybe, you know, maybe when I was growing up following him around, I was like, I've got to, you know, I've got to maybe do one more rep just to just to try to match him two more reps always, that might have been kind of driven into me just naturally. I would say my mom has more of a genetic like drive to just an innate drive to continue to improve. She just, she really, really loves to improve. And I probably wasn't, I probably was born a little bit more complacent than that, actually.

Um, like, I'm the kind of person who could sit on the beach all day long and not move and i would be totally fine with it by yourself or with others with others or by myself or just i don't know like what would be what would be your preference by yourself or with others probably like with family family family. Is there, is there a book or is there a cocktail? It's probably, probably a cocktail. It is. There might be definitely some music involved and do you cut it loose or are you more reserved and contained? I've changed. I mean, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say I party very hard, but I mean, I used to not drink anything. I had absolutely no interest. And after my dad died, that did change. But what changed?

Well, I just started drinking a little bit. Was that to cope or was that because like, um, you had some insight that like, you know, like, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like, what was, yeah, what was, what was the trigger for that? Probably a little bit, probably a little bit of a coping thing, probably a little bit less of a, you know, what we're told is less healthy method but I also realized that in certain scenarios I can control myself I don't go like past my limit I've I think I've maybe been like hung over once my life. And I've never blacked out. I always remember everything.

So I felt like, okay, I actually am in a situation where I'm fine drinking. This is fun. And I'm good with it. Like, whatever. So I kind of started out as maybe more of a little bit of a coping thing. But then just became like yeah i don't know well there's something yeah there's evolutions to us like i don't drink i'm an athlete i cannot afford to have one drink or i will absolutely not perform and it's going

to affect me for months and months to come and i'm a little bit i have a little bit of a different mindset now but which is which is just like it it's okay to have alcohol in your life. Yeah. But I think there's probably, yeah, I think there's probably something else in there too, which is like, I don't, I'll go back to that buttoned up. I don't have to be buttoned up with everything dialed in a matter, matter of fact, um, there might be a little bit of an interesting competitive edge when i've got to kind of pull my shit together and i don't have to be rigidly tight i can be loose and still find the right edge and you know kind of put my mind and body in skis and snow together that can tend to help i i mean honestly honestly, I think about a lot of, there was a period of time in my career,

it was after I won my first Olympic gold. So it was after Sochi and then not the next season, but it was kind of the following three seasons. So this is probably around 2016, 17 seasons. I had a ton of performance anxiety, like, like making me nauseous and puking at the start. And people are like, ew, that's disgusting. But I'm like, you don't understand. It's not, it's not like a stomach ache. It's like, you can't get air past this point in your throat. And you just, you're just, your mind is just spiraling of all, for me, it was always all

the things that people would say if I didn't win because, or if I won, but I didn't win by enough of a margin, because basically there was this period of time where everyone thought that I should be, I should be winning races by two seconds over two seconds. And when I didn't win by that much, I won by five tenths of a second, or maybe just barely a second, then they were saying, you know, are you afraid the rest of the world is catching up? Are you, you know, what have you done wrong this season? They really were spinning it around into a very negative thing. And at the time, I was, I very much let the media and external kind of sources sort of dictate how I felt about my own performances.

And I'm currently working on listening to myself first and how I feel about performances first. I've improved a lot at is sort of the self coaching and kind of looking, looking at myself first and asking, what do I want to improve? And always making sure that I have something I want to improve before I talk to my coaches before I talk to anybody. And definitely before I speak to any media. And that is incredibly helpful, because it's just like takes a little bit of importance away from the external sources. Oh, but there's a but there's a but I was I was ready how important you living that way and sharing the importance of living that way is for, I'll say little girls, but for all of us, you know, like to be able to point to the importance of knowing yourself, being honest with yourself, having the courage to live in alignment that way.

And like, we need this, Michaela. Like, no, I know you, you needed it, right? I needed it for sure. It was, it's just kind of a step, another step. And I wouldn't even call my skiing career. I just call it like adulting because you do have to, it's at some point you have to look at yourself and say, what do I actually think about this situation?

And I can't look at what my parents think about it. Like, I literally can't ask my dad. And I can ask my mom. But now I feel like I have a sort of understanding of what I think. And then she is very knowledgeable in why. So we bounce. Like, I get advice from everywhere constantly, but I always, especially with skiing, I always kind of,

let's just get to the bottom of a run. And before I see the video, before I get any input, it's always like, okay, what did I feel that run? What do I think could have been better? What do I want to try to change for the next run that might be faster? Sometimes it's slower, but it's, you have to experiment and it just, you have to have that. But people, the thing I think is a little bit tricky with this topic. Is this, this is the butt? No, this is not. The butt was that I hadn't figured that out yet at that point in time. So it was very like, that's right. Yeah. Very internally motivated, not. The but was that I hadn't figured that out yet at that point in time. So it was very like.

That's right. Yeah. Very internally motivated, not motivated. I was always internally motivated, but I. The caliber. I think about if I'm hearing you that I'm calibrating from the external world more than I need to or want to. So I was my my tuning fork wasn't connected to, to me. Like I would have been, I would cross the finish line and I'd think, Oh, that, that was, there was a really good section of that run. I feel really good about this, but immediately I'd think, Oh no, what's everyone is going to say. Do they think it's positive or negative? And one person, one media, one, somebody would say something negative and that would completely derail or, you know, it might have been my coach at a point and say something that I just really took me down and really, really bothered me. OK, no one does it alone. And I want 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

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So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order at livemomentus.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E Momentus, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentus.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order.

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at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And with that, let's jump right back into our conversation. I think the greatest constrictor for human potential is the fear of what people think of us. And FOPO, it's clever. Fear of people's opinions. Like, do you, can you speak to that at all? Well, so, okay. So this is, this is then the other, but I was getting to, I got go off on tangents all the time. I think that right now,

especially with this world of kind of creators and influencers and, and just everybody promoting the idea of self care, which is incredible, especially like fundamentally great. But there's so much, there's so much of the world right now. That's like, everybody's just trying to put content out there that tells everybody that they're taking care of themselves and they feel really good because they've taken steps and now they now they're better and they're not struggling anymore and like look at me I'm an influencer look I'm doing great so you should eat more broccoli or you should I don don't know, you should do more self-care, you should practice meditation. Like there's just all of this input. There's so much stimulus

around this topic of basically like listening to yourself and taking care of yourself. And I've seen a lot of it. I watch it all the time. It's on my Instagram. It's not like I look up YouTube videos of people who seem to be able to speak to their own journey. And I do think it's really helpful. But it's interesting because I just I wonder how real it is because I don't think anyone in life is just good. I really don't think that anybody's just like, happy, good, I hit a button, I did the things I've improved. Now I'm good. I'm a button. I did the things I've improved. Now I'm good.

I'm never going back and I'm smooth sailing for the rest of my life. I definitely don't see that in my future, at least. I think it's important for young people to know that there will still be struggles. You can be overall happy and generally in a good place and still have struggles during the week or during the day. And you can still be trying to find your own voice and how that matters to you.

Some days I feel my voice is louder than others. And some days I can't hear my own thoughts or my own voice at all. And that's just that's just like the highs and lows. And there's a lot of factors. Fatigue is a factor. Just being emotionally exhausted. And sometimes you just get too tired to think for yourself. And you need the advice and support from others.

And there's so many different factors in it. So when you see like influencers going on YouTube and saying, I just really believe in myself. And I just trust myself. And I just cut all the toxic things out of my life. I'm like, that is so good for you. But I'm just not sure how we know for sure when something's toxic. You have to test it. You have to test the waters.

It takes time to know when things are negatively or positively impacting your life. And just like cutting toxic things out of your life on a whim, when there's a five or an eight year old looking at your page and saying, Oh, if I see something toxic, I'm cutting it out of my life. And then all of a sudden, they're lashing out at their parents, because their parents told them, they shouldn't eat as much candy, or that, you know, there's some level of discipline and now all of a sudden the kid's like you're toxic for me because you're not making me happy it's just a it's a more complex issue I think but developing the ability to find importance in your own voice and with things that you care about like first being your own coach first.

I think those are really important things. I think that's the essence of psychology. What you just, the last part of what you said is like the study of yourself. The study of self is like what psychology is. And that's how you get to know your voice, to know the values that you're pushing up against, to know when you're like over the edge, you know, pushing too hard or you're under and playing it safe. Like that psychologically and emotionally, if you're not studying, I'm not sure you'll ever get good. And so at life, and I think what you just described was the good life for you. And if you were to put it in a sentence or two, what is, how would you say, what is the good life according to Michaela Schifrin?

Oh, um, the good life for me is listening to my own voice before I listen to others and always looking for the best way to be a better coach for myself. I think that that relationship you have with yourself is held up by the research that came out of Harvard, a 75 year study of Harvard on the good life basically pointed to two things, purpose, have purpose. Okay. And the second is relationships and all relationships begin with the relationship with yourself. So you're starting literally a ground zero for one of the pillars in life. Yeah. At 28 years old. How about it? We all take different paths. My wife always like lovingly says with great compassion, like, Hey, we're all just trying to

figure it out yeah you know like we're just doing the best we can we're just we're all trying to figure it out some people are doing better than others you know some people are better at being friends to other people but yeah are you a friend do you do you like your relationship with yourself? Are you a friend to yourself? Oh, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't expect the pause. I thought you're going to kind of be like, yeah, I've got there. But you're saying. I don't think I'm always a friend to myself.

I guess it just kind of depends. I mean, you hope a good friend would be honest and truthful. And even sometimes that can be, it can be hurtful at times, but if you're honest, then that's your first step to improving. And one of the psychologists that I see back home says we honor those we love by being truthful. So that's, you know, there are some days where I'm probably not the best friend to myself because I'm not really truthful to myself. But then, you know, maybe that's nice because I'm just like, I just need to, what would you say, like bolster my emotions.

I just need, I just need myself, like I just need to vent to myself and I don't want to know the answers. I just want to vent and I just want to spiral. Does that fall into a thousand pieces? I'm fine. Yeah. Is that sound like you're shit talking yourself or does that sound like you're kind of complaining or like whining or is it more like anger? Like what, or is it more of an anxiety? Like, Oh my God, I don't know. Like I fell on corner three, three three times and if i can't get that corner like it's all my whole life's gonna fall apart which obviously is not the case

but like what what's the the tone it's a little bit of everything um i mean there's anxiety i have i have anxiety a little bit around the olympics just i've you know i have three olympic medals but after beij, there's this little, there's a little trigger in my mind that's like, what if, what if I go to 26 and I still don't win a medal, you know, then what are people going to say? Like, there's still a very, there's still a part of me that listens to the external thoughts and opinions for sure. I don't, I don't think anybody, I don't know anybody. I certainly know for myself, it's, it's not possible yet to literally block out the noise completely. It's more, I'm more of like, I like let the noise flow through.

And that's a little bit more manageable than being like, oh, I'm not listening. I don't like that's toxic. It's more like, well, I heard that and I'm just going to choose to let it pass through. So that hello and goodbye idea takes time. It takes great practice. And I'll explain, like, I think you might like this. So I practice the same way. Like, oh, look at that thought.

That's interesting. I'm thinking that I might arrive at the gates for an Olympic run in 26. And I might have this narrative that like, I kind of fell apart in, in the previous Olympics. I was the, I was the highest expectation, whatever, whatever. And I couldn't finish a run. Fuck. Is this going to happen again? Does that sound? Yeah. Sounds about right. Okay. Part of that theory, like I know that it's, I know that it's not real. It's possible that I don't win a medal at the next Olympics. That's for sure a possibility. But the theory that because, you know, the theory of like being cursed about it, it's

almost more just like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more I think about it, the more almost more just like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more I think about it, the more it would tend to get in my head. And I give it, you know, I give it more strength by doing that, but it's not an actual curse. It's just literally like things happen and they happen one way or they happen the other. I don't know. It's, it's almost, it's so much more simple than what, you know, when I'm in, when I'm in my, uh, my spiral and I don't, I actually really don't spiral about this, but before this season, we had our world championships in, um, in France and that's, you know, in ski racing, we consider world championships and the Olympics. Those are our big events and world championships is every two years. So obviously the opportunity to perform comes around

a little more often, but it's in a lot of ways, world championship medals are almost more coveted than Olympic medals. So it's a big, it's a big race. It's pressure. You've got all the same kind of vibe. There's a lot more media surrounding it the look of it is very similar you just don't have all the other sports and all of that but you still have like you have an enormous awards ceremony and the post-race media and all of that stuff so going into this world champs this year I I was feeling amazing and felt really good about it and the first race I did was alpine combined and I was in a really good position to win the gold medal. And it was literally on the second to last gate of the course.

I messed up and I didn't finish. And there's a lot of reasons why I feel like that happened. But the long and short of it is I sort of missed fight. I sort of missed the gate and then still skied through the finish. So I was like, and I could see my time. I literally won the gold, but I missed the last gate. Oh, you know, it was like, I actually, I mean, that's so easy to jump on that train, like curse or here we go again. Yeah. That's all of the media was like, is this a thing? You never do this. So how did, how did you wrestle that down? I just kept, I kept skiing. I just kept training. No, go into that moment. Wait, go, go right into that moment.

So you wrestle it down. You didn't. No, I was like, I don't know. It could be. I don't know the workings of the universe. I would love to ask somebody if there's actually a curse on me, but I find that hard to believe. I'm not a believer in that sort of a thing. Okay, so what if you and I just made the decision right now that we're going to drop the word curse? Okay, just going to drop the curse thing. Okay. but I want to know, what do you replace it with? Like, okay, my job is to put myself in the present moment more often in the right vibe where I feel powerful and I can adjust. Like, that's my responsibility is to put my mind in that, right. Okay. So like, that's all I'm

going to do. And fuck, I blow the last gate. Okay, Well, good. It's going to, maybe it's going to be a little bit harder now, but I'm up for it. I do hard things. Yeah. Do you do hard things? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I'm never with, there was something I realized at the very beginning of this season, which I think was a pretty key moment. Um, is that the races in killington vermont and i and the the slalom race i was in the lead after the first run i lost the lead on the second run and two athletes who had never won a world cup before they tied for the win made two one wendy from switzerland and then um a girl honest van larsen from sweden and they're two people i van Larson from Sweden. And there are two people. I,

I love them. They're one of their two, my favorite, favorite competitors on the world cup. And I was like, my first instinct was of course, disappointment for myself, but then like simultaneously,

I was so happy for them. And it was like emotional for me to watch them because Wendy, it's a longer story, but Wendy has come in second place to me. I think it's like 30 times at this point. Like she's the athlete with the longest string of second places without a win in her career. Um, and that's like, that's a strange sort of record. And people talk to her about it all the time. And she's just, at this point, she's like, whatever, just leave me alone about it. The next song race, she won that one as well.

And it was a standalone victory too. So it was like, I mean, it was just really, it was really, really cool. That's the whole point. Okay. But wait, wait, wait. Okay. The point of this is that some people were asking me how disappointed I was that I didn't win. And because a lot of this was, you know, we were already starting to talk about the record and the world was like, all eyes are on Michaela.

And if she's going to get this record this season and every single race that I didn't win, it was like, ooh, time's running out. Well, I finally said to someone, first of all, I'm really happy for Wendy and Anna. And second of all, I don't think I care if I don't win another race, actually. I mean, I wasn't in the position, I didn't, I didn't do the job it took to win today. And I'm not sure, like, I am not here because I want to win these races, which is a very strange thing. It's probably only partly true. But I have, I, this year, I was so obsessed with a specific way that I wanted to ski, that for most of the races, it completely took over my mindset. And I really, like, I really put the thought of winning out the window. This interview that I did, it was the first time where I really altered the way that people were perceiving, like, how they talked to me and how it affected me.

This person was kind of making it seem negative. I was like, I don't feel negative at all. I did not do the skiing it took to win, clearly. But those two women, they did. And that was so cool to watch for them. That's incredible thing. And also, I don't think I care if I'm going to win. But the point, and this gets back to your point earlier, was more that I know I can do the work it takes to win again or to have the chance. So I'm not afraid of doing that work. And that's the most free I've ever felt in my career.

Just standing here being like, I don't care that I didn't win. I know I can work hard enough to get back in a position. I might never win again. And I don't really care about that either. I just care that I'm willing to work hard enough to do it. And now, one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep.

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And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple. And they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products

that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code Mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's Caldera Lab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash Finding Mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. It's so good. It's so good for so many reasons because, okay, that was 2023 and you ended up getting a win, right? Yes.

Okay. So it's awesome. Like we'll celebrate that all day long, but you know, I'm going to go here. Okay. So let's go to 2022 Beijing games. You're favored to win. You're supposed to break the record and get your third gold. You have two do not finishes. You hit gates, you're supposed to break the record and get your third gold. You have two do not finishes.

You hit gates, you wiped out. Okay. Yep. All right. That's what we're talking about. This trauma that's setting up this, this, uh, the C word that we're no longer using. Right. So it's so, so, because I really like what you just did is that I can do hard things. I can do hard work. And I actually like the hard thing. There's a narrative around that that will give you some real juice, some real power about it. But we'll get to that in a minute. I would love if you could help me understand. I watched. And I watched the interviews. There's two things I want to understand. Yeah. The gate, when you're at the starting gate, and I want to do two parts of that. Like when you're at your best, what does that look like?

But we'll save that for later. But right now, I want to know like the first 20 seconds after you wiped out, you're on the side to tell me about that first 20 seconds. I want to understand the two minutes. I want to understand the two days following. Like I want to, you're laughing. That's really good that you're laughing. That's just because it's a, I almost guarantee it's not, I don't know what you think. You might not be, you might know enough in your life to not think anything at all but um oh that's a cool wait that's a cool statement that sounds like our mutual friend pear lundstim that would say something like that like yeah it's like you know what i one of the greatest lessons i learned from life was from my favorite youtuber who's not

doing it anymore jenna marbles she said at some point, this was years and years ago, she was like, I've learned that the best thing to do in life is have no expectations of anything. Like have bad expectations, set your expectations so low that you really, you just, you have enough, you just don't have them, but keep your standards high. Oh my God. This is like what I live by. No, seriously. Like I don't do bad expectations. I just do. I'm not interested in expectations. I'm interested in the best possible highest standard of the way I respond. Like, and that's, that's what I teach my son too. That's cool that you're, I love that. Okay. Come on.

20 seconds. First 20 seconds. First 20 seconds. The first 20 seconds. So I ski off. We were talking about the third race that I went after, right? Yes. But like the slalom.

Okay. So I skied off the course and the way this hill was set up, it was quite wide. And the slalom course was set on the very far skiers, right? So there was all this space on the skiers left. And normally we don't really have that space in world cups. It's just like the courses and kind of the center of the hill. So you kind of need to, you need to really pull off to the side. And so that's what I did in this race. But the, it was just all this open space. There was nowhere really to hide. And the first thing I was thinking is like, I just need to get off the course because my teammate Paula was going to be skiing. I was, I think it was bib 7 and she was bib like 10 or 13 so at that point

she's starting to get into the gate and I didn't want her to see me I didn't want her to know what was going on she doesn't like she doesn't really ever want to know what's happening when she's at the start and she's a damn amazing slalom skier So this like she also had the potential to medal. So I was like, I've got to get out of the line of vision. But I was so I went out. I mean, I went out on like the fifth gate or the ninth gate. I was so close to the start. I pulled all the way off to the side. But there's all these cameras around and they just found me. And I'm just I'm just sitting there. I like took off my skis. It was just a gut reaction. I thought I was way out of the view line. I didn't, I thought I was hiding.

I didn't think that there were all these people like cameras on me until I looked up for a split second. And I saw one camera guy with his like, and he was just like pointing at me. I'm like, there's a race going on. My gosh. Um, but it was just, it was a really weird zone because I could have walked about 15 steps up the hill and been at the start again. Like I, it's just not really something I've ever experienced in my career. And I didn't know if there were actually rules about how soon I have to go down to the finish, but the way skiing works is this is all in the first 20 seconds. Literally the way skiing works is you have every, every 15 athletes, there's a TV break. And during the TV break, that's when

they send course workers and people who need to get down to the finish area. So a lot of times if you're an athlete and you haven't just basically skied down the side of the hill immediately, then you have to wait for the TV break. Or that was sort of the thought I had in my head. And it's basically just don't disrupt the race. Don't ski down the side of the hill while there's somebody on course. So I was thinking, easiest thing to do, I'll gather my thoughts on the side of the hill. I'll wait for the next TV break. And then my coach came up, one of my coaches came up to me and sat down next to me. And then I was like, oh, now I'm feeling emotional. And then it was like the flood of realizing all that, you know, the Olympic chance was gone. And I still had

two more races to compete, three more races to compete in. Um, and it, it wasn't like I had a shot in those races too. It was just not, it wasn't where the biggest expectations were for me. But, you know, the funny thing about DNFing twice, and then being at the start for that solemn race, I was skiing really good solemn in Beijing, my training, I had some of the best, best training days of my life in Beijing on the track, like in our practice sessions. And after the giant solemn, the very first race, when I didn't finish, I thought about going back down to my room and holding, holding up and whatever, crying and feeling emotional. I thought about just staying out the whole day and watching my teammates. Um, and what I decided to do was change, go back all the way down to the village which was like a 45

minute gondola trek change all my gear to slalom gear go all the way back to the top of the mountain another 45 minutes and train some slalom and then by the time I was done with my slalom session I could go to the finish for the GS of the second run of the GS and watch my teammates compete. So I got a full training day in that after that race. It was one of the best moments of my life. It was just peaceful. And I knew that the GS race was going on and the whole world was focused on that. And I was just like, I'm just up here training solemn, doing my preparation. And it was the greatest, it was the greatest feeling. So I was skiing well, I was prepared. There's just, there's a lot of a lot of different factors. And I almost don't even want to say that pressure was

a big factor. It was almost like, I just had so much intensity. Normally normally that's a good thing but it just it was like you go slightly over the limit and that means and especially with slalom courses and gs and slalom there's no room for there's no room for errors basically at all that's right well you have to put it literally at the edge of the envelope which is at the edge of out of control yes but not go over that's right well you have to put it literally at the edge of the envelope which is at the edge of out of control yes but not go over that's right and it's particularly that way in certain conditions of snow when it's really really aggressive completely man-made snow it's very it's great it's grippy it's like i made this analogy the other day It's kind of like changing from like a grass field to a turf field. The grip is just like gritty and it hurts your knees to ski on it and it grabs at your skis. And when you make any kind of an error on that kind of snow, it's just, it's like constantly an explosion

waiting to happen. It's such a breath of fresh air in so many ways about the way you describe that, because that's not the narrative 99% of the world made up. And the breath of fresh air to me, assuming that you're not just making this story up to prop yourself up, which I don't believe that from our conversation is how you work. But your commitment was to be a good teammate. which I don't believe that from our conversation is how you work. But your, your commitment was to be a good teammate. Yeah. Not to be a dramatic something on the sidelines, you know, like everyone look at me.

I'm so distraught. I'm sorry. I can't get it together, but this is my life. And you guys just figure out how to work around me. It wasn't any of that. Yeah. I mean, I would say it was like being a good teammate was probably my second thought. My first thought was fairly selfish, was just to say, like, get me out of here. Get me out of this.

Get me out of you. And then I thought, and it was partially like, get me out of you. And then I thought, and it was, and it was partially like, get me out of you. And also like, get, just get me out of the, get, allow the race to continue. Don't bother the other athletes. And that includes competitors. And then it was the thought that Paul is about to get in the gate and I don't want her to see me i don't want her to see me at all so i need to get as far over to the side as possible and if i can like climb under the fence and really get up like i will but then yeah but then my um the our pr manager was at the bottom and she said michaela hat she's required to come down through the finish area and walk through the mix zone she doesn't have to stop at anybody but she has to that's an olympic requirement that's right for media like

yeah oh i thought i was just gonna like slink away out of here but i guess not and so then i needed to like get myself all psyched up to go through media yet again and have something else to say, you know? Okay. So Michaela, thank you for taking us, me through that, um, breath of fresh air to hear how honest you are and the courage you have to, to work from the inside out. And, um, can you take us home with helping me understand, like, what does it feel like? What is the mindset that you have when you're at your best? I feel very clear. It's like imagining a pool of water and it's just not muddy.

It's just clear and you can see like the pebbles on the bottom. And I just feel so much clarity specifically about what I want to feel with my turns. It's like a technical and a tactical thing. The movements that I actually want to make in a course. And I only get that from preparation and training. It takes, you know, lots and lots of time and lots of practice. And then I finally, I know I'm ready to race when I know the feeling that I want to have. And I don't have to be sure that I can do it. I just need to be sure what the feeling should be.

Because a lot of times I don't do it. But for the most part, it's just giving me something to think about, focus on. And then that clarity combined with sort of intensity of focus that that's when I'm at my best. What a gift you are. Um, and I just want to like, honestly, it's your work in progress. And so am I. And everyone I know is some people want to play like they're not. And I just love that you're, you're inviting people behind the scenes, you know, and to see your life. And it's a, it's a vlog series on YouTube called Beyond the Slopes. Beyond the Slopes and Moving Right Along. They're sort of two series. Come on. Oh, wait, is it two series? Beyond the Slopes is one.

Yeah. BTS, Beyond the Slopes. Oh, I see what you did. Yeah, that's like the summer edition. It's a little bit more. Okay, cool. And what's the second one? Yeah, the other is Moving Right Along.

And that took us through this past season. I'm a couple is like seven episodes. And then I think we're going to be able to do a season two, following and chronicling this coming race season as well. Very cool. Nice job. And look, I love how you're operating and working. And thank you. You've got a whole new community, I think, in the Finding Mastery community that's like, that's cool. Like, go Michaela. That means a lot. Oh, gosh.

All right. So keep kicking ass, doing your thing, being honest, making mistakes, correcting, compensating, adjusting, being honest. It's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you. Oh, God, you too. Thank you so much.

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