Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - NFL Legend Greg Olsen on the Preparation and Pressure of Calling the Super Bowl | The Game Inside The Games, Ep. 2

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

For the players on the field, the Super Bowl is the ultimate test of skill and composure. But just above them, in the broadcast booth, another high-stakes performance is unfolding—one with no second chances, no instant replay, and no room for error.In this episode of The Game Inside the Games, Dr. Michael Gervais sits down with Greg Olsen, former NFL star turned Emmy-winning broadcaster, to unpack the relentless preparation, mental discipline, and pressure that comes with calling the biggest game in sports.Greg shares why broadcasting the Super Bowl was more nerve-wracking than playing in one, the mental traps sportscasters must avoid, and the game-day routines that helped him deliver when millions were watching. He opens up about self-doubt, trusting his instincts in the booth, and the mindset shifts that allowed him to rise to the top of the broadcasting world.This episode is a masterclass in handling pressure, preparation, and performing at your best—whether you’re on the field, in the booth, or in any high-stakes moment of life.Subscribe now and follow along with Finding Mastery all week as we unlock the mindset of high-performance athletes on the world’s biggest stage. Get The Game Inside The Games on Youtube, Apple, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts.…This episode is brought to you by…Microsoft CopilotTry Copilot for yourself → https://rb.gy/u8xr9z Find the right Microsoft Partner for your organization → https://rb.gy/xb3kgt Mack WeldonGet 20% off orders $100+ with code FINDINGMASTERY → https://rb.gy/8gsani_________________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.

Welcome to New Orleans and the game inside the games presented by Microsoft Co-Pilot. I am sport and performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais. And I'm Greg Olson. Together, we're pulling back the curtain on the psychology of pivotal moments that can make or break a Super Bowl dream. For those of you who don't know, Greg played 14 seasons in the NFL. And then following his retirement, became a sportcaster. And after just one full-time year at Fox he was promoted to the number one team called the Super Bowl broadcast and received

universal acclaim that's pretty cool you played in a Super Bowl you've called the Super Bowl out of those two which one had more nerves which one was more nerve-wracking you know I actually I've actually gotten that question a couple different times. And I think going into it, before I called it, I think I was actually more nervous before I was the broadcaster. And I'll tell you why. My whole life, I played football. At every level, I was comfortable on the field.

I always felt very prepared. Like, it was just something that I had known. It's something that I had done my entire life. And it was an area where you don't always play well. You don't always have the best game or everything doesn't always go your way. But I never felt uncomfortable on a football field. I always felt like I was in control of my own destiny. I was always in control of my own performance.

And then obviously the millions of moving parts around me, teammates, play calls, whatever's going on, the opponent kind of would make or break the final result. But going into that broadcast, so it was two years ago pretty much to the day, I was still only calling games. That was only my second full-time season calling games. I called one season the year before on the second crew. And then, as you mentioned, I got promoted to the A crew with my partner, Kevin Burkhart so going into that game and we had called some big moments the NFC championship Thanksgiving Christmas Eve so we had some big audiences but you know you're talking 100 plus

million people watching and you know you have no control over the game you have no control you know how is it going to come out you're nervous So I actually was probably more nervous before kickoff that day in the booth than I probably was on the sideline in Super Bowl 50. Amazing. When you feel nervousness, how do you uniquely feel it? Yeah, you know, so I think, and this is something I talk a lot about with my kids, is it's okay to be nervous. Like, you should be nervous.

I always feel like being nervous and anxious and really anticipating a critical moment of your life and whatever it is, it means you care, right? Like anyone who doesn't feel that, you know, that burden of, I want to do well, I want to do good, I want to be prepared, you know, so I always took it as a sign that I was in the right spot. Like this was something that I was meant to do. This was something that's really important to me and you should care I always fall back on my process going into something how prepared am I to me my confidence came from my preparation and that was as a player and then the same thing when I when I now obviously get up in the games to get ready to do the you know to call the games in the booth so I know if I do the work during the week, if I've studied and I reviewed

and I have my kind of set process that I do each day leading up to the game and then finally the morning before kickoff, I have like my routine that I fall back on, that was my life. That's how I survived. That's how I got through bad games. That's how I built consistency was all my routine, all my processes. And I knew once the ball was kicked off, I'm prepared to go anywhere. I've put the work in and now you just hope for a good game that you follow along.

So you're giving the answers to what confidence is. It's that feeling and that internal narrative that I'm ready for the challenge. I've done my work. I've been tested. I've wrestled with some hard stuff and I'm ready to go for it right so when you were the the difference though that I want to better understand is you had a full support staff and you had coaches and you had people around you in your 14 years in the NFL to help you prepare so there was some support there in the broadcast booth you were left really to your own devices to prepare.

So talk about the preparation, how you crosswalked from sport preparation to broadcasting or professional, your next professional career. Yeah, you know, it's funny. There's actually a lot of really good, and I've actually talked to a lot of other guys now that have reached out to me to say, you know, how is that transition? What do I do? How do I get started and it's funny a lot of the lessons that i learned over my not just my 14 years in the nfl but my four years in college and and so many of my lessons i learned through football and playing and the preparation of each game and dealing with the highs and lows and now in the booth we don't have a scoreboard right unless you take twitter as the

scoreboard i guess which is a is which is a... Oh my goodness. We don't walk out of the stadium saying we won or lost. You know in your mind. I felt like we really covered that game. We covered all the angles. We were on top of things. We had good moments. There was good drama. Sometimes your best game is really in the hands of, does the game cooperate? So it's a little bit more of a subjective did you do well than it was you came off the field who had more points yeah you won how many catches how like so it's clear it's objective yeah right so that's something that's been a little bit of a

transition for me but as far as the we can get into that later but like as far as the preparation goes no different than I was every Monday is a Monday for me. Every Tuesday is a Tuesday. Every game day is a game day. And again, it sounds so cliche because you hear coaches and players preach this for years. And obviously you've studied this more than anyone, but there is such power in knowing that my process has led to a lot of good results. I'm ever tinkering with it. I'm ever changing it. I'm ever kind of improving it along the way. My process for preparing for a game now is very different than it was two, three years ago. But at the end of the day, like I know when that ball is kicked off, everything that I did leading up to that moment, there's nothing more I could have done.

And I think that's a very freeing feeling where it's like, you know what? I don't have to hope for this game to just go one way because I'm prepared but if it goes off the rails what am I gonna do like you you you prepare for all those situations all those potential outcomes all those potential storylines and then you say you know what my notes are here I don't even probably need them they're in my mind I've worked on them I. I've kind of workshopped this all week long through conversations, through my notes, prep, phone calls. I'd like be sitting at dinner with my wife and kids and I'm like testing storylines on them and they're looking at me like I'm nuts. But it's all part of my process of talking things out, thinking things through. And that way when it comes out in the game, I've had this conversation, but it was at lunch with

a buddy or it was on a phone call with a coach. I've been through it. That to me was my practice rep. When I ran that rep on Wednesday, red zone, and all of a sudden that play got called on the same yard line on Sunday afternoon, I ran it. I knew the coverage looks. I knew what my adjustments would be. Like, it's kind of the same idea. Many people are so afraid of making a mistake, certainly a mistake that's public, that they over-prepare, okay?

And when the, which is great. Like the over-preparation, there's nothing wrong with that. It's the fear that's driving it that actually can show up in the moment that you're trying to perform. And so there's a couple things that take place. You'll recognize this, you know, being a player and in the booth,

is that you over-t place. You'll recognize this, you know, being a player and in the booth is that you over try, you press too hard. You want it so bad that you miss that ability just to trust and to kind of settle into the moment and be in sync with it. And in the booth, you're in sync with your partner, with the game, with the way that it's unfolding. Can you talk about how to trust yourself just a little bit better and how to settle into the moment? So we call it in, in music, we call it

being in the pocket. Athletes call being in the zone or flow state. So how can you walk us through how to be in the pocket in any moment, whether it's a conversation or whatever it might be? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's so true. And for athletes, you say, oh, he looks like he's pressing. That's kind of the term that you sow in it. It's a basketball player who's just trying to muscle his team. He doesn't want to make the mistakes. I want to win so hard. Well, you're actually kind of being counterproductive. It's actually counterintuitive to when the stakes get higher, you almost have to just slow down a little bit more. And I got great advice going into, I'll stakes get higher, you almost have to just slow down a little bit more.

And I got great advice going into, I'll never forget it, going into our first Thanksgiving Day game. Our producer, Richie Zients, he'll be producing the Super Bowl. He's been the top producer at Fox for a long time. And I'll never forget, he pulled me aside and he's like, listen, tomorrow's going to be our biggest audience to date. But it will not be our biggest audience of the year. He goes, but there's going to be a little bit of a different casual fan and he kind of just gave me a framework of what thanksgiving broadcast was all about and he we had that conversation it was good and then we had the same thing the wild card weekend he's like audience is going to be a little bit bigger a little bit

more general divisional round conference championship and then we had the final like big you know powwow the night before where it's like, guys, this is a different audience than we've called all year round. Me and Kevin, my partner Kevin Burkhart, we had never called a Super Bowl before. So, like, I'll never forget when he laid out kind of the evolution of the season. As audiences grew, his big advice to me was early in the game, you have three hours to tell everybody what you know about this game you don't have to do it in the first two drives oh that's so and it was just a great

reminder and i i just kind of wrote it at the top of my game board like where i knew i would see it and it was just like go slow is that that was your cue yeah just go slow yeah yeah like and and i think the part that i love the most about the booth, but is also probably my biggest learning curve is I love football. I love sharing ideas. I try to bring unique insights into the, you know, I call it like we're going to set the table for the game. There's some really cool storylines. There's some cool matchups.

How do we maybe look at this game and this matchup a little more interesting, a little bit different than just he's a great player, he's a great player. We know they're great players, right? It's the playoffs. It's the Super Bowl. Why is this matchup so interesting? What should I on the couch, drinking a beer, what should I be watching? Tell me. I want to tell you 30 things because I think there's 30 fun things, but I should only tell you one. You know why? Because I had three hours to tell you the other 29. So it was such a good reminder that as the stakes grew, less is more. Let it breathe. The crowd. There's going to be drama. There's going to be emotion. Let us capture it with the cameras.

You don't have to narrate every moment. And then once the game settles in, man, you can tell everyone everything you've learned, everything you're seeing. And it was just a really nice tip going into that moment. So let's drill right into that because the game inside the game is really about how you're navigating your thoughts and navigating your feelings and emotions. So when you start to feel that nervous energy and it could be anywhere from nervous butterflies all the way up to downright near panic. You know, like there's a spectrum for people to go through. How, okay, this is just a yes or no or a one to 10. How sophisticated are you at being tuned into your body's energy? Are you very sophisticated? Like, you know, when your body's activated,

or is it like hit you like a tidal wave? Yeah. So I, I probably live in like a pretty constant state. My emotions never, like my nervous energy never is probably a 10. Okay. And I'm also never like a one. Like I'm just not a very like naturally calm personality in general. Like I probably always run like in a medium zone always. So when you get

outside of that zone, how do you pull it down? How do you back it down just a little bit? Yeah. You know, sometimes I would use my energy and use those systems to my advantage, right? When I was getting ready to play, like there was, you could harness again, the right way, as long as it didn't cloud your thinking and your, and your judgment and your decision making in real time there's actually a nice energy that you could use because i was doing a sport that entitled the little physical activity so it was okay for me to have kind of that early burst to get into a game probably not the way you want to come on to a broadcast though that's right you sound like you're talking a thousand miles an hour you're yelling and so that that's part probably where the biggest difference between you watch the opening kickoff of a game that's not a touchback and after that tackle it's

like you won the super bowl and there's ranting and raising and guys are running on the field and running off the field there's all this bent up energy from pregame to that opening kickoff yeah we can't come on to the broadcast like an opening kickoff you got to come in smooth we got to come in like it's the second drive of the third quarter and we've kind of set, but it's hard, it's not natural for me, because I'm an excitable guy. Yeah, would you use more of a self-talk strategy

to back yourself down, or would you use more of a breathing strategy to back yourself down? Probably more of a breathing strategy, kind of just stay to my own, just hey, constant reminders, little coaching points, little bullets that I would kind of write breathing strategy, kind of just stay to my own, just, Hey, constant reminders, little coaching points, little bullets that I would kind of write myself notes, like take it slow. What are the, what are the must haves? Like my last, the last thing that I do that that's really become a good kind of process for me to organize all these thoughts that I have in my brain that I lay in

bed and think about that are on my mind all day long as I'm like workshopping them in my own head the last thing I do is I say okay you have 50 pages of notes that you've spent hours typing and and curating all week what's your best thought like what is your if you only got one good thought onto this entire broadcast. What is it for each team? That's at the top of my list. Get that in. So that's the kingpin. Everything else flows from there. Simplify.

Okay. Simplify, simplify. And from a week of process where I have reams of information and storylines both in my head and in my notes, can I constrict that to the least amount of interesting points? And that's like my opening script, right? It's like a good offensive coordinator has his top 10 plays. I don't have 10 storylines. I got like two, one for each side of the ball, each team, so four total.

And I know, let me get those in because those are really interesting and it's kind of broad enough that it sets the game. And then I can weave in and out. I can zoom in to like super hyper focused and let's really talk about the offensive line but then I can go big and say man what a great job they've done building the locker like we can zoom in we can zoom out we can zoom in we can zoom out to me that's the flow and the fun of the broadcast is it's not just every play what did the right guard do but it's also not just high level superficial and don't give anybody in the weeds I think it's the balance of

the really fun the intricacies of football that we all love the complexity of it but also like there is a human element there's a fun there's the drama there's the the pictures we got to focus on that too what's the hardest part of calling a Super Bowl that most people would not know? You know, I think, and again I've only done it once, but I think what my crew and again you talk about support team and we had a great one. What I learned going in and what I learned coming out was it's a very different audience. It's a little bit more of a casual audience right there's a lot of people there's not a hundred million people watching every weekend's broadcast right

a really good broadcast you know we had our thanksgiving day broadcast where everyone in the world is sitting home we had like 40 that year so i mean we're almost tripling it so it's it's just the scale of magnitude of how many people are watching this game. Not everyone is a diehard Kansas City Chiefs fan. Not everyone is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan. Some of these people might be watching these teams. I know it's hard for all of us to think this way. There's millions of people that this is the first time they're watching these teams all year. Yeah, right.

So, like, we take for granted, hey, in week four, remember Patrick Mahomes? They were struggling on offense and they were having a hard time in the left tackle. These people have no idea any of that happened. So the job of the broadcast, again, going in and coming out, I would be even better at it the next time, is, like, you have to talk to the real passionate football fan who's living and dying for this game, and they want to know why can Jalen Hurts in his second time around, how can he beat Patrick Mahomes?

But you also have to talk to, like, the casual fan on the couch and just, like, give them a quick little summary of how we even got here. Like, why are these two teams the last ones remaining? Who are the stars? Like, we know Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and Saquon Barkley, but not everyone does. And it sounds crazy to us, but it's just the reality of it. How do you measure success? Because I heard you talking about the number of people

watching and tuning in, and it would be really easy to tune into, like success is if they liked what I did. And then there's some sort of ratings or whatever. And then there's probably the internal compass, which is, no, I know that I was in the pocket. I know that I was tuned to the way that I wanted to call it. And there's a balance between those. So how do you measure success? You know, I, again, I fall back on a lot of the lessons we learned as players, right? So take so take the scoreboard out we there was a lot of games that we won that the scoreboard would suggest that i was great but again team element a little bit of a different element i'd have a lot of bad

games where we won and i'd have some of my best games and we lost so the scoreboard was always indicative of the team but it was not always indicative of my performance or the box score or how many catches or how many yards. Like, that could be very misleading. Now, as we learned where you could get into a really dark place, into a really deep hole, if all of your accolades and all of your feedback is external, right? External feedback is a reality of this world. But

I think the job that we all have to do in every aspect of our life is filter out what external feedback has value and what external feedback is irrelevant to your life. You know, it's kind of like that saying, like, if you wouldn't ask that person for advice, why do you care about their criticism? Yeah. It's kind of the same idea. So in this world now, it's probably even more magnified. So I think my order of operations is, in my gut, when I walk out of that booth, by now I have

a pretty good perspective of whether we were on or not. Obviously your partner's feedback, body language, you can feel pretty close. When you and your partner are standing shoulder to shoulder, are on the same page and flowing and playing off one another, you both know it, your crew, your producers, your directors, obviously your executives, your bosses. So like that nuclear component now at Fox, but it used to be your coaches, your teammates. That's your first layer of feedback.

That's the layer that if they're happy, they feel good. That's a number one. Now, everyone in the world loves a pat on the back. Everybody in the world loves to win awards. Like to sit up here and people to say they don't care about feedback is probably disingenuous. It just can't be the priority. And that's for playing. That's for coaching. That's for broadcasting. That's all aspects of life. But I think in today's world, that's probably the biggest challenge people have in all areas is it's very easy to get a lot of criticism from a lot of people you don't even know. That is one of the biggest aha moments in this conversation

is the importance of tuning into the signal and gating out the noise. But whatever is coming in, make sure that you're selective about that they really know what they're looking for. They understand you. So there's a tuning between you and your inner circle that is really important. All right. Now it's time for the confidence playbook, a special segment presented by Mack Weldon, where we explore the critical role of confidence

in high consequence environments. Where does confidence come from for you? You stand with great stature. You speak clearly on the football field. You're extraordinary at what you do. Where does the confidence come from? From my conversations with you, you've kind of opened my eyes to the value of self-talk. That was probably something that I was never really in tune with. So I've kind of tried my best, whether it's parenting or coaching youth players, other, or just to myself, have tried to kind of steal that from you. If I had never spoken to you at length now about it, my answer would probably look a little bit different. Like I always drew my confidence from, I'm very comfortable saying that I'm not great at everything.

If you ask me, my greatest value is I feel like I'm a good learner and I feel like I have pretty good self-awareness. Like I don't pretend that I'm the master of all things. I am very comfortable saying, you know what, that great idea I had, I stole that from Dr. Gervais or that practice plant coach. That was a great drill. Yeah, I stole that from whoever. I am very comfortable saying I don't have all the answers, but I'm really good at learning from other people. That creates a posture, if you will, about learning, about getting better. So that actually opens up the aperture as opposed to closing the aperture,

the tension where I gotta be perfect. They're counting on me. This is my only shot. Man, if I don't get this right, this, this, this, this can happen. So that's a tight aperture when it comes to psychology. You've got an open aperture, which is like, look, I'm a learner.

And I'm gonna bring my very best. And I know that I've got high awareness. So situationally, I'll adjust. I'm gonna adapt. I feel like I adapt. That's where you're confident. This is where you're confident. That's why I'm confident because I feel like I'm never going to be the best at anything in any given room. That's okay. I can identify the people who are and say, why are they so good? And I'm going to hyper-focus and steal what I need. I did it as a player.

I do it now as a youth coach. I do it as a broadcaster. There's nothing proprietary about any of this. The world is out there full of information, and I think the best learners, the people that are willing to adapt, the people that are willing to implement new practices, why wouldn't you be confident? Because if I'm not good at it now, I'll get good at it.

I will get good at it. I refuse to not be good at stuff, although I'm a terrible golfer because I don't care enough to be good at it, so I don't try. But that's a separate conversation. And your identity is not attached to it. I don't care. I just want to get to the men's grill and have a beer. But, like, in the things I care about, I'll find a way to get good at it.

So, like, I don't know. Like, that's just how I've always been and I've been comfortable where if I'm not the best now I'm fine with that but you bet your ass I'm gonna do everything in my power that I'm gonna get there and if I don't get there it just wasn't meant to be for me I didn't have the capacity to be the best but it's not because I didn't try to exhaust every avenue to get there Greg what a masterclass on how you frame who you are and how you approach challenges. And this is a masterclass on confidence that you just gave. Mack Weldon is on a mission to help men feel more confident through their collection of

high quality apparel that blend timeless style, modern comfort, and substance over image. For 20% off your first order over 100 shop now at macweldon.com and use the code finding mastery at checkout and so i i love this conversation the insights are real about preparation your openness and your conscientiousness your openness to ideas to exploring you're highly conscientious about how things can be excellent. So you're connected there. You are an extrovert. You like to talk things out. I talk, I'm up. So exactly. So this is part of your process to be able to do. And you have just that right neuroticism to be like underneath the surface, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get this right. Let's get this right.

Let's get, I really want to make it special. And all of that energy kind of fuels you with this open aperture, um, of like, I'm a learner. Let's go, let's try. And I of that energy kind of fuels you with this open aperture of like, I'm a learner. Let's go, let's try. And I'm going to keep learning. And then situationally, I feel what's happening here. And by the way, people can train situational awareness, meditation, journaling, and conversations with people of wisdom helps to open up awareness. And so I don't know if you've actually practiced those, but you have those capabilities. I don't meditate or journal. I feel like, and I should, and I know the powers of it mostly because me and you have had a lot of conversations about it. So again, I'm ever growing and I'm ever

learning and I'm trying to continue to improve. I do like to read and my greatest source of inspiration and new thoughts, I love having conversations with really smart people. Like I can talk to you all day because you'll challenge me and I'll leave here and go, you know what? Like it's probably a better way to think about it than maybe how I was for a long time. And you can get it through books and pods and podcasts and audio books and like really the art of learning by Josh. Um, Oh God, what's his name? Waitzkin. Yes, I read that book 10 years ago. Yeah.

And like that where I was like, you know what? Like it's not about you're born being, like are you a really good learner? And you can be good at a lot of different things. And like that always like struck a chord with me. And I've tried to like apply that to all areas of what I try to learn about. I might be biased because of our friendship.

But when I tap into my inner circle, it's really clear that you are the best caller in the game right now. And you're not calling the Super Bowl. Can you talk about how you're working through that, how it's running through your Tumblr that you're not calling this game? Yeah, and obviously that's a question that I get asked a lot. And, you know, the fact you go from calling it to not, you know, just in a couple years. I think there's a lot. I think it's very complex, at least as I kind of work through it in my mind. I think there's a lot of levels to how I, and again, I haven't completely finalized or figured

out exactly the best way of processing it. But I think the first and foremost part that I try to make clear anytime I discuss it is Tom Kevin my old partner you know Aaron and Rinaldi like the crew that I used to work with and the crew that I work with now Joe Davis and Pete and Artie and Pam Oliver like when I talk about I want to when I talk about, I want to call get better games and I want to call Superbowl. It's like, this is not, there is no like personal animosity towards any of these people. Like I'm going to see them this week and go have a beer and hang out and catch up. Like, these are my friends. These are people that we have like personal relationships with. And I've gotten to to know Tom I have no personal animosity towards Tom I don't look at him as my enemy or my like competition I really don't and the same

thing now with my like I love working with Joe and I love working with my team that doesn't mean I don't want to be so like I always start everything from there like to me this is not personal this is business these are big decisions made by people well above my pay grade. And it's our job now downstream to figure out our best way to work with these things based on our own personalities. I am a hyper competitive person in everything that I do. I don't do a lot of things, but when I choose to pour in a lot of time and effort into things, like I don't know how to just be like, I'm content. I'm not a, I'm not a big content guy. Like I'm content playing golf because I don't really care. I just want to be out there and hang out. Like I'm not content just being an NFL broadcaster. I want to do it for 30 years at the top. That's just my approach to everything that I do. I think as I

work through all of this, the thing I try to remind myself when I start feeling, you know, frustrated or, you know, it's very easy, the human element of it's very easy to find ways to be a victim. Right. I think it's everywhere you look, it's very easy for people to find a way to be a victim. Like, I'm not a victim. I have a great job. I have a great opportunity. I call big time games. Is it the top? No, but it's pretty damn good. I have to every once in a while as I find myself like being too competitive or too consumed with what's that next opportunity? What's that next path? Why am I? It's to just like take a step back and be like,

how many people would kill to even do what I'm doing now? You retired after 14 years in the NFL and on day one of retirement, got a unbelievable job to call great games on one of the biggest networks in all of sports. And within two years got to call a Super Bowl. So like you kind of have to just like anything, you just check your perspective a little bit. And that doesn't mean I'm ever gonna just be content

doing this for a hundred years. I won't, it's just not my personality. But it doesn't mean I can't be thankful. It doesn't mean I can't just say, you know what? I'm thankful for where I am now. Appreciate the people that I'm doing it with now. That doesn't mean I don't have other aspirations to move beyond it. But man, like perspective can be such a tricky thing. And oftentimes it comes through heartache and personal struggle and whatever. But like, I think it's nice sometimes just to be like, where am I in the moment? Even if it's not exactly the optimal place I want to be in the, in the perfect world, life's not perfect.

Life's not fair. It wasn't fair as a player. I didn't always get the contract I wanted. I'd always didn't get the amount of passes I wanted. And the life's not fair. I've always felt like my best, I can make the best out of any opportunity and best situation and maximize it. And that's how I have to approach all of this. I wish for everyone I know that I love and care about to have that type of framing.

And let me decode it just the way that I hear it. There's a gratitude to the people. There's a gratitude to the situation. There's a gratitude to the situation. There's an unsettledness about wanting to get better and take the next steps. And in doing so, you lean on preparation, you lean on learning. And what that allows you to do is have what's called high agency. So you talked about not being a victim. The opposite of that is what you have, which is high agency. And that means I have power. I choose how I'm going to engage with whatever environment conditions, circumstances are, and I'm choosing to engage to do my very best in those circumstances. So psychologically in psychological terms, that's called high agency, which is what you have.

And then you just really drive in to the things that matter most to you. Being a dad, being a partner in your marriage, being a broadcaster, it's really clean. So now I want to be clear here. That does not mean there's not times where I do feel sorry for myself and I do bitch and complain to my wife. And I do. I think at least I, you could tell me better than I, I feel like that's kind of the human element that we all fight, right? I know I do it, and I know I fall into it. I have to, like, snap myself out and be like, enough? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, look at this, look at this, look at this. These are all, like, I do fight it because, again, in all my soul, I'm like, I can do this. I know, you know what I mean? So, like, I do fight that battle by no means. Am I like Kumbaya? Like, I'm not an overly optimistic person, but I'm by no means pessimistic. I feel like I'm pretty realistic. Like when things are good, I call them good. When they're not, I'm, they're not. Um, but I'll be honest. Like it's something that I'm still driven by that. I want to, once you taste it, it's hard to not have it. And this is why for high performers or people that like really care about getting better, something that I'm still driven by that I want to, once you taste it, it's hard to not have it.

And this is why for high performers or people that like really care about getting better, I'm always pointing to a gratitude practice because it's the counter rotation to the ambition of, of in straining and striving for more that, that daily practice of gratitude, which is as simple as writing three things down that you're grateful for today. The way I do it is not at the end of the day, but at the beginning is when I wake up in the morning, I just go through like, what am I grateful for? And it's usually, you know, my people. It's that I've got a roof.

It's that my heart is working. My eyes are working. And I don't do it like a checklist. I just really kind of settle in and feel one, two or three of those. And it just sets my brain up like, yeah, remember the basics are really cool. And then and then that allows me to stay on my front foot with a gratitude underneath, you know, the surface. I want to ask you, I know this is your show, but I'm gonna ask you a question.

This is our show. It's our show. Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you a question. Yeah. So someone, whoever it is, you're around hyper-competitive, high-performer, wants to chase everything to the moon, right? We see all these successful people, and the underlying drive of it all is it's actually a pretty unhealthy in the real world way to live.

But in their sport, business, entrepreneur, whatever, whoever they are. It's the only way they were able to achieve and be the person that we all know them to be. So like one without the other, we wouldn't know who they were. What is that balance between not giving up, not being content when you reach step three of 10? Because it's good enough. I don't like good enough. Like that's never something that I've been able to wrap my head around.

So like, how do people in the everyday world live a healthy life where they're not just sitting back saying, I'm gonna kick my feet up, I'm done pursuing anything of excellence, but also not overwhelming it where every morsel of my day, every morsel of my being is just consumed by nothing's good enough? I love the question because it's really sophisticated. And I'll share it in the way

of a story. If you and I are on a path and we're both on the path of improvement, let's just say, early on that path, we're trying to get better at some basics. And then the path starts to narrow because we know the basics and we're really trying to get better at some details of something. So that's like the path of high performance. And what happens for most people on the path of high performance is that because they were committed at an early age, their identity fused with their skills. So I am what I do. And that's a very, very, very, very, very dangerous fusing of ideas. I am a football player would be one of the most dangerous things that you could say at an early age, because then you're in complete identity is fused with the output. If I was good,

I'm a good person. If I'm not, if I wasn't so good today, maybe I don't matter. So that's the high performance path. Now, at some point you need to decouple identity, which sounds like you have clearly done identity from skill. And then you start to make, you can make a choice. Do I want to continue to the path of mastery? So mastery is, it doesn't lack lack ambition but it is about mastery of self through the craft where the earlier part the path of high performance is about just being the best or my best because I desperately need it so either to make the money to get the fame and attention to know that I'm okay to get the approval from mom or dad whatever whatever it might be. There's a desperation in that. And if you don't kind of graduate into the path of mastery, it becomes stifling.

It becomes overwhelming. It becomes about the output and the knowing that you're okay through the output as opposed to that rich contour that, oh, I'm in love with just figuring things out. I'm in love with the nuances and the details because this is a mastery of self through this particular craft of broadcasting. That's so well said. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, truly a masterclass on how to work from the inside out.

Appreciate it. And so you are a master of preparation. Wow, it's nice. Yeah, no, no. Let's do that. And I've got a fun little thing. We, we asked Copilot to come up with a handful of the most iconic big quotes from broadcasters. And so I'd love to test you and see if you can call them out. And like, if you know what they are and I've had no prep for this, this is not easy now. Okay. And I'm trying not to look at computer. Cause I don't know if there's answers or questions are on there. you're reading. Don't look at that.

So this is what Microsoft Copilot came up with. So the first one. Do you believe in miracles? Who said that? Oh, who said that? Oh, that's Al Michaels. Wow. That was when we beat the Russians, right?

Yeah. The Soviets, I guess. Yeah, 1980 Olympic miracle on ice. Miracle on ice. Nice job. One for one. Okay, good. That was what, Lake Placid? I think it was. Is that right? Yeah. Well, that's really good. Okay.

Whoa, Nelly. Whoa, Nelly. Brett Musburger? No. No, it's a college. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Was that right? Keith Jackson. Keith Jackson. I knew it was a college football guy. Okay, here we go. Boom. That's what football's all about. John Madden. Okay, good. You got that one. That would be the easiest one for you to get. Down goes Frazier. Down goes

Frazier. Down goes Frazier. Oh, Jesus. That was Muhammad Ali and Frazier. Oh, God. The thrill in Manila, right? Close. Close. So who would have called those iconic? Oh God. I can picture his face. I don't know. Who is it? Howard. Yes. Okay. Now here's a guy who,

this is his go-to phrase. Oh, it's Chris Collinsworth. That's great. Okay, good. All right, this was a tricky one. I may be wrong, but I doubt it. Oh, God. Could be a lot of people. Charles Barkley. Oh, that's you. Charles Barkley, okay.

He's got some good ones. He's got some great ones now. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Yeah, this is, okay. This was the wide world of sports, Jim McKay. Okay. Yeah, good. And so what is yours?

What's your go-to? I don't know if I have one. I guess we'd have to ask people. Yeah. I don't know if I have a like common phrase. I don't know if I have like a big moment. I don't, I don't know. I guess that'd be a great question.

Maybe we should ask like. We should ask Copilot. We should ask Copilot. We should ask Copilot that. What is Greg Olson's best phrase? I don't know. All right, Greg, this is so much fun today. I just want to say thank you. The insights are rich. I love doing this with you and thank you for playing along. Appreciate you, man. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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