Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Death of a Team – What Happens When The Game Is Over | The Game Inside The Games, Ep. 5

Episode Date: February 9, 2025

The Super Bowl can mark the pinnacle of a team’s journey—but when the final whistle blows, another game begins: the game of transition.For NFL players, the end of a season isn’t just about the scoreboard—it’s about identity, loss, and what comes next. Some teams prepare for this reality. Others ignore it, only to face the reality later.In this episode of The Game Inside The Games, Dr. Mike and NFL legend Brandon Marshall pull back the curtain on the psychological weight of the season’s end—and how elite teams, like Pete Carroll’s Seahawks, used emotional intelligence, team culture, and mental preparation to thrive under pressure.Brandon opens up about the hidden struggles of post-career transitions, the mistakes most players make, and how studying at Harvard changed his approach to life after football. Plus, Michael shares never-before-heard stories from the Seahawks’ Super Bowl run—including why a locker room fight days before the game wasn’t a crisis, but a sign that the team was right where they needed to be.Because whether you’re an athlete, a leader, or anyone navigating major life shifts—transitions define us.🔥 Don’t miss this masterclass on resilience, leadership, and the psychology of high performance.🎧 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 Get the playbook for ‘The End of Teams’ → https://www.findingmastery.com./thegame/ scroll to the bottom of this page, and enter your email.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 the games presented by Microsoft Copilot. I am sport and performance psychologist, Dr. Michael Gervais. I'm Brandon Marshall. Together, we're pulling back the curtain on the psychology of pivotal moments that can make or break a Super Bowl team. There's a moment sometime after the confetti falls when realization sets in. This is the last time this team will ever be together.

It doesn't matter if you win or if you lose. It doesn't matter how close you are to your teammates or how long you've been on the roster. Every team, every year, dies after the Super Bowl. Some will leave for bigger contracts. Some will stay. Some will retire, some will never play again. And no one really talks about it, but all players feel it. There's this thing right underneath the surface that we're coming to the end. So Brandon, you've been in locker rooms the moment the season ends. It happens every year. What is the season ending moment like for you on a normal basis? Like what is that like for

you? Yeah, I mean, there's only one winner at the end of the year, right? The one who's hoisting up the Lombardi. So for everyone else, I want to throw around a term and, you know, I got to be careful here because of the stigma, but it's depressing. It's sad. You know, you have guys that are packing up their lockers in black trash bags, right? So you're throwing all of your stuff there, and that's the end of it, right? So it doesn't feel good. And you also know that this is the last time that you're going to see some of your boys, right, that you were with for so many months.

You saw these people more than you saw your family, right? Because you've with for so many months you saw these people more than you saw your family right because you got to think about it you're together six days a week sometimes seven and we're there from some of us 6 a.m. 7 a.m. to 5 6 p.m. so it's one of the toughest times one of the toughest times in our season is that end of the year, and I just picture the black trash bags. It's a thing in the NFL, right? People know, like, yeah, you get cut or you got to clean out your locker.

They just hand you a black trash bag. And so oftentimes, the reason I wanted to bring this up with you is because loss is part of sport. And the same part of the brain that deals with grief loss, like actual loss of a loved one is the same part of the brain actually that works with loss of a game. And then the, the ending is a loss of a team. And so it is a complicated process to go through. And did you, when it, when it came to the last game of the season, did you have this idea? Like this could be our last time that we're together? Or was that below the surface?

You didn't want to deal with it. That's a distraction to high performance. How did you manage, at one level, the knowing that it's coming to an end? And at the other, the need to commit to giving yourself the best chance to be your very best. It's interesting that you say it that way because it's so true. It's painful. It does feel like a death. And it's another moment and opportunity for the majority of us to mask it,

which we do. And that's why we end up in you know ruins or challenges post-season or post-career because we don't deal with some of these things there's a lot of trauma when it comes to moments like this and we're not equipped or we don't lean into them we actually run away from them right because we're trained to be present be here now which is very powerful but when that season ends we're just on to the next we're actually also trained to deal with the comings and goings of people right so it's almost like we are desensitized to loss. Next play. Next man up. So we know that this team is going to change. There may be even changes in, you know, the coaching staff, support staff, but it's okay.

We got to just focus on the next thing. And the next thing is the off season. I remember the first time that Seahawks, when we went to the Super Bowl, it was right underneath the surface and it was a decision. Do we embrace it or not? Do we bring forward that this will be the last time that we'll see each other? Or do we just pretend like it's going to happen for, you know, the next 100 years? So we chose to not bring it forward. And we did it in a demonstratively, but we brought it forward in a very subtle way, which is like, cherish this, cherish each other. That's good. Right. And so make sure this was my, my note to the team, to the athletes,

make sure that you find moments to connect with the people that you haven't connected with the way you'd like to connect because this is all temporary. And so that I believe that the fragility when you embrace the fragility of a moment it pulls you in deeper to it yeah and it can be really scary though because this might be the last time you and i see each other we don't know that that's right yeah and that that's really scary but here's what's cool about listening to you talk right now. That's the difference between winning a Super Bowl, which you guys did. Yes, we did.

Right? Yes, we did. And not. Like, you guys are thinking about these things. The losing teams, they're not thinking about these things. Yeah. And so I'm sitting here, and I'm like, wow. You know, how often was I actually in a championship organization, high performing organization? There's only so much I can do as a player, right, in the locker room.

But a lot of it has to come from top down. We talk about buy into the mind, you know, performance. So it was interesting hearing you break that down that way. Yeah, I mean, there's a fine line between dealing with the the reality of things and then also staying a little bit more at the surface to deal with the performance of things and knowing how to toggle between those two elements yeah there's an art in that for sure because if we stay down and like oh my god i might not ever see you again or you again like i don't know like there's there's too much but if we only stay at the the crust then we just get kind of whipped around by whatever the stressors of life are you're asking me a lot of questions but i feel like it's time for me to ask you some questions

right because you were actually here at the super bowl you have the ring right you won one you lost one you've also been around players like the same questions you're asking me as a player, but you saw this in your position, guys that got it right, guys that didn't. So can you tell us, you know, some of the stories, the cool moments from the Super Bowl and how you guys approached it, how you prepped the coaches, how you prepped some of the players to embrace this moment and deal with it? Thank you. And then I'll just, of course, correct one thing is that I didn't win anything. I got to be part of a team that won, right?

I disagree. Really? I mean. Yeah, of course you did. I got to be part of a team. We're running around here, and that's one of the questions that I'm asking, and you guys will see some of this content, you know, on all of our platforms here. But I'm running around here without you, and I'm asking the guys like Justin Jefferson or Cam Jordans of the world, the Raheem Osters of the world,

like how much of the game is mental and how much of it is physical? Now, Cam Jordan's on the lower end where he's like, is it 40 to 60? But most of the guys are saying 70 to 80. So when you think about that, right, like, no, you won a championship because if my mind isn't right as a player, then my body can't follow. Yeah. If your mind's not right, you can't access your craft. And you spend we spend so much time investing in our craft, the right footwork, the right technique, the right focus, all of that. And if you if you don't have the mental skills to deal with high stress, high speed environments, it's like you can you just can't reach it.

You can't reach the. Yeah, right that's right so one of the things that i think um coach carol and the seahawks what we did really well is we understood that there's a line to get to and that line is really intense there's an intensity when you're really sharp it's a it is a high stress environment and if you put it if you if you challenge people too much and get them revved up too much, then it becomes very messy. So we wanted to make sure that we were going to, everyone was on board. Let's challenge each other to get right to that line. And then let's invest in the psychological skills to come down, to be able to deal with that stress, breathing, self-talk, dah, dah, dah. Okay. So that gave us more room to push.

You see how this works? Yes yes so we got to push really hard the skills and tools to back it down to stay regulated with each other now all that being said this is not talked about i'm not going to use names because athlete code but two days before the super bowl in the locker room now we are are a relationship based organization that is developmentally minded. The developmentally minded is technical skills, physical skills, mental skills, all encompassed in the relationships that we're building with each other and ourselves. Okay. That's the model two days before the Superbowl. And, um, so we're first Superbowl. Okay. Okay. That's right. That's important. The one we won in pretty dramatic fashion.

Yeah. Um, two athletes got in a fist fight. Oh, wow. On the same side of the ball in the same room. So these are teammates and there were so much tension, right? And we, we trusted everyone's got these abilities to regulate. We're going to keep reminding them on how to downreg and we were right on that that wild edge and one of them kind of lost his way a little bit and it happened and so and then the most brilliant part of coach carol

he's like perfect right he said perfect listen we're right at the edge hey take care of each other figure it out now like fix this to the two athletes like great we're at the edge hey take care of each other figure it out now like fix this to the two athletes like great we're at the edge we're you know let's make sure that we don't lose each other now because it got so tense about something it was who said something who knows what it was and they didn't have any other language so they got physical but they didn't hate each other they weren't like in that space so they worked it out it was great and most people would hear the story and think oh my god there's a fight in the in the locker room before that what but that's we're we're used to that as athletes that type of environment i always say like the

military and then also professional sports is one it's like a toxic can be a toxic environment but it's there's there's there there aren't any other environments outside of military for me professional sports where your best is needed every single day and you're you're in that environment of high performance and you have these emotions that you have to manage and deal with so me listen to that story i'm not surprised but for people out there watching this and hearing this for the first time, absolutely. Wait, wait. Let me add one more thing here.

Is that what made that work? I'm going on that vibe for just a second. Is that what's not told in that story is the unbelievable amount of time early on in the season, preseason, early in the season, that the team invested in the relationships with each other. Ah, that's good. So there was a base there. And even if, like, say you and I got in a fistfight. Now, it's not quite a fair. You might know something.

You might. You know, but, you know. MMA or something. But what I'm also counting on and you're also counting on is the whole team to rally around us and help fix and repair the rupture. And so the team had a really strong bond that was taking care of each other, whether it was something wild on the sidelines, whether it was at a club or in a locker room.

Rule number one is Coach Carroll, I don't know if you remember it, always protect the team. And that means be a great teammate. To be a great teammate, you need to know each other. Yeah. So you talk about Coach Carroll, right? What's his genius? Like I only had a cup of tea with you guys, right?

Like I was there. I was a big fan of Coach Carroll, right? We built a relationship before I even got there. So it made it easier. But I was there for, you know, seven months, right? So I was able to see it i was able to see what the culture that you guys built yeah see the environment and i loved it right uh but you were there what nine years with nine seasons yeah what's the thing like i what i my

takeaway was this is one of the greatest leaders in the world not just sports yeah am i off there or am i on the money okay i'll Okay, I'll tell you what is not celebrated about what was happening there. And this starts with Coach Carroll. Is one, the intention and two, a process to really understand what makes the other person special. So every coach was responsible to understand what made Brandon Marshall special.

And that takes deep thinking. You've got to go, you've got to watch on the field and practice like, Oh, great footwork. Oh, this, that, and the other, but what really makes him special. And we wanted you to know that we see that. So we'd make sure we calibrate. And sometimes the athlete would come on top and be like, wait, that's all you think. That's all you think, which is great. No, that's calibrate. Right. So it's all about like seeing what the potential of another person is and then saying, are we on the same page? And then both nod our heads like, yeah, we're on.

All right. My job is to hold the standard. Wow. For that to be an honest expression of what you're capable of, not just the imagination of what we think it could be. So, and then what we would do is that you support people and then challenge them know them and then hold the standard and the support part is like look i don't care what you actually do like you're a good man and i see these things

in you now i'm going to challenge you to be that person that we say that you you think you can be wow and then we just want all of your uniqueness to come forward. Yeah. That's all we would ask. And Coach Carroll was great at this. Saturday night before the game, he'd say, look, hey, Bobby, Bobby Wagner, what are you going to do out there? Coach, I'm going to have fun. Right?

Like this would happen a lot. And then Coach would say something. Maybe it's not Bobby. Maybe it's somebody else. Say, hey, Russ, hey, whatever. You think you're going to make any mistakes? Yeah, probably. You got a teammate that's going to help you out?

And everyone's like, yep. Oh, wow. So be like, I got your back. I got your back. So we created an environment where mistakes are part of it. Yeah. So don't go out and try to do anything. You guys created a culture where guys weren't afraid to fail.

That's it. They weren't afraid to make mistakes because they had teammates. And that's what great teammates do. You get knocked down, I got you. I pick you up. So all we were challenging you to do, Brandon, is to be your very best. That version of you that we hope we are seeing. Yeah.

And just be your unique self. So listen, you're the host of this podcast. Love this conversation. But can I ask one more question? Oh, yeah. I'm with this podcast. Love this conversation. But can I ask one more question? Oh, yeah. I'm with you. Thank you. Yeah.

Coach Carroll led for a very long time college football, National Football League, and leading alphas. Alpha males. That's right. Yeah. Alpha competitors. Right. Towards the end of his career.

Right. Couldn't keep it on track. Meaning from a win-loss standpoint. Culture hasn't changed his approach didn't change but i'm bringing this up because he was he and the seattle seahawks agreed to part ways right yep goes to hawaii i don't know where he went but he had to sit for a year we talk about adversity and you're we're talking you're asking me a player, but we have one of the most legendary coaches and the most, one of the most legendary leaders that the world has ever seen.

What did he do? Do you know, did you stay in contact with us? Anything that you can share with us that can help us grow when we face adversity? Cause he wanted to continue. Oh yeah. He was competing to stay. So, so, so yeah. Walk us through that because I think there's some key learnings for us. Yeah. Continue. Oh, yeah. He was competing to stay. So. So. So, yeah. Walk us through that, because I think there's some key learnings for us. Yeah. So I love that we're talking about this because what Coach Carroll did. So let's be clear. He wanted to stay in ball and he made the choice that the terms were not right.

And so they parted ways. Seattle and Coach Carroll parted ways. And what he ended up doing is finding this interesting balance between fishing family and football okay so he went fishing to go get connected to mother nature he reinvested in his relationships with his family members and and he also watched young ball so his grandson is a quarterback so of course he's keeping an eye on what's happening in the nfl but he's intimately involved in like young ball so we went back to some roots and so what i love about what i'm saying or pointing to here is he went back to mother nature he went back to his relationships and he revisited the love of ball through his grandson and so when he got the opportunity to come back to the raiders he was like, oh, I'm really ready.

Like, I feel rejuvenated. I'm reconnected. And I can't go wait to get reconnected to Alpha competitors. Wow. Yeah. I'm excited. That's going to be really fun to watch. Thank you for letting me host a segment.

Oh, man. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this thing. You are a gift. Yeah. Thank you, Brandon. So we're talking about. You are a gift. Yeah. Thank you, Brandon. So we're talking about the death of a team. Yeah.

And so, you know, what's happening in a couple days here for the Super Bowl, both teams are coming to an end. Yeah. And if we knew what you knew, if the listener and viewer knew what you knew about transitions, how would you want them to approach transitions in their life? So, I mean, you just said a big word that can go over a lot of people's heads. Uh, life is filled with transitions and the way you approach transitions determines the quality of your life. Big statement, too. It's really important. Transitions are everything. Everything, everything, everything.

So, you know, I think we have to start there, right? Yeah. So, you know, and then your question on transition for me. It went out the window when you said that. I was like, I didn't even hear the question. I was just like, whoa, whoa, you want to talk about transition? That's a whole podcast. Yeah, right.

Yeah. My approach to transitions? Yep. Man, I lean into them. I lean into transitions. To me, that's where growth is. It could be tough. It could be painful. But what I did in football, I prepared for my transition, right?

So we're talking about the Super Bowl. We're talking about athletes. In the peak of my career, I actually went to Harvard, went off-season 2014. I spent my entire off-season at Harvard building out a case study on transition. No, I did not know this. And so that's why I knew what I do, right? Yeah. Like, all right, I found my purpose, mental health.

I want to bridge the gap in the mental health community. All right, how do I build this into a nonprofit? How do I build this into a for-profit? What does it look like? Content and commerce came out of it, right? So I didn't know how important transitions were there, but we said in football, like, transitions are hard for football players, football players. I didn't know life was filled with transitions.

87% in football do not do transition do transition well no we're talking about divorce uh we're talking about uh financial financial ruins you know all of this stuff yeah everything yeah everything so i thought you know i was gonna have one transition but life is filled with transition so i prepared for that one and um you know so i was ready for that um and then after ball there was other transitions and so when you understand that life is about transitions um now you built boundaries and that walls walls protect what does walls look like around transition oh i'm never going to transition i'm it's never going to transition. I'm always going to be good.

This relationship or my money, et cetera, et cetera. So when it hits you, it hits you like rocks. Boundaries, right? Like you're prepared. You understand that life is filled with transition. You understand that life is about ebbs and flows. So when they come, the impact isn't as great, right? So I think the best thing I can add to this conversation around transition,

and maybe you can add more to it to answer your own question, but for me, it's do we know how important transitions are? And if we do, right, like, are you prepared for them? That's great. And the way that I think I hear you say that you prepare for them is lean into them. Know that it's hard to let go of the thing that you are comfortable with. It is working well, but to be the person you want to be, you've got to do the transition well. And they are pretty tricky. So what I suggest for me, for my life, I'll just start there for a minute, is that I want to practice transitions. I don't

want to wait until a quote unquote big trend. So I practice every night a transition. Oh, wow. And every morning is a transition. So there's a routine, a process that I go through to do my reflection on the day and then a looking ahead, you know, for the morning. Like, who do I want to be today and how do I feel about, I'm sorry, how can I use my imagination to feel the man I want to be? So there's those two. And then here's another kind of one that I don't talk about often is that when we say goodbye to each other, I am going to honor that transition. And so there'll be an eye contact that I make.

Now you're going to know you're going to be looking for it. Maybe it's weird. Yeah, I'm like, what are you going to say? No, but it's just no one else notices. But it's in me a way to honor the relationship. When I say goodbye, I mean it because I don't know if we'll get to see each other again. And what that does, when I practice that every day, 12 times a day saying goodbye to people, it helps me stay right here in the present moment with people because my ambition, my anxiety can get a hold of me and I just want to go, go, go, build. But it's the relationships that run this whole thing.

And so these quiet little moments are these subtle little transitions throughout the day that I'm practicing. I read this book a long time ago where they said, there was this little quote and it said, the most powerful place you can be at is in the present moment. Yeah, for sure. You're there. That's where high performance happens. powerful place you can be at is in the present moment. Yeah, for sure. You're there.

That's where high performance happens. That's where everything takes place. Brandon Marshall, you are a legend for a reason. Thank you for this conversation. Are you about to land the plane? Yeah, we're about to land the plane. No, we're not. I got one more question for you. Oh, good.

Okay. Who are you? How did you get into this like how the hell did you get to becoming one of the like best high performance coaches or in the world whatever however you want to define it right because i'm sitting here listening to you on that last part like transitions yeah that's mastery yeah thank you man um i'm just a no don't give me that i'm just a guy i'm a learner like when did you know this was your thing like you talk about purpose when um actually psychology comes easy to me so um i love the science of it, but I feel like I have a, you know how some people have synesthesia

when they hear sounds or smells, they see colors. Yeah. It feels, it's not like that exactly, but I just feel like I understand humans. And this is like a laboratory that I love spending time with is helping people be their very best. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. Yes. Now it's time for the Confidence Playbook presented by

Mack Weldon. For this segment, we spoke with four-time Olympic gold medalist and track legend Michael Johnson about his deep insights on confidence. Check it out. You just have a way that you hold yourself that feels real. Can you talk about, and this is just me watching from a distance on TV, trying to make sense of how are you doing this over and over again. Can you talk about confidence?

Yeah, I think confidence is important. It's something you hear athletes talk about all of the time. You hear about it in the business field now as well. People talking about the importance of confidence. But there's a lot of fake confidence. And fake confidence will collapse on you in a moment of truth. You can walk around sort of thinking,

oh, I'm confident because I wanna be confident. That's not where confidence comes from. You have to know where your confidence comes from. I knew that my confidence came from the fact that when I'm standing there behind the blocks before a 200-meter Olympic final, and I know that, okay, when this gun goes off, 19 seconds from now, I'm going to either be the Olympic champion or I'm not. I need to be confident, and I need to know where that confidence comes from, because that's the moment of truth. If you're confident just because you want to be confident and I need to know where that confidence comes from because that's the moment of truth if you if you're confident Just because you want to be you want to be there and you want to win. It's just it's a flimsy foundation

It's not something that you can go. Okay, I'm ready because that's what's gonna happen in that moment You're gonna be like am I ready? I knew I was ready to deliver my best performance in that moment because I'm talented I'm I know I have the gift, but I know also that I've worked really hard, but I also know that I've mentally prepared myself to be able to come into this situation, into this competition, which is high pressure. I'm confident that I've mentally prepared myself to be able to come in here and deliver in the moment and deal with the pressure of the moment.

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 MackWeldon.com and use the code FindingMastery at checkout. All right, now it's time for our AI insights brought to you by Microsoft Copilot. All right. Hey, Copilot, based on the conversation with Brandon Marshall, create a concise playbook on navigating the end of a team. Focus on how individuals can process the transition, maximize their final moments together, and carry forward the lessons learned into their next chapter. If you'd like to get this playbook, we'll include it in our newsletter. So be sure to subscribe at findingmastery.com slash newsletter, or you can

find it on our website at findingmastery.com slash the game. Thank you so much for tuning in the game inside the games. We'll see you soon. Next week, we've got something really special for you at Finding Mastery. If you enjoyed the game inside the games, you're going to love this. It's a roundtable conversation from a hangar at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. And so you have a high performance psychologist, an MMA champion, an elite climber, and an Olympic skier from fight night intensity to high altitude survival. Their insights will reshape how you think about fear, setbacks, and success. This is a conversation you are going to

want to check out. Thank you for being part of this community. We love sharing these conversations with you. So we'll see you next week. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com

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