Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Valorie Kondos Field, UCLA Gymnastics Head Coach

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

This week’s conversation is with Valorie Kondos Field, often referred to as “Miss Val.”She’s the head coach of the six-time NCAA Champion, 21 NCAA Regional Champion and 17-time PAC 12 Champion UCLA Women’s Gymnastics team.Valorie was recently named the Pac-12 “Coach of the Century,” and in 2010, she became one of only two active coaches to be inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame.She considers the late John Wooden, the legendary and most successful collegiate basketball coach of all time, as one of her inspirations, and closest mentor and friend.Countless student-athletes praise Valorie for her guidance during their athletic careers, and after they’ve graduated from UCLA and have entered the next chapter in their lives. Included in the hundreds of athletes she has coached or mentored are Olympic champions Simone Biles, Jordan Wieber, Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Laurie Hernandez and Nastia Liukin.For Valorie, life is a grand adventure that all comes down to choices.The moment she found out she had breast cancer is a prime example of the way she chooses to live her life.In essence, she became grateful that her form of cancer was treatable. Grateful that she could go get chemotherapy for it and she’s continued to live her life that way ever since.In this conversation, we discuss why she doesn’t believe in failure, why being a pessimist is the easy way out, and why gratitude is the most important habit to train.Valerie has an infectious personality and this incredible mindset that, “I get to…” rather than “I have to…” and I think it’s something we can all apply to our own lives.I think you’re really going to love learning from her._________________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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to plow through it or go around it or something? And that's what makes life so much fun. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery. We want to better understand what they're searching for, their psychological framework, how they see the world, how they make sense of events and people. And we also want to understand the mental skills that they've used to build and refine their craft. 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.

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slash finding mastery. All right. This week's conversation is with Valerie Condos Field. And oftentimes people refer to her as Miss Val. She's the head coach of the six-time NCAA championship for UCLA women's gymnastics. That's a phenomenal effort. So one of the quotes that I've heard John Wooden talk about, and John Wooden is another one of the legendary coaches that came from UCLA. He was one of the winningest coaches in NCAA basketball. Coach Wooden had said, as I wish all of my best friends a national title, and I wish for all of my enemies, I don't know if you use that exact word, two championships, because it's really hard. His thought was once you win one, it's wonderful. But then after a second, a third and a fourth, it's really hard. The whole universe

that you live in changes because expectations change and it's really hard to continue winning. So winning after winning is an incredibly difficult thing to do. And so not only has she won six times, she also has won the regional championships 21 times and her and her team are 17-time Pac-12 champion as well. So that's a lot of winning. I mean, she really does understand it. And to take it even further, Valerie was recently named the Pac-12 Coach of the Century. And in 2010, she became one of the only two active coaches to be inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame. Phenomenal. And she credits, she considers the late John Wooden, the head coach John Wooden, again, one of the most legendary and successful collegiate basketball coaches of all time as being one of her inspirations and a close

mentor. So we end up getting some of the good stuff from the legendary John Wooden through this conversation with Miss Val. And her insights are rich. And she's coached and mentored so many top level athletes. Some of the names you've definitely heard, but these are Olympian champions like Simone Biles, Jordan Weber, Kyla Ross, Madison Koshin, Lori Hernandez, and Nastia Lukin. I mean, these are folks, you've probably heard their names. And if you're in the gymnastics world, you definitely know them. They're legendary. And she's been part of their experience, their life experience, their sport experience. And she's just got a way about having relationships where she really works to understand people. And for Valerie, life is a grand adventure that comes out to choices. And we drop into that in this conversation.

And a great example is when she started talking about the moment that she found out she had breast cancer, and it was just a prime example of the way that she chooses to live her life. We talk about that in the conversation, the texture of that and how she dealt with that information. And in essence, she became grateful for her form of cancer, that it was treatable. And that is phenomenal to think about investing in a way of looking at life that you are so conditioned and so clear that you're grateful that the form of cancer that you have is treatable. So that's a lot of work that's gone into her way of thinking and her thought patterns. So this conversation is just

flat out, it's rich. And we discuss why she doesn't believe in failure and why being pessimistic is the easy way out and why ultimately gratitude is the most important habit to train. Okay, so you'll get from this conversation that Valerie just has an infectious personality, incredible mindset, and it's captured by the I get to mindset as she calls it. I think you're really going to learn from her and to be able to explore a deeper part of how you see the world and how you can do better in your own life as well. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Valerie Kondos Field. Valerie, how are you? I am absolutely fantastic. That's a great way to start the conversation.

I am. So, okay. So let's go with reference point. What allows today to be fantastic for you? That I woke up. Is it that simple? It is. I get another day. Okay. So people, some people say that and they're, you know, they're clear that they're grateful for the day and some people had to earn that gratitude. And were you conditioned to be grateful or did you have to earn it from some kind of way? I feel like I've always been grateful cause I had an exceptionally grateful mother who was joyful. So I've always been joyful and seen joy in things. Optimist? Meaning looking for the good in stuff and others and people?

Very much so. Even looking in the good and stuff that's not good and how it can help you grow. Okay. All right. So let's go this way. Is there a difference for you between optimism and joy? Oh, that's a good question. Yes.

I think that optimism is a conscious thing that you choose to be optimistic. And I feel like joy is a byproduct of how you live your life. I would say it exactly like that as well. So for me, I had to learn and train optimism, which is to find what's good, right? So the lenses are either optimistic or pessimistic, and we're not born that way. And so you say that you are able to find the good in things that are even not good. Okay. Yeah. So three years ago, I get a call from my doctor and she says, I've gotten some not so great news for you. You have breast cancer. And my world stopped because the last time I dealt with anybody in my life that had cancer, it was my mother who had passed away 30 years prior. And she, uh, had a horrible, horrible,

horrible, horrible death. And I was preparing myself for this. And as I was in my state of stun, I heard very clearly, be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things. And I take that. I immediately understood that that was God speaking to me. And I got a little snarky and I said, God, don, don't know if you heard or not, but, uh, this be anxious for nothing thing isn't sitting too well. I have breast cancer and I heard it again. And I went home and I told my husband about the not so great news. And then I told him about hearing, be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things. And very calmly he says, Oh yeah, that's from the Bible. And I had never read that in the Bible because I had never read the Bible Bible. I've read parts of it. And I went over to the Bible and sure enough, there it is in Philippians four,

it says, be anxious for nothing and in all things. And then it goes on and paraphrasing says, uh, and grateful for all things. And so I took this as a commandment and it was not a suggestion. And so I chose to obey, but I did not know how I was going to obey. And, um, I went to my oncologist the next day and I'll never forget her smiling at me and saying, if you choose to have chemotherapy, we know that we have the chemo cocktail that will work for you. And had you gotten this type of breast cancer 10 years ago, we didn't have anything for you, but we know now what will work if you choose to get the chemo. And at that moment, the equation, be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things that clicked the way I was going to be grateful was through the way I was not going to be anxious was through gratitude. And I immediately switched my inner dialogue from I have to get chemotherapy to I get to get chemo.

No way. That's a great story with a really cool payout at the end. I didn't know where you were going to take it. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Okay. So if you look at some from a scientific lens, we all from like a humanistic lens, you only get, we only get one emotion at a time. That's it. Right. So you can't be happy and sad at the same moment. You can't be anxious and grateful at the same moment. You can toggle back and forth quickly. Like that's kind of crazy. And that happens for us. Right.

So the idea of make a choice. Choose. Yeah. Make a choice. Be anxious or be grateful. Right. Because they cannot coexist in my brain at the same time. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you chose to be grateful for chemo. And then how did that shape your experience? It was, I tell people that going through breast cancer was the best thing that ever happened in my life. And they think that I'm just, you know, trying to write a Hallmark card, but it is true. Why would people think that about you? Why do they? Yeah. Would you, before this experience, because oftentimes not always,

um, radical health issues have the potential to radically change people sometimes for the worst and sometimes for the better be prior to this. Were you, did you stay on the surface? Did you? No, I think prior to this, getting back to your first question is that I'm very optimistic. Okay. So I'll see the world through rose colored glasses all the time. Mom taught you that? Yes. Okay. And dad, optimist as well? No. Dad is a narcissist. Seriously? Yeah. You know what that word means? Yeah. You're in the world of gymnastics. You know what that world means? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So when you say it, do you mean like narcissistic tendencies?

My dad? No, no, no, no, no, no. He's a full blown narcissist. Um, he's a, he's Greek a hundred percent. And, uh, he's a very established artist and his idol is Picasso and he just feels like, and he has been diagnosed with bipolar tendencies or, and he won't take anything for it because it'll affect his art and his craft. Do you know if it was bipolar one or two? I do not. Yeah.

So the difference between the two is that one is radical swings. And when there's a manic or hypomanic episode, it's like, I got to get him out of jail again. And then just below that, when the swings aren't so bad, it's like, okay, he's just getting nuts. I think he's in between those because he has a switch. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And he, uh, you know, and it's, it's, you know, growing up with a mother who was just absolutely lovely, loves everyone, saw the good in everything. You know, I would come home, I was a ballet dancer and I'd come home and I'd say, oh, they're casting, you know, they're casting new ballet. And my dad would immediately say, did you get the lead? And my mother would say, oh, honey, what's it about? Who's choreographing it? Oh, this is so fun. You know, it was always fun and light and enjoyable. And, uh, if it, if the conversation

revolves around my father, he's fun and light and enjoyable. How many Olympians have you coached? Oh, more than I can probably 15. Okay. I didn't, I want to make this clear. I didn't coach them to the Olympics. Well, you were part of their path afterwards. We did actually, there's only two Olympians that have competed in college or after college. And we had, we trained both of those. Okay. How do you coach? Do you coach more like mom or dad? Mom? Definitely. Is there a hybrid between the two? No, no. Because I come from the world of dance where there's no winning. There's no losing. There's no failure. I don't, I've never grown up with a fear of failure. I don't even believe that word exists. Cool. What do you mean? Well, I've always just known that whenever you attempt to do something,

if you didn't achieve it, you at least learn something in the process. And so this F word is some, it's a word someone made up to make people feel bad, badly about themselves. It's, it doesn't exist. Failure does not exist in, it doesn't exist. I was going to say in my brain, but it just doesn't exist. And that's how I grew up. So I get.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. What is the inoculation for failure? Because the fear of something not working out is the fear is often worse than the thing not working out. So when you say there's no such thing as failure, does that mean that, um, you're using life experiences as data points, as information to be able to be better in the future? Yes, absolutely. So you're just using whatever happens as data.

Yeah. And it's when you look at life, like I look at life as this massive grand adventure. Okay. Hold on. People that know me are going, okay, of course, Mike's going to stop here because I love that. All right. So, because what we're doing right now is we're sorting out your psychological framework, like how you see the world, how you explain events, events that are pleasant, events that are not pleasant, but psychological framework are the pillars that allow us to do extraordinary things. And I don't mean that people that have sand filled frameworks, you know, like, like, I don't know, get blown around in the wind, easy, can't do extraordinary things, but it's just harder to sustain it. Okay. What you're talking about is a grand adventure for life. So where'd you learn it? What does that mean? How do you apply it? Like, I want to really understand that. Where'd you learn it? I think I knew it

and I had to explain it because my student athletes over there, I've been at UCLA 35 years. They've asked me why I believe and live my life the way I do. And so, you know, I've had them ask me what my faith is and I've had to figure out why do I believe what I believe? Why do I live the way I live? Why am I so optimistic? And it makes you really have to dig deep and get introspective and figure all this stuff out to be able to put it into words for them. But this grand adventure, when you, I've always, you know, I remember reading the little saying that life is a journey. I'm like, life is not a journey. A journey is a walk through the park. Life is scary. And there

are boulders that hit you all the time. And what are you going to do? You're going to, you're going to go down on your knees and cover your head and hope it goes away. The big scary thing goes away. Are you going to stand up, take a deep breath and figure out how to plow through it or go around it or something? And that's what makes life so much fun. Period. That is exclamation point. That's rad because you know what? There's, I think the fun part to your point is figuring out how to adjust to the unfolding, unpredictable, unknown. And those three things, uh, when you string them together can be terrifying to people and can be wonderfully exciting. And the space between excitement and anxiousness is thinly veiled.

Right? And so we could both be on the edge of a cliff and look at it. And one of us could see possibilities and the other of us could go, get me off. Right. Right. So that. And it's how you frame it. And your genetic disposition for anxiousness or fear or joy and happiness and excitement. Like there's a,

there is a genetic predisposition. I didn't know that. Do you, when you think of your world-class athletes you've worked with, would you be able to categorize them in some kind of way to capture the difference between those that excel consistently and those that were so close, but couldn't quite pull it together. Yes. I, I noticed a real clear trait in all of the Olympians. Um, even in the athletes that didn't excel before they came to us, but then did great things at UCLA. They love the process. They love the game. What does that mean to you? That they love the process? These are the tip of the arrow athletes. All the details. They understand that it's not just about waiting for game day to show up and then go out and shine. They love to dig in and do the conditioning. They love to figure out how to get from a nine, nine, five to a 10, which is a little itsy bitsy head, Bob knob,

you know, wobble. They, they, do you mean they really love it? They love the process. Do they come from a neurotic place to love it? Or do they come from a joyful place that they love the progression to get better? I can't think of one of my athletes that was, that was great. That was neurotic, the neurotic, the negative, it, they burn out, they fizzle out. It's the joy. And I'll never forget Kyla Ross, 2012 gold medalist. She was a freshman on our team last year. And I said to her after one workout, I said, Kyla, I love watching you do gymnastics. And she said, Ms. Val, I love doing gymnastics. How cool is that? I know. That's really cool. I know. And go back to the first thought about you only get one emotion at a time. Anxiousness is common for many excitement,

joy, whatever it might be. You only get one. If you really love getting better, that means you've got to love figuring stuff out. And what I've found from people that have some anxiousness, and I'd love for you to bounce, see if this makes sense to you. People that have some sort of anxiousness about it, they just want to get to the end. They want to get to a place of relief. They want to know that they've got the metal around their neck or whatever, and their hand is raised like I did it because that's what they really want. They want relief from the internal chaos that they feel. Those that really love it, and I'm using the love word and bouncing, calibrating with you, is that they

love getting better. They love the process of figuring stuff out. Right. Do you, does that make sense to you that the anxiousness is really about trying to get to the end for relief? There's a shortcut. They want the short, the shortcut to success. we all know that. So it's, it's really fun to coach athletes that, that aren't afraid of the process. And, and I'm thinking about someone that I think, you know, you mentioned earlier, your wife knows Jeanette Antolin. She, uh, she was, she came on our team. She had a not good experience in club gymnastics and with a national team and her freshman year, she was just, I remember she was lying on the ground in the middle of workout. And I said, Jeanette, what's up? She goes, you know, Ms. Val, I don't

want anybody to tell me ever again what to do. And I said, well, honey, then you need to go live on a desert Island. And she continued to do things throughout the year that got her kicked off the team. And I never dismiss an athlete from the team a, without giving them numerous chances and B without coming from a place of compassion where I know without a doubt, this is going to be the best thing and the best year of their life. So I called her in, told her she was off the team, told her why, you know, she's freaking out. And I literally could not help myself from smiling. And she's did not take kindly to that. And I said, Jeanette, this is going to be the best year of your life because I know

that this is where you're going to learn your strength. This is where you're going to be able to rely on yourself. This is where you're going to learn more about yourself than you ever have in your past 19 years. This is, and she made such an amazing turnaround in about a four to six month period, made her way back on the team, but just, I'm writing a book and she was just interviewed for the book. And she tells that whole story and how as upset as she was with me and as fearful of what am I going to do? Because the only person now I have to rely on is myself. She said at that moment is when she knew she had the strength to do it and to change her life substantially. And the process of doing that, she said was the, it literally was the best year of her life. Really cool. Isn't that cool?

Yeah, that's really cool. Not easy. Hard. No, but it's like you're in the desert. You know, being in the desert sucks. But dang, that's when you really reveal what you're made of. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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best talent in the world. And so it's the hotbed for gymnastics. Is it Southern California? Is it one of them in Texas, Texas for where the national team is, right? Yeah. So that's the hotbed though. And there's not a school in Texas. There's not a, uh, there's a college. There's not a division one college university that has a gymnastics team. What are the powerhouses? UCLA, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, LSU, Utah. Not, not Stanford. No. Yeah.

Were they ever? No. Okay. So PAC 12 is owned by UCLA pretty much. Owned by UCLA. Pac-12 was owned by UCLA in the eighties. University of Utah earned 10 national championships in a row. But the reason why we are successful, I believe, is because we can attract great talent.

And coach Wooden always said, you need talent to win. It's not just about the coaching. I have gone through a lot of different assistant coaches until I found the coaches that a believed in my same philosophy and B had everything could bring to the table, everything that I don't have. Cause I've never gone upside down in my life. I've never done a cartwheel. I've never taught a cartwheel or a handstand. So I can't do all of that. So I need to hire really, really, really good people. But I have to hire really good people. Like one of my coaches is an Olympian and his boss was a ballet dancer, choreographer. And so when I hire and when I was offered the head coaching job, I went to my boss and my athletic director and I just said, I cannot, this cannot be all about

winning because I didn't grow up with that. That's not in my DNA. So the reason why I love to coach is because I feel that outside of the military, there is not a greater venue to learn life lessons than athletics. And gymnastics is a really, really, really hard sport. And so if I can help our student athletes be healthy, mentally, emotionally, and physically, their gymnastics will be great because I can recruit great talent. So I recruit the person before the athlete. Okay. And when you talk about your philosophy, is it succinct or like, have you mapped it and put it into a framework or is it like a potpourri of ideas?

Like how, how do you articulate your philosophy? I would say that it is a, it's a strong base of a foundation of a philosophy, which is, I mean, what we were talking about when we first started every single recruit I ever recruit. It's like, there was one thing I want you to learn being at UCLA and that life is about choice and the choices you make are going to dictate the life that you lead. And when you get that, that is when your life is going to start coming alive. And I can't tell you how many of my freshmen over the course of the, how many years I've said this, they go, no, Ms. Val, that's not true. My brain just thinks what it wants to think. I can't help being mean girl. You know, it's just

my mind just went there and it's, it takes them till they being mean girl. You know, it's just, my mind just went there and it's, it takes them till they're, a lot of them, it takes them till about halfway through their sophomore year, junior year before they, the light bulb goes on and they realize, no, no, no, they can choose what to think. And every thought's going to have an emotion, what's going to have an action to it. And every action is going to have numerous repercussions that you can't even begin to foretell. And so once they get that, the scary part is, as you well know, you no longer get to be a victim. That's right. Okay. You just jam packed a lot, but you asked, I know, well, it's really good, but I want to make sure I understand how you know these things.

Every thought has an emotion that leads to an action, right? Where'd you learn that? Because it's spot on. There's one other piece in there, which is emotions and body sensations kind of hang together. Where'd you learn that? I believe I was introduced to it by our sports psychologist, Dr. Bill Parham. That's what's up. And he's talked a lot to our student athletes about say, believe, behave. Yeah, there you go.

Okay. And that's right square in the wheelhouse of cognitive behavioral training, right? Like cognitions and behaviors, you know, you can train both of them. Let's not leave one to chance. Right. You know, you can train. We've known that as coaches and whatever, you can train behaviors, but the thoughts proceed, the thoughts that proceed, the behaviors are really important. And I love having the conversation with our student athletes

about, okay, this is no big secret. Your frontal lobe is not developed up until about 25, 25. And I don't have them at that point. That's right. So you can use that as your excuse. Yeah. Oh, that's where you go with it. Or are you going to take time to pause before you react to things? Brilliant. What are the types of thinking that you want to help athletes have or anyone that's interested in being better? Oh, that's a good question. What are the types of thinking? I know one answer, optimistic thoughts. Optimistic. But I want, the first thing I want them to do is to, to have their little party inside their head that they actually have a choice.

Party. What do you mean? If you said to me, do you want to go down the beach and have lunch? Or you want to go up to that restaurant on the hill? I would go, how cool is it that I have, I get to choose. I'm glad I asked that question. Right. So that's, is that how you work? Yes.

And that's how you worked with cancer, right? Yeah. But that's not new to you. That was something that's been around for a long time. Right. Okay. And I, I've always, I don't know where this came from actually, but I've always been very cognizant of the blessings that I have that I did not earn. And so every day when we line up for workout, before we even talk about gymnastics, I'll say, okay, team, close your eyes, take a deep breath, just give one moment of gratitude and thanks over something that you have not earned. Like, I mean, you can list a hundred of them right off the top of your head,

but that you have a strong mind and a strong body that you were born in this country. How long have you been doing that gratitude training? I wasn't, I don't even call it training. I just call it a way of life. I just, for sure. It's conditioning. I mean, that, that is like an, it's actually an ancient tradition. That's mom. It's an ancient tradition that's been backed by science as well. And like the technical term for that is gratitude training. And so there is a process and a practice. As soon as you, your eyes light up in the morning, you're not even out of bed, practice gratitude right there. Right. And, and then some people, so that's maybe a 30 second gratitude. Then as we advance and

progress into the bathroom, practice gratitude all the way into the bathroom. Then as you go better, practice it from the bathroom back into the bedroom and then into the kitchen. And then before you know it, you're practicing gratitude before you leave the home and then you're practicing, you know, I do that. Right. And so it's a trained condition to find what's good in the world around you, because you can also find all the things that are all the things, danger, danger, danger, danger. It's all around. And our brain is better at finding danger than what's good. It's a survival strategy. Yeah. Okay. So you've been, how long have you been doing gratitude training or whatever? I don't know. I don't know. I'm 58. So when I was, I don't know, 10, 11, I don't know.

I don't know. No, with your athletes, with your athletes. Oh, with our athletes, uh, since I got cancer because I had a very clear realization, you know, you get hit with this, that you're going to have cancer and it's like, okay, we all have an expiration date. I just don't know when mine is. So every morning I literally, as you just said, I wake up and my eyes pop open and I go, I get another day. This is so cool. Yeah. Okay. better. And I get to go get chemotherapy. That's hopefully going to kill the cells in my breasts that are bad. And that's going to give me more days. So this is awesome. I get, I get to go get

chemotherapy. So one of the knocks on optimism is that it's weak and it does, it's not based on reality. And I put, I'm going to pause there because I'm an optimist, right? Like, okay. So one of the knocks on it is like, come on, deal with reality. Like you're going to a place that's going to kill cells in your body. What are you talking about a spa? Right. That's the cynic. That's the pessimist, whatever, whatever. And I've, I think I'm just, I want to help this story based to share like how I see it

as well is that I think optimism is at the center of mental toughness and toughness is doing the difficult thing. Right. And, and so I think optimism sits before toughness and I'm, I agree. You do agree with that? Absolutely. Okay. So, so how do you answer the cynic that says, come on, like it's not all roses and butterflies, please. Because it's so easy to be pessimistic and it's so easy to be a victim and it's so easy to say, why me? And it's so, that is so easy. Why do you, why is the easy not right? It's okay. I don't believe that it is

not right. It's your choice. It's your choice. Okay. And the benefit for you and for many that you've coached of optimism is? That I don't want to waste one day. I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to waste a day. There's far worse things than dying. Yes. Well, I'm afraid of dying because I don't know how that's going to happen, but I'm not afraid of death. And you're laughing, but you had a rough experience with mom. So you saw the death experience being, when you say it's horrible, I want to be sensitive and that's fine.

Yeah. Like I want to know what that was. She had colon cancer. She did not disclose it to, I mean, she had blood in her stool. She didn't disclose it for six months because my father was having an art opening and then he was having his retirement party. It was all about dad. So once we, she found out that, um, it was colon cancer, it had metastasized already and it went to her brain. And then she had two different brain surgeries and the last one left her unable to speak and left side of her body paralyzed. And she was just trapped in her, her mind because you could see that she was cognizant. She just couldn't verbalize or express herself in any way. Oh God. Yeah. It was just debilitating. Uh, three years.

You, how old were you? Oh, how old was I? 25. 25. When, when did, are you married? Yeah. When did you get married? I was 38. 38 when you got married? Because once my mom died, I was like, no, I don't need to. Oh, so this really affected you. Yeah. Like. I was going to get married and have babies and all that. Cause I want to be around my mother and she's going to be the grandmother. And then she died as like, well now what am I going to do? I only have myself to lean on. Okay, so let's go make the best life I can. What did you do?

I took the head job they offered me at UCLA. I thought they were crazy. They called me in. They said, we'd like for you to be the new head coach. And I was like. What put you in that position? I was the assistant. I was the dance coach.

I was dancing. A ballet dancer in 1982. I heard UCLA needed a dance coach for their gymnastics team. My dream was to go to UCLA. So I called up the head coach and they offered me a full scholarship to go to school instead of a salary, which I took cause I had not gone to college. And then I graduated. My mom died, uh, two years, three years before I graduated. And then I graduated and the athletic director called me in the office, said, we're going a different direction. We'd like me to be the new head coach. And I laughed out loud. I said, you understand, I don't know the first thing about gymnastics.

And she said, I feel you have very strong leadership skills and I trust that you'll figure it out. Love the adventure there. Did you ever have like, I've talked about this a lot with extraordinary people and it's got a little bit of a negative spin on it, but I just want to ask and see if you experienced it. Imposter syndrome? Yes. You did? Oh gosh, yes.

I can't tell you how relieved I am because I have it all the time. Yeah. No, but, but I really understand that. Like, oh my God, one day they're going to find out. And because I'll tell you seriously though, I'm not, I had it. It's less now, but I'm always right at the edge of my skis. Yes. Right. Trying to figure it out. And so my wife has this great phrase that she says to me and my nine-year-old son, we get spoken to the same way sometimes, which is, um, Hey, remember, we're all just trying to figure it out. Right. We're just all trying to figure like, you know, that's part of the clumsy clumsiness of learning. I didn't, I don't consider it was imposter syndrome though.

For you? Yes. Because I didn't know anything. So I couldn't have an ego at all. That's right. So it wasn't like they were going to be found out that you're supposed to know, but you don't know. No, no, no.

I wasn't gonna be found out. I told them I didn't want the job. I said, I'll take it for one year so you can go find somebody that's actually qualified for this. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to take it for a year, I'm going to do the best job I can. So I'm going to mimic other coaches. A la John Wooden? No.

No. Come on. I didn't know coach then. I didn't know about coach. It's my greatest blunder. I, the people that like Bobby Knight, the people that were coaches in my paradigm, a coach was tough minded, tough talking, relentless, bad-ass. Right. So you started that way. Yeah. As a head coach, I acted, I grew up on stage acting. I can do this. So I learned quips. I learned how to say, go hard or go home. And I learned how to say, my favorite was, winners make adjustments and losers make excuses. And you do the little head bob and you give them the miss bow eyes.

And it's like, that was really effective. And the first year we did horribly. We finished last at the national championships. And then I went back to my athletic director and I said, and it's like this competitiveness kicked in me. I'm like, I'm going to figure this out. So I went back to RAD director and I said, and it's like this, this competitiveness kicked in me. I'm like, I'm going to figure this out. So I went back to our AD and I said, I want another year. She says, okay. She's laughing.

Okay. And so I learned more quips and I was more relentless and I was more severe and we didn't even make it to the national championship that year. So I literally was on my way to the student. I was on my way to the student. I was on my way to my athletic director's office to resign. And I'm walking through the student store and I pick up coach Wooden's book on leadership. And I knew that this, I knew about him. I knew he had won a lot of championships and he had a pyramid of success, which I'd never bothered to really decipher.

And it, it, this, this part of it reads like a Hollywood movie. I opened the book. It opens up to his definition of success, which is brilliant. Peace of mind. That's it. Just know that you've done your best today. When your head hits the pillow, just know that you brought your best. So obviously that can't be all there is to it because he was, you know, one of the greatest coaches that ever lived. So I read further. There's nothing about winning or monetary gain or having the corner office or, you know, all the stuff and living in 90210. So I read it again.

Looking for that. Is it the blue book or a different book? It's not the little blue book. Yeah. It's, it's his book on leadership. and it's called John Wooden on leadership. And, um, I have it. Yeah, I know. I keep looking for it here. Yeah. It's in my closet. And I'll never forget reading it and reading it. Success is peace of mind in knowing you've done your best. And the more I read it, the more that word you got built bigger

and bolder and brighter. And I had the biggest aha moment of my life. I had been trying to be somebody else. So instead of resigning, I went back to my office. I shut the door and I said, okay, I've got 15 years of classical ballet training. How does that correlate to what I'm trying to teach our student athletes, the gymnasts? Well, I know how to set a goal as in performance season. I know how to work hard. I know how to work through pain. And the most important thing is I learned how to prepare thoroughly and well enough so that when I was standing in the wings, I was calm and confident.

And is that not exactly what I'm trying to teach our student, our gymnast? As they're standing there waiting for the judge to raise the flag, to salute them, my job is to train them to be calm and confident. And as soon as I understood that, I was like, oh, I can do this. I can do this as well, if not better than any other gymnastics coach in the country. I got this. It's cool. You know, people, I mean, it's like so clear. And so there's a, something underneath the surface when you're talking about it, that's like, Oh, I believe you. Like, I really believe that that is exactly how you see it. People often ask me like, Mike, like, what are you trying to do?

What's the ultimate aim? And there's lots of things that I can say. And then when they say like with an athlete, what are you really trying to do for performance or test matches or whatever it is? And I say, I'm trying to get another human being to love to do something difficult. And when they're about to go do the difficult thing, be nodding their head up and down. Like, I got this. Yeah.

Like, let's go. That, that, that's it. Right. And to do that, you've got to have some calmness and some confidence and some focus and be present and all of those things that are skills that we can teach. And so I think that we're going to calibrate on that same end state, right. On a regular basis to look at difficult things and say, let's go. Right. Yeah. Okay. So understanding that there were a few times I screwed up royally on stage. My biggest was I had a solo 10 spotlights on me and I lifted my leg up a little

too high, landed smack on my tailbone and I couldn't get up because you know how painful that is. And I thought, now what do I do? And in that moment of fight or flight, you know, crawl off the stage literally, or stand up, brush myself off. I gave myself a little, like I smiled a little bit, I finished. And it was the only time in my career I got a standing ovation showing that humility and showing that you're, I'm going to keep going even when things aren't great. And when life, you know, throws me a boulder, I'm not shutting down. So let's pull that open a little bit and talk about vulnerability, right? Cause that's what that is, right? And right at the edge of instability

is where vulnerability lives. When we're not sure exactly how it's going to go and we're aware of that and we're humble enough to be vulnerable. So that oftentimes can get in the way of that, I got this, because there's nothing humble about that. So where are you trying to, well, let's stay with you first before you go to your athletes. Where is that the linking or hooking or stitching between vulnerability and confidence? It's a complicated question. I got this is I know, and you, you're, you're obviously extremely well-schooled in your craft. I don't know the answer to this. I'm never going to ask a question that I know the answer to. Okay. I,

I feel that because I don't have a fear of failure, that that's not a possible outcome. So the outcome is either, Ooh, look, I did it or embarrassment or humility. I can live with any of those. Got it. Okay. And with my athletes, it's the same thing. It's like, so what? So what you fall, you know, it's just gymnastics. People go big, play hard. At the end of the day, our biggest goal is to have no regrets.

That's it. And if you can go to bed every single night, have a little one-on-one with your universe, your maker, whatever you believe. And if you can go through your day and say, I did a good job today. And if you can chop up, chalk up more days like that during the season, then you've had a successful season, regardless of where you finished on the podium. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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it's not that simple, but if you had that ability, what would be a habit or a couple of habits that you would want to, you know, drop into them early on? Gratitude. Gratitude. And it's, you know what, it, it really came to life. It became very crystal clear to me on, on September 11th, I was driving to work, heard about the planes going into the buildings. And it was the very, it was the first day that our team was reporting for that season. And I got to school and obviously what I was going to be saying to our student athletes had now changed. And so I had nothing. And I called coach Wooden and I said, I need some guidance here. And he said, Oh honey, just listen to your heart. You'll know what to say. And I called coach Wooden and I said, I need some guidance here. And he said, oh honey,

just listen to your heart. You'll know what to say. And I was like, no, no, no, no coach. I really, I got nothing. And I've got 20 athletes going to show up here in 10 minutes. You know, what do I say? This we've never, we've never lived through something like this. I have no idea what to say. And he said it again, just listen to your heart and you'll know what to say. So I go into the meeting and just started giving the student athletes an opportunity to speak and just say whatever came to their minds. And one of our student athletes said, Ms. Val, there's no way I can go in the gym today and do gymnastics. In fact, I don't think I can ever do gymnastics because it's so minuscule compared to what's going on. And at that moment I had clarity and she said, she said, why are we going to ever do gymnastics

again? And that was the ding, ding, ding that went off in my head. And I said, because we can, because we live in a country that allows us as women to do athletics. We live in a country that allows us to be scantily clad in a leotard and go play sports. And so when we go in that gym and when we, when we do gymnastics, get in, we're going to do it with more appreciation and gratitude than you've ever done it before in your entire life. That's why we're going to do it. Cause we can. Yeah. Hmm. What can you teach me about something I could never know, which is like, what is it like, or what could I begin to understand about 19 to 24 year old young females?

Like what is that like that are extraordinary at a talent? That everything, most everything they think is a comparison to someone else, which as we all know has only gotten worse through the advent of social media. So I coined a phrase. You've heard of YOLO. You only live once. Okay. So YOLO is a thing, right? That people say, and there's FOMO, fear of missing out. Yeah. And then, so the thing that I've been playing with and with athletes and they seem to like it because it makes sense to me is FOPO, fear of other people's opinion. Oh, that's perfect. That's exactly what they strive for. Yep. That's that's. And you know, with, I'm so sad for them,

for the ones that can't get away from their phone, because I can't imagine the internal emotional stress that they are under every waking moment of the day and what that is doing to them internally? It's brutal. It's not that different likely. Okay. So video gamers and, um, young men and women that come back from war have a similar profile and adrenal burnout. Some, not all, right. Okay. So you come back from one of the most dangerous places on, in the, in the human experience war, not that different than gamers because they're so intense and so connected to like all the scenarios and the required focus and strain to do a game well for an extended period of time. So there's an adrenal fatigue

or burnout that happens as a profile. And I can't imagine how different that that is for young athletes that are on a global stage that are not identity. Their, their personality is not formed. Their framework is not formed and they're looking to their peers to see if they're okay. Disaster. And I know quite a few of them sleep with their phone on their chest in case it happens to buzz. Okay. How do you help them? What do you say or do, or, you know, what, what do you do to help them? I try to get them to, I try to put myself into their place. And if I was a healthy 20 year old, what would that look like? And it sounds kind of

simple, but I've had a lot of success getting them interested in Ted talks. It's cool. Yeah. Bite size. Yeah. Brilliant minds. And I've told them, I'm like, if you're going to be on your phone, at least use it for something good. Okay. It's 18 minutes and you can listen to anything. You can pull up talks on sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever. And they have, they take, they like it. Do you have a process? Is that like a, like an important throwaway? Like, Hey, listen, if you're going to be on your phone, at least educate yourself.

Or do you have a process where it's like on Mondays, we're going to all watch this Ted talk and talk about it at Tuesday or something? No, but I, my pregame is rather an orthodox, especially for away meets. So I feel that I think like most coaches that the work is done during the week. And so I'm not good at pregame speeches. I just figured you're not ready by then. There's nothing I can, no magic pill, right? Totally overrated. And really you believe that? Okay. Totally overrated. So what is the goal the night before gymnastics meet? It's to get the team loose, to get them a little bit more connected as a team and to have fun. And I don't want them going to bed at night, going over their routines

a thousand times. You know, I want them to get sleep because I believe in the whole sleep revolution. So something that we will do as a pregame is a, the night before meet is I will give every one of my athletes a topic to talk about and they get a minute and a half to convince me of this. Like at the great debate, they get judged like on dancing with the stars for content, for eye contact. They get deducted if they use the word like, or, um, and it's, it's the more insane the topic, the better, like your job, Michael is going to convince all of us why UCLA should become a nudist campus. You apply, you give them. Yes.

So you come up with these harebrained or difficult scenarios. Yes. And they go, come on. Yes. And they have to use an SAT word. They have to conjugate it correctly. Okay. And then wait.

So how long do you give them to prepare? About 20 minutes. Okay. And then wait. So how long do you give them to prepare? About 20 minutes. Okay. And then that happens the night before the event. Okay. And so that's getting them off their phones at least for 20 minutes, getting them vulnerable, getting like somewhat nervous, having fun. Oh, and you know what? We, we used to have time back in the day that we could do media training with them, But with all the NCAA rules and all that, we don't have time anymore. That's right. So this is an opportunity for us to do media training with them. I can't tell you the dramatic change in their ability to speak in front of people from their freshman year to the end of their freshman year.

Cool. It's remarkable. I mean, that's why I was asking about the process. Ideas are one thing, but to actually put them into a process is like a commitment, a commitment of time. Okay. What? So the last thing, I mean, you asked me about TED talks was the next thing that we're going to do our pregame before our next meet is going to be, you've got a minute and a half to discuss your favorite TED talk. There you go. And some of them have never looked up a Ted talk. Well, great. Go do it. Cool. And use an SAT word correctly. That's right. They're, they're students first, student athletes. Okay. So I want to understand that. I, I feel like I'm going to, this question

is on slippery ground. So yeah. Why leotards? Why the, the, the feminist, not feminist, the sexualizing of young female athletes in a way that men don't have that same thing in many sports, even gymnastics. Like what, what is that about? It happens in women's volleyball. It happens in lots of sports. And certainly there's, there's a very slippery taboo dark side to gymnastics, ballet, you know, what is it? Pretty girls in little boxes, right? The, the, the kind of classic book. Why, why are they in leotards and why do they have to look the way that they look? And I don't want to disrespect anything because when I watch a gymnast, it's beautiful and it's amazing and it's really difficult and they make it look easy and

it's outrageous. And part of that is the clean lines. And it's about that. It's about the clean lines. And I have, I have the same issue with it that you do. These aren't, you know, little girls, they're young women and our sport, there's a lot of flexibility involved. Um, you know, would it be better for them to be in a short tight, a short shorts, you know, and in a leotard top? Yes. However, the lines are not as clean and it chops the leg off. It chops the leg off. Just like you don't put, see ballet dancers on stage with chopping their legs off with tights. Also, even if you went to a nice sleek unitard looking thing, they would slip because they have to grab their legs when they flip. So there's some function to it. There is a lot of function to it. And they put, they put

chalk behind their legs and they do all that. Yeah. Okay. What is the cost of being judged by others for artistic expression? Do you have eight hours for me to talk about this? Yeah, I know. So people that ask me about gymnastics, because I spent a little bit of time long ago in your space and it's hard. It's horrible. It's really hard. And the cost is for most young girls, I would say is maybe not worth it, but I don't know. Maybe I was just part of a program where that was evident. So are you bullish on young girls? Let's just stay with, with girls, not, not, not young adults, young girls being in the sport. I don't understand how you're using the word bullish.

Like it's a good thing. Get your young daughter in this sport. They'll come, they'll come through, you know, and being learn resiliency and amazing this, that, and the other. Quite honestly, I think every young boy and girl should be in gymnastics because it teaches you such amazing body awareness. And I wish that I could just instill in every parent to not be concerned about the score because that's the horrible part of this sport. And it's not just, you know, it's, you're not being timed. You're being judged by another human being that is fallible. And so it's, it just kills me when I see one of our student athletes that just does a, an amazing routine and they're so excited. And then they immediately, their body posture shrinks as they turn to look at the judge

to see what score they got. So that judge without even them seeing the score has already taken the joy out of their performance. But the athletes that come to us that have great parents that just love them, no matter what level they reach and help them enjoy this, this beautiful, beautiful sport. It is an amazing sport. It teaches tremendous focus. I think much more than most other sports do, because if you lose your spoke, your focus, you can get seriously injured and it teaches you that you have to finish. There's nobody to pass the ball to. You get up on beam and you start wobbling. You've got to figure out how to finish. I think those are huge life lessons. Earlier before we started, I said the

three sports that have been most attracted to sports psychology went out in the younger years for me was Ultimate Fighters. So MMA, like they're like, yes, what I do is dangerous. Extreme, quote unquote, extreme athletes and gymnasts. Those three were like, what do you got? Because it's me and it's, you know, I'm out there exposed. And if things go wrong, they can go really wrong. Yeah. So what gift would you want to give an athlete by helping a parent? What would you... Unconditional love. I do it

every year with parents. Every year. That's what you say to them. Oh, every year I've got to have the conversation with a handful of them. You know, the ones that get upset and leave the arena when the athlete doesn't do well. And, and I got, okay, timeout. No, no, no. You, you get one job and that is to unconditionally love your daughter. You leave the coaching, the getting upset, whatever that is to me. And how do you get upset? How do I get upset? I don't get upset if they don't do well. I get upset if their effort is not good. I get extremely upset if they make a mistake in a routine and they shut down because what they're telling, especially all the young people and the crowd in the stands that's watching them is that they cannot be joyful. They do not, cannot be joyful. They do not, cannot be joyful if they make a mistake. And that is the last thing that you want to be telling one of your young fans sitting in the stands. And I, I mean, we have this conversation. I just had

it two days ago with our student athletes, you know, one of my hot little freshmen came in and she does a floor routine and over rotates her first pass and just face just shut down. And there were about six young girls in our gym watching workout. And I said, what you told those young girls is that they cannot feel good about themselves when they make a mistake. They can only feel good about themselves when they do a flawless routine. Are you more like a grandparent, a parent, an aunt, um, a wise woman? Like what, what role do you take? I'm more of a life coach than I am a gymnastics coach. How much did you learn from John coach? Wouldn't coach wouldn't. You know, I didn't meet coach till he was 80. So he was already, the fire was out of him a little bit by that point. You know, things like, I remember him

saying, I didn't love, I didn't like all my athletes the same, but I loved them all the same. And that gave me permission. Cause that's exactly how I felt. Um, I learned from coach that the importance of being calm. I learned from coach. One thing I learned a lot from coach was, uh, to not, as he always used to tell his players, don't get too high, don't get too low. And I remember because I grew up on stage, I remember driving in for a gymnastics meet at, at, at home and sitting in my car and going, okay, showtime. Here we go, Ms. Bell. Put on your Ms. Bell persona. And I spent so much time with Coach Wooden in the car, out the car at events, speaking engagements, taking him to football games, hanging out with him at his house, whatever. He was always the same. He was never on, he was just coach. And so how did he get through four to five

speaking engagements or things a day on his calendar? Because he was just himself. That's brilliant. The power of authenticity. Yes. Yeah. He captured it. He captured it. And he was, I mean, he was very tough. He was very tough-minded as far as his faith. And he didn't waver or bend in that way. And I'll never forget when he got close to the end of his life and he would just look up and say, God, I wish I could have served you better.

I was like, well, if you think that, then the rest of us are going to hell. Oh, God. All right. How would you finish this statement? My philosophy is? My philosophy is be anxious for nothing and grateful for all things. My motto is life is short. Don't wait to dance. Cool, huh? Yeah. And everything we've talked about fits, it fits for you. Yeah. Especially with your ballet roots. I mean, yeah. Okay. So is there a word that captures what you understand the most?

Choice. Yeah, that's come up a lot in this conversation. Yeah. And when people ask me where my know, where my passion is with, um, with causes and all that, they assume it's with breast cancer awareness and everything, which it is, but human trafficking just, it just eats at me. And it's because I, I can't imagine being alive and not having a single choice. Is there particular causes that, not causes, but organizations that you've supported or would encourage people to support?

International Justice Mission. International. Justice Mission. I-J-M. Yeah, and.org or something like that. It's human trafficking. Why is that so dear to you? I think it's because the choice thing, because when I think about what's the worst thing that could happen to me in life, it would be to not have choice. And that's why one of my favorite books is man's search for meaning

Victor Frankel. Yeah. And how he chose to be grateful in a concentration camp. Yeah. So you run pretty deep. I guess. Would people describe you that way? Would your friends and parents and coworkers describe you as deep or? I don't think they described me as deep. I think that they described me as I'm extremely caring about all the little things like little things matter for

perfectionist. I am not a perfectionist. I don I am a, um, I'm a, I have no idea what is I am. Well, we know you're an optimist. Okay. What, what, what comes to mind when you think about the single most difficult time in your life? Uh, my mom's cancer, not mine, my mom's. That process. That process, because back in the 80s, I don't know whether there was like this for other people that went through it, but we didn't talk about it. So I never asked her any questions. We just pretended like she was sick. We didn't, I never asked her how she was feeling. I never, we didn't talk about it. It was taboo. And just like sex, we didn't talk about it. It was taboo. And so, you know, if I had to do all over Greek as well, I would want to say, mommy, you're afraid, mommy, you scared mom. How can I help you, mom?

You know, and I didn't, which is why when I went through it with my student, I don't have children of my own. So with our student athletes, I made a choice to be the exact opposite. And I remember when I told them we were up in our team room and one of them looked at my breast and I just had this, okay, I'm like, you guys want to feel what a malignant tumor feels like. And I literally am imagining HR running over and firing me. Right. And I made that conscious decision that them feeling what a malignant tumor felt like was more important than my job. And so one of the athletes, you know, was kind of looking at my, my boob and she goes, Oh my God, I'm feeling the miss Bell's boob. And I said, no, I did not invite you to feel my boob. I invited you to feel what a malignant tumor feels like. Cause it did not feel like a small round P like we've been told. It felt like a long pulled muscle. And I

felt that was really important for these young women. How did that go over with HR? Well, I just told them about it last, last year. So I lived through it. Oh God, that's good. Okay. Um, are you a rule breaker? Uh-huh. Absolutely. You are risk taker. No. Not interesting that those two can go together. Yeah. No, I'm pretty much a big fat chicken, but I am a rule breaker in that if it's just, if I feel it's justice, I'll break the rule. Or I won't play like, you know, if it's something within our, our team rules or NCAA rules, I'm not going to break a recruiting rule because I believe that I know better than the NCAA.

I just won't recruit that athlete or, you know, I won't bend a rule. I'll, I'll, if, if there's no harm, no foul, I'll break it. That sounds horrible. I'm trying to think of an example, but you asked me and I. Yeah. Well, no, I think that, um, there are some rules that when you break them, it's like a moral rule. It's an ethical rule. It's a, and there's other rules that are like, well, that, that needs to be broken. That's an old way of thinking. And I'm going to let people know that that's not okay. And I'm going to break that like what you just described. So, okay. There is some risk that you have.

That's why I asked it. Like there's risk in that to say, okay, I'm going to, this is worth me getting fired. I'm not a thrill seeker. Yeah. Okay. I will take a risk. I'll change my answer on that one. I'll take risk because a, I'm not afraid of failure.

B I've lived so much. I mean, I, I'm very, I'm in a really great place in my life. I've had tremendous success. I've been around UCLA 35 years. They're not firing me. You know, I'm what is next? Oh, I'm writing a book. It's called choreograph your life because choreography is any intentional movement, right? Yep. Okay. I am producing an urban nutcracker with X games, come tail of the rat King. What do you mean with X games? Sean White. Come on. Well, I talked to him about it. We're going to talk after the Olympics. Um, NBC bought it as a two hour movie of the week and then they shelved it because DreamWorks is doing their own Nutcracker movie, but they're not, it's nothing like mine.

So whatever. I'm convinced that it's going to be on Netflix. Uh, the Rat King is going to be a skateboarder. Hopefully Sean Prince is hip hop guy, like Twitch. And I just want to incorporate parkour and and a puerta and all the different all the different types of movement and i danced nutcracker for 15 years i absolutely love it i want to bring it to a much wider audience so they can appreciate tchaikovsky's amazing music and i'm also developing a theater production about the environment and the ecology called,

I can't tell you because it's not quite copyrighted yet. That's good. Do you consider yourself an innovator? Because these are disruptive innovations, like taking two disciplines, pulling them together. Oh, yes. Because I've choreographed the summer shows for SeaWorld, San Diego for 27 years. And they basically let me do whatever I want. And so when I marry hip hop with a rhythmic

gymnast or something that, you know, the juxtaposition of movement like that, it's magical. It all comes down to, how do you finish that? It all comes down to living your life unapologetically, true to your spirit and your soul, and appreciatively. How do you get in your own way? I mean, I'm on the other side of this conversation going really buttoned up, really clear thinking has depth has seen and, and supported and challenged the best in the world in your craft. You know, like how do you get in your own way? By taking too much on. Hard to say no. I don't want to, because like, I don't know if I'm going to get tomorrow.

And so I want to finish my book and I want to finish Nutcracker and I want to finish this other theater production. I can't tell you about, and I want to win at least three more national championships. And I want to, I want to do all this stuff. I want to, I'm crafting two new shows for SeaWorld. I just, there's so much fun. Life is so much fun and I'm not having as much time to read as I want. And we're not having time to play my piano and I need to take more dance classes. So I get in my way cause I take on too much stuff. I feel that. Do you feel that? Yeah. Not for you, but for me. Like, yeah. Like I love waking up. I love it. Yeah. And you know what, When I go to like at night, sometimes when I'm, oh, I'm a good sleeper. Yeah. Seven hours. Yeah. There are times when I get so overwhelmed and I'm going crazy. And as soon as I switch that, that, like we talked about earlier,

you cannot be anxious and gratitude. As soon as I switched the terminology in my head to, but it's also much fun. All of the, it all dissipates. All of the stress dissipates. It's fun. And I have people going, why aren't you slowing down? You're 58 years old. You know, you could be retiring two years. Why aren't you like enjoying traveling and all that? And it's like, cause I'm having

so much fun. I'm not doing this cause I have to, I'm doing this cause I get to. Right. Okay. Um, when we think of mental skills, obviously they're very important gymnastics and in life, there's a handful of traditional mental skills, calm, confidence, focus training, imagery, pre-performance routines, goal setting. Like there's a handful of well-accepted ones. Which ones are most important for you? If you could just maybe pick one or two that you'd want your athlete to incorporate or use or develop? I want them to, Coach Wooden, I want them to embrace the cornerstones of the pyramid of success, industriousness and enthusiasm. And through that, they will enjoy the process and they will then achieve calm confidence. Yeah.

That was good, huh? Yeah. Well, yeah. A lot of work went into being able to say that simply. And then how do you help? So if confidence comes from what you say to yourself, how do you help people choose great thoughts? Do you set up the principles like, Hey, listen, choice is up to you. So choose well. And then like later the next day or whatever, like, how are you thinking? Are your thoughts well? Are you thinking right? Or when they make a mistake, do you catch them in it and say? Yes.

So do you use mistakes or do you use success? Both. Both? Because that's how I've had to coach. Yeah. When they do a skill well, I'll say, what were you thinking? When they do a skill poorly, I'll say, what are you thinking? What's your cue?

Because we need to switch it. I not only, you know, do a lot of coaching, but I work with a lot of younger girls in clubs and I do speaking engagements and all of this with younger people. So I've had to simplify the terminology. And I just tell them that anytime, anytime something happens to you in life, or you find yourself in a situation, there are all these different thoughts, thought bubbles, right? And so choose which one you're going to feed. Cool. Yeah. I mean, it's very simple. Well, it's actually very, um, Eastern thought as well. So take the thought bubble and turn into a seed and choose the seed you're going to water. Right. Very much an Eastern thought, which is rad, you know,

because if you, if you water the seed of jealousy, it will grow. If you water the seed of joy and excitement, it will grow. Right. Yeah, for sure. That's good. Okay. God, thank you for this time. Thank you for this time. Yeah. I've got a couple more questions. Where's pressure come from? Internally. Okay. And how do you think about mastery? The concept of mastery? What, like, what are the ways you define it or think about it or articulate it?

I actually envy people who have mastery. Cause I think I'm really good at a lot of stuff. I don't necessarily feel like I've mastered anything. And I think to be able to do that, like when I think of mastery, I think of someone who has put in such diligent work toward a skill with such love and passion for that, that they become that, that it just, it comes out of them. And I think of someone like Kobe Bryant, you know, he didn't play basketball. He just was basketball. And I don't believe that he was, I don't believe that anybody's born to be a basketball player. He chose it. He could have been a great sprinter, great 10 other sports, right? But because he loved the process so much and he worked at his craft so much, it, it went to such, it went to a level of mastery, which is you just exude that skill that you are, that you've worked at so passionately your whole life.

And I think of musicians that like that. It's like, I, I've seen Hamilton three different times and the mastery that is in every detail of that production. And I leave as annoyed as I am just amazed by the brilliance because I think, and I really, it's not like a comparison thing. It's not like I'm comparing myself to Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it's like, what does it feel like to have that level of mastery at something? Because like I said, I'm good at a lot. I don't think I'm that good at any one thing. If you were able to sit across, which I know you have, like people that are masters of craft, what would be the one question you'd want to ask if you only got one?

And I hate to be a reductionist, but I actually like it because it forces some, it's like a forcing mechanism for simplicity. Like what would be like the question you'd want to ask them? Greatest composer of all time. Actually, I would want to ask them at what point do your insecurities arise and what do they look like? Wow. That shocks me. I know because I'm an optimist. Yeah.

Because, but I think about someone like. But I'm not, I'm not shocked in like, I don't understand. It's like, I wouldn't have thought that you would have gone there. And I love it. How do you answer it for you? How do you answer that question for you? What am I? When they arise, what do you do with them? Oh, the insecurities? Yeah. I go, I just take a deep breath and I just go back to the fact that all I can do is my best. So you come back to like a core philosophy.

Success is peace of mind and knowing you've done your best. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, all I can do is my best. So you come back to like a core philosophy. Success is peace of mind and knowing you've done your best. Yeah. And it's like, all I can do is my best. And so take a deep breath and exhale and enjoy the process because regardless of what the outcome is, you, I at least have control over the fact that I can enjoy the process. Really rich. Yep. Really rich. I, I've, I've tried so many things. I know what the science would suggest and I've tried so many things like hello and goodbye and like, um, thought replacement and you know, like all, all of the strategies that we teach people. But you know, you know what I love about it is like when an insecurity pops up, I go, oh, there you are. Okay, so what are we going to do now? Like, okay, great. And sometimes

I need to breathe sometimes. But it's like an integration is how I play with it right now. And helping, I think that that feels so much more organic than what Performance Psychology 101 would suggest. And so integrate it, use it. Right. Right. You have a choice. You can, you can try to push it away, but then sometimes that just builds this kind of, I don't know, this thing in the background that's looming like the dirt or that you swept under the rug. So for me, it's just like, don't most insecurities arise because you're comparing yourself about someone or you are holding yourself to a standard that someone has set for you because do insecurities arise when you you're not holding, when you're not achieving your own

standard? Well, so when you ask people that are quote unquote perfectionist, or they're having some sort of anxiety or pressure, internal pressure, that's overwhelming, where'd you learn this? They say, Oh, I've just, it's just from, it's just from me. No, it's not from you. Like you learned somewhere from somebody that, you know, that you alone in the way that you engage in life is not enough. And I've got this thought that, um, it's time to break the mold that we need to do more to be more. We have to break, it's time to break that, that model. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so it's time to flip that on its head. I had to think about it for a second. Right. And yeah, it's time to break that, that model. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so it's time to flip that on. Right. And yeah, it's a little funky there, but so cool. So Valerie, seriously, I was really

looking forward to spending time with you. So thank you. And your insights and pearls of wisdom are unbelievable. We're going to take these gems and nuggets and put them into a second podcast because you've got lots of them called minutes on mastery. And then, um, where can people follow you as they're wanting to wait in line for your book? Awesome. Uh, my website, official miss val.com official miss val. Yes. And I S M I S M I S S miss val. You call your dance teacher, miss whatever that, that started back in 1982. I don't like, I'm not thinking all high and mighty. You got to call me miss Val, but official miss Val.com. And I started the website cause I was trying to figure out what I was going to put in the book. And so I write every Sunday and I don't call them blogs because I feel people that blog are really hip and cool and I don't see myself as hip and cool. So I call them musings.

They're just things that I ponder. Awesome. I think that if I could make a prediction, which I'm not very good at, but like this book will work. Thank you. Yeah. It's grounded to some real stuff that you're not just throwing some quibs around. You've graduated from quibs. I graduated from quibs around. You've graduated from quibs. I graduated from quibs. It's going to be, I think it's, I'm interested to see how it does

because I do have a book publisher, Hachette, one of the top five book publishers in the world. And they're very excited to have a book by a female coach. But as you well know, now having spent this time with me, I'm a very unorthodox coach. I don't talk coach. I don't coach coach. I don't coach speak. I don't, you know, the things that are important of how I've garnered success with our team aren't normal for the world of athletics. I love the counterintuitive way that you're doing it. And then you're not caught in quibs and little one-liners.

Like there's real thought and textured nuances that you're able to articulate. It's awesome. It's fun. Yeah. It's really good. I've got the greatest job in the world. Think about it. I don't have children of my own. I have 25, 18 to 22 year old young women whose minds are fertile. That it's just like when you get them to start thinking and wondering, it's like, who said it? Socrates said, I can't make you do things, but I can make you think that's, that's the challenge. Brilliant. What a great way to live life. Okay. For those that have loved this conversation, check out official miss val.com

and, and I want to just say, get in line for the book. Thank you. For sure. Yeah. And then we also have a tribe, findingmastery.net slash tribe, where people, thousands of people are supporting and challenge each other on their path of mastery. And I know they're going to have some questions for you. Yeah. So I'm going to afford you some of those questions that you can muse with them. I will muse with them. And then I want to thank all of you for being part of this experience and this learning that, that we're on together and you can hit us, hit me up on social at

Twitter is at Michael Gervais and Instagram is at Finding Mastery. So thank you again. 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 wed. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take

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