As a sport and performance psychologist, Dr. Michael Gervais is one of the world’s leading experts on the relationship between the mind and elite performance. Over the course of a 20-year career working with world class performers and organizations, Dr. Gervais has developed a framework for the mental skills and practices that allows individuals and teams to thrive in pressure-packed environments. Gervais’ influence can be felt across many touchpoints of popular culture. His clients include the Seattle Seahawks, world record holders, Olympians, internationally acclaimed music artists, Fortune 50 CEOs and MVPs from every major sport.  

Dr. Gervais is the host of the popular Finding Mastery podcast that explores the psychology of the world’s most extraordinary thinkers and doers. Dr. Gervais created an online master class for the mind and authored the national bestseller, The First Rule of Mastery.

Thanks for the shoutout, The Seattle Times. As I always say, it's just another game.

Onward. Let's go Seahawks !

Take a read: "How a sports psychologist helps the Seahawks prep for the NFC Championship" 

Link: https://lnkd.in/g-DQcsUE

Michael Gervais

Founder of Finding Mastery, co-founder of Compete to Create, and host of the Finding Mastery podcast. As a licensed psychologist and industry visionary, Dr. Gervais focuses most of his time on people at the "top of their game," from the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and NBA players, to Olympians, military personnel and corporate leaders. Spending years in the trenches of high-stakes circumstances, Dr. Gervais has developed clarity for the tools that allow people to "thrive under pressure." He is a published, peer-reviewed author and a nationally recognized speaker on issues related to high performance for those who excel on the largest stages in the world.

Performance Psychologist working with the best in the world • Host & Founder, Finding Mastery • Bestselling Author • “Every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece.”

There’s a difference between resolutions and intentions.

Resolutions are this idea that I'm going to resolve to be a different person in the new year. On January 1, I'm different. A resolution is this broad, sweeping thing. According to some research, 50% of people that set resolutions fail within three months. They don't really work.

An intention is a daily practice of imagining how you want to be each day. An intention is a thin slice. It puts you in the power seat to say, how do I want to be today?

The thing about new year's resolutions is that there's a big kind of driving towards wanting to make change, and it's a natural timing of the year to be able to say, 'Okay, let’s turn over new leaf, let's go.' The end-of-the-year thing is a natural accelerant.

However, the reason many people fall short of keeping their resolutions is because a lot goes into changing behavior and developing new habits—being consistent with those habits, having an idea of what you actually need to do and change to become the person you imagine you want to be.

I'm far more interested in drilling into the science of habit development. 

I'm far more interested in developing durable, sturdy practices that will free you up to be the person you want to be, to free you up to be able to respond the way you want to respond.

I would encourage you not to set a resolution, but to set your intentions. I would encourage you to say, 'What are the psychological skills and what are the habits that I want to put in place so I can be the person I want to be on a regular basis?'

If you start with that, I think you're going to really capture something into this next new year.

When we talk about ‘passion’, I think we've got the cart before the horse. 

The idea is: if I could just find the thing that I'm passionate about, I'd be okay. If I could just find that one thing, then I’d be fulfilled. 

I think we need to flip that around. 

It's knowing how to live with passion in everything you do. 

Think about how dangerous it is if you can only find that buoyancy and that excitement in the one or two things that you do... that you need to have that thing to be alive. That's a very dangerous way to go through life. It's limiting. 

But what if you could bring passion into every environment that you're in? 

That is possible. 

Living with passion is a psychological skill. It's not a dependency.  

Here’s a quick, real-life story... There was this professional fighter in a championship fight. He won. The belt is being put around his waist, his hand is being raised, and he gives me a little look. He comes off the ring, walks down the five steps and says to me, "That was cool. But that feeling only lasted a handful of seconds up there because now I know my dad is expecting me to keep going. I hate this. I'm really good, but I can't stand it. I don't want to do this anymore." 

Look at that. He's got the belt around his waist and he's talking about that moment of relief. And then, by the time he walked out of the cage down the few steps, he's like, 'I don't want to keep doing this.' 

So, we look at people that are great, and sometimes the torture inside them is almost unbearable. 

That's why I think we’ve got to flip it.  

It's not the thing that brings passion, but it's *you* that brings passion into the thing that you do. Washing dishes, rolling on a jujitsu mat, composing an email, playing an instrument... Whatever it might be. 

Bring that buoyancy and passion in everything you do—that's an unlock for life.

Congrats to Alex Honnold for climbing Taipei 101 on Sat. That was epic ! What a feat. 

Alex is a master of the skill of visualization. Check out some insights from the legend himself, and listen to the full interview with Alex on Finding Mastery.

Thriving organizations are made up of thriving people. 
 
There are two ways to think about thriving... 
 
Inside-out AND outside-in. 
 
Inside-out:  
- It's simple, but not easy. 
- Invest in your psychology. Understand your inner-life. Practice your self-talk. Train the ability to find calm in any moment. 
- We need the internal skills to be able to thrive in any environment.  
- Things are good when things are good. When things go sideways, can we adjust? 
 
Outside-in: 
- Create the conditions for people to thrive. 
- This doesn’t mean a ping-pong table and a pool table and a coffee shop. Those are great, but it’s having that right intensity between support and challenge. It’s making sure that people have a sense of autonomy. They have a sense of agency. They have a sense of empowerment. They are able to be agile and make decisions. 
- They understand how their work ladders up to the purpose of the company. They can see themselves in it. They know they matter. 
 
Organizations can use psychology as a dial/lever that either facilitates or debilitates people coming alive within the company. 
 
Great leaders know how to utilize both psychology AND environment to allow their people to thrive.  

What do you think? ⬇️

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Be masterful with the inputs. The outputs will take care of themselves.

Here's an exercise: Get a piece of paper. Write down everything that is 100% under your control. Do it. It sounds simple but it builds the basic categories that are under your control.

There are three categories:

• Thoughts: What thinking patterns support you to be your very best? What does that sound like in your head?

• Attention: Where do you place it? How do you speak to yourself? Is social media helping?

• Behaviors/Actions: What are the right actions? What are the right behaviors?

Right = thoughts and actions that line up for you to be your very best, in service of something greater than you.
 
Master the inputs. 🛠

Check out this clip from one of our Ask Me Anything episodes, where I answer one of our listener questions (new AMAs coming soon...)

The present moment is where wisdom is revealed. 

It's where high performance is expressed. 

It's where all things that are amazing and true and honest are experienced. 

The present moment is the keyhole for the good life.

The Game Inside The Games is back!

Ever watch a moment in a game so tense you forget to breathe—and wonder what’s happening inside the athlete’s mind while the whole world is watching?

That’s the moment this series lives in.

Next week I'll be at Radio Row, sitting down with football legends to offer a perspective on the Big Game you can’t find anywhere else—we'll reveal the game inside the games, pulling back the curtain on the pivotal, often unseen moments that can make or break a Super Bowl dream. 

This is a behind-the-mask, inside-the-mind exploration of Super Bowl LX in San Francisco to see who will rise and who will unravel on the sporting world’s biggest stage.

Recorded live from Radio Row—and sponsored by Microsoft Copilot, Insight, and CDW—this Finding Mastery series brings together players who lived in the amphitheater, coaches who made the call, and executives who lead when everything is on the line.

New episodes will publish daily from Wed 2/4 through Sun 2/8, leading up to the Big Game.

Follow along by subscribing to Finding Mastery on your favorite podcast platform, following us on social (@FindingMastery and @MichaelGervais), and signing up for the newsletter for daily episode drops:

https://lnkd.in/gAmVEHGP

Because the game inside the game decides the game.

Microsoft Copilot

Insight

Finding Mastery

Janelle Velasquez

What changes when anxiety shows up—and you stop trying to outrun it, and start learning how to work with it?

Dan Harris—journalist, bestselling author, and host of 10% Happier—returns to Finding Mastery to explore practical ways to work with anxiety. Dan unpacks how meditation, compassionate self-talk, and exposure built his capacity after a panic attack on live TV—and why curiosity is a powerful antidote to fear.

In this episode, we go beyond optimization into the human side: rebuilding from collapse, confronting panic (on planes, elevators, and big stages), and the daily reps that make composure more accessible. This is a grounded look at attention, identity, and training your inner life—without hacks or magical thinking.

What you’ll learn
~ How to use meditation as “bicep curls for the brain”
~ Why self-talk (especially in third person) regulates panic in real time
~ The key to working at your edge without traumatizing yourself
~ How to turn exposure into confidence and capacity
~ Why curiosity beats cynicism for mental performance

At its heart, this episode is a reminder: mastery isn’t a shortcut; it’s alignment between awareness, training, and what matters most.

Take a listen on Finding Mastery... wherever you get your podcasts!

What does it mean to live wisely in a loud, distracted, and often reactive world?

On today’s episode, bestselling author and modern Stoic thinker Ryan Holiday, returns for his fourth appearance on Finding Mastery. I love sitting down with Ryan. In this episode, he breaks down why wisdom takes work, how Stoic philosophy applies to modern parenting and leadership, and why the ability to think deeply and act deliberately might be the rarest skill in today’s world.  

You’ll learn:
~ How to treat wisdom as a practice, not an identity
~ Why wisdom demands both courage and humility
~ The key to raising thoughtful kids in a noisy world
~ How to find calm and clarity in times of distraction and division
~ Why discernment is the superpower for the age of AI and misinformation

This conversation goes beyond ideas — it’s about living wisely when life feels anything but quiet.

Take a listen on Finding Mastery... wherever you get your podcasts!

🔥 insights from Kaya Turski ! Take a read.

Safety as the Foundation for Risk and Growth

One of our Finding Mastery mindset coaches—Olympian and 8x X Games Gold Medalist—Kaya Turski, shares an excellent reflection on safety as the foundation for risk and growth. 

Check it out. And if it resonates, please give it a like and share. 

To get more high performance insights from Dr. Michael Gervais and our Finding Mastery mindset coaches, subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter 'The Friday Focus' here: https://lnkd.in/g8RnBj44

What if the real risk to our health isn’t aging itself, but becoming metabolically weak?

This week we sit down with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon — physician, researcher, and one of the leading voices redefining how we think about health and longevity. 

Dr. Lyon shares why muscle sits at the center of lasting strength, energy, and vitality. In this conversation, we explore why health isn’t something to manage later with prescriptions, but something to build deliberately through strength and daily discipline.

Dr. Lyon’s muscle-centric approach reframes aging and performance: real longevity is not about doing less, but building the capacity to do more — with purpose, clarity, and resilience. 

You’ll learn:
~ Why muscle is the organ of longevity
~ How to build metabolic health through training and nutrition
~ The key to balancing strength, performance, and recovery
~ How to approach GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic) with nuance and caution
~ Why physical strength fuels mental resilience and purpose

From the science of protein and training to the psychology of sustainable health, this conversation offers a roadmap to living strong, not just long.

Take a listen on Finding Mastery... wherever you get your podcasts 🎙️

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