The Psychology of Winning | Michael Johnson

12:32Michael Johnson:Well, even if you're flat out in terms of speed, there is different intensities to which you do that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, right. So, you know, there is no speed up and slow down necessarily, especially over 100 meters and 200 meters. There's no speed up and slow down. But in order to be flat out the whole way, there's more intensity at some points and less at some points. Right. So it's just like if you are driving your car and you press down on the accelerator to get to 60 miles per hour, you're pressing on the accelerator. At one point, you don't have to keep pressing on the accelerator to keep going 60.

13:09Michael Johnson:You just hold it. Right. I understand. But you've got to be very efficient to do that. The more work you do, the more gas it takes out of the tank. Right. So anyway, in there, you want to understand how you get the best of yourself in that situation and how you are, how you mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for that moment. Right. And so I was able to understand early on that, you know, in that moment, what I need to be focused on, what my process needs to be in order for me to not get distracted and start thinking about why I might lose the race. It's not going to do me any good in this moment.

13:46Michael Johnson:The only thing that's going to help me in that moment is to be visualizing myself running that race. I want to keep practicing. So that's what you're saying.

13:54Dr. Michael Gervais:Like during practice, your mind is occupied. You're doing things. Right. And then when you go into the call room and you are, this is the final touches for readiness. You are.

14:04Michael Johnson:Physically, you just sat there.

14:06Dr. Michael Gervais:You're not doing anything. And so you're not looking around. You are in your internal zone and you are seeing yourself come off the blocks with speed. Right.

14:15Michael Johnson:I'm visualizing myself running the race so that I can go through all of the different scenarios of how this race might unfold and how I'm going to react to those different things in the race. So that when the race actually starts and one of those scenarios unfolds, I've already run it in my mind and I can make the decision quickly because you don't have time. You have to make decisions and adjustments in the race, but it's a 19 second race. You don't have time to really think about it too much. You just got to make the decision and hope it's the right one.

14:43Dr. Michael Gervais:So let's stay on imagery for a minute. How much imagery would you do the month leading up to a race? Countless.

14:50Michael Johnson:It was at a point during my career where if I had an idle moment where I wasn't doing something or watching a movie or something else wasn't occupying my mind, I'd probably just, there'd just be an automatic gun just went off. I'm running a race.

15:08Dr. Michael Gervais:Would you close your eyes to do your imagery? Not necessarily. Sometimes it's open?

15:12Michael Johnson:Yeah.

15:12Dr. Michael Gervais:And how long would your imagery sessions last? This is a mental training tool.

15:18Michael Johnson:It varies because, like I said, it got to a point for me where it was so automatic that I may just run one race and then I'm off doing something else because that moment was only, you know, a minute or a second. 19 seconds. Or a minute. Or it may be, you know, I'm just sitting here, you know, I'm doing nothing. And now I'm really consciously just thinking about racing. so I'm running different scenarios over the period of 30 minutes or so. So it would vary. The key point there is that for me, it was such a part of what I was doing at the time that I wouldn't even be conscious of it and even just think about it before.

15:59Michael Johnson:I just would just, the next thing I know, a gun is sounding in my head and I'm off to the races.

16:06Dr. Michael Gervais:So you didn't schedule time like, okay, at 8 p.m., I'm going to settle down and I'm going to do five minutes of mental imagery or 15 minutes of mental imagery. It was more fluid in the rhythm of your day.

16:17Michael Johnson:Yeah. But again, it, there probably wasn't a day that went by where I wasn't running races in my head at some point during the day.

16:24Dr. Michael Gervais:Could you see it and feel it and smell it? Could you get smell involved?

16:29Michael Johnson:Not smell necessarily, I don't think, but when I think back to it, certainly see it, feel it. Absolutely. Because a lot of racing It's feel. Yeah. It's feel. The reason why hearing it after the gun probably isn't very much, because even in a real race, with a crowd going wild, when that silence happens, when the starter says, runners, take your mark, when you're so focused on reacting to the gun, you have to hear it, but you're not really listening for it. You're reacting to it. And once you hear it and you react, there's just silence. in the race until you cross the finish line. That's the level of focus.

17:10Michael Johnson:So I don't hear anything.

17:12Dr. Michael Gervais:Can you hear, if you play it back even right now, can you hear your breathing and the cadence of your breathing?

17:18Michael Johnson:No.

17:18Dr. Michael Gervais:No, you can't hear like the wind ripping across your jersey or -

17:23Michael Johnson:No, if I could, that means I wasn't focused on the execution of the race. This is all about the feel of the race, how my body is feeling from an endurance standpoint, a speed endurance, It's me holding that speed, which is all related to technique. You only have so much focus. You have a finite ability to focus, right? And it takes so much to understand and have this internal clock and understand where I am on the track and at what time am I, you know, in terms of the splits and intervals. The feel in terms of how much energy am I executing and how much do I have left? Am I exerting too much at this point of the race or am I not?

18:06Michael Johnson:While all of those things are going on, you're also having to try to maintain proper racing technique. So you're focused on that. Your body's symmetry, what this arm is doing, relaxing different parts of your body to get more effort out of other parts of your body. All of those things are going on at the same time as you're still in a race with seven other people. So you still have to keep your eye on them to make sure you know what they're doing to determine whether or not you make any adjustments to them. So the level of focus that it takes to do that, I've never experienced that in anything else.

18:43Michael Johnson:And so it's funny. It's like if you say, do you hear the wind? Or if I did, that means I'm not focused on this enough. There you go.

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21:27Michael Johnson:different every there was in my 11 years competing as a professional over three different olympics five different world championships over that time and then all the races in between every couple of years there was someone new so when i first started it was carl lewis carl was established in his career. Then Frankie Fredericks, a Namibian sprinter, silver in the 100 and 200 meters in 1992 and 1996. Doesn't get enough credit for that. But he pushed me harder than most. Butch Reynolds over the 400 meters, world record holder in the 400. Quincy Watts, the 92 Olympic champion in the 400 meters. There was a lot of folks over my career that came in and out.

22:13Dr. Michael Gervais:And when Carl Lewis was on your heels or your shoulder to shoulder, and maybe he took one stride ahead of you, and you've still got half the race to go. What is happening for you there? Because this is applicable to, I think, all of us when we have somebody that we feel like we're competing against. And I want to compete with myself. I love doing it around other people, but I really want to compete with myself to be my best. And when I get somebody close to me, I'm like, I know it does something to me though. And so I don't really want it to be that way, but it does. And so what did it do for you?

22:53Dr. Michael Gervais:That's the interesting thing about track.

22:54Michael Johnson:And as a metaphor for competition and a lot of other areas of life is that it's probably the one sport, or at least one of the sports where you're constantly having to sort of blend the two where you're competing, not necessarily against yourself, but your best chance for success and winning is making sure that your execution is as good as it can possibly be because there's not really anything you can do about the other person. You gotta run your lane. You run your race, you're in your lane. So you have to be constantly aware of making sure. So when that athlete is, you know, Carl Lewis is on my shoulder, I have to make sure that if I'm already running the race that I plan to execute, that I have to make a decision at that point.

23:43Michael Johnson:And it's a fine line. At that point, do I make any adjustments in my race based on what he's doing, if I'm already doing what I need to do? But also, there's a point in the race where it's like, okay, now I can just race, right? But it usually comes towards the end of the race in the 200 meters. And again, one of the things that makes me unique is that the 200 and 400 are so different. Like if at the end of the race, I'm shoulder to shoulder there's a point if it's within the last 30 meters or so I can just race because you got the 400 I can just underneath you yeah I can just race is that the difference between boxing and fighting

24:24Dr. Michael Gervais:some guys are fighters and some guys are boxers

24:26Michael Johnson:I think it's the same I think it's the same I think there's some point in a boxing match where but it's rare where you can just fight yeah but most points in that match if you start fighting you're gonna get knocked out

24:39Dr. Michael Gervais:yeah Yeah, you need to be a technician. Same thing with track.

24:41Michael Johnson:If you just start racing and you don't have, you're not executing the strategy and you don't understand what race strategy is going to lead you to your fastest time, because it's still all about the fastest time, right, is going to win, then that's probably going to lose you the race if you just start racing. What makes a great competitor? I think somebody who knows how to get the best from themselves in that competitive scenario. So, you know, it's all about getting your absolute best performance. So in track, a lot of times what you will find is, you know, you'll have 20 races in the season, but one of them is the Olympic final.

25:18Michael Johnson:You'll have an athlete who runs fast times all year long, and then Olympic final didn't come anywhere close to that time and finished outside of the medals.

25:26Dr. Michael Gervais:How did you continually, time and time and time again, put yourself in a position psychologically to be great in what other people would consider the brightest lights, the highest stakes competitive environment in track and field?

25:40Michael Johnson:Figuring out learning early how to get the best for myself, how to get myself in the—so first and foremost, training, understanding how to train, physical training with my coach, understanding how to train to get the best for myself physically. What do we need to do in terms of our training program on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to be ready for the season, to have optimized speed, optimized strength, optimized power, to be able to go and run the fastest times that I'm capable of running? that's one then figuring out how to get myself into the right emotional and mental state going into this pressure cooked environment and being able to not get distracted being able to manage the nerves and the pressure and go in and still execute the best race that i'm capable of racing And I think you'll hear athletes, I just heard an athlete the other day who didn't do well in the Winter Olympics say, before that race, I'm going to treat it like any other race.

26:58Michael Johnson:It's not any other race. And you can't fool yourself into believing that this is any other race. And so if your preparation the whole time is, I'm going to treat this like any other race, any other race, and then you get to the race, and it is far from any other race. The entire environment is different. The competition is different. The entire situation is different. The lights are brighter. The sounds and the distractions are greater. Everything is bigger. You're not going to be prepared.

27:30Dr. Michael Gervais:It's interesting because I've seen it work both ways successfully. and unsuccessfully. This is just another race. And this is the biggest show on earth. I am biased towards an assessment that once you're on the track, it's just like every other race. And that circus though, there are lots of differences. There's more people watching, there's more cameras, and it's not a environment that's designed for high performance. It's a media environment. And all of those factors need to be accounted for, but the race itself is still the 19 point whatever seconds. And so I'm biased to lean. I think you and I, our approach would be different.

28:10Dr. Michael Gervais:I am biased to lean on the other side, which is like, no, we got to keep this thing as normal as we can, the way we're thinking about it. This is not the final race. If you lose this race, for the most part, nobody is taking you hostage. I know there has been wild cases in the Olympics of, you know, bizarre consequences of losing, but you know, like your job is to go be you at your very best. And that's something we can train on Tuesday and Thursday and whatever, you know, semifinals and finals. And I've been fortunate to be across four Olympic games, summer games in different sports. And there are differences amongst the sports.

28:48Dr. Michael Gervais:What I like to do is align at the beginning of the quad, the beginning of the four years with the team and the athletes, like, which way do you want to go about this? and then call out the pitfalls for both sides and then train according to that philosophy. So if it's the biggest show, to your point, then we better create some distractions in practice three years before, three months before. We better create some things for you to like really experience that level of intensity and scrutiny well before so you're practiced with it, which is hard to do actually. I want to go back to how you prepare yourself psychologically and emotionally to be your best in a highly competitive environment.

29:31Dr. Michael Gervais:What are the actual things that you do to help yourself be more calm and more focused?

29:36Michael Johnson:Expect the unexpected. Control what you can control and realize that, you know, these are the things that I can control. These are the things that I can't control. So I don't spend any time, and we're talking again, in that moment after training and practice has all been done. Right. And and look, just back to that. I will go back to that point for just a second. Training, same way I've always trained, whether it's Olympic year or not Olympic year. The weeks before the Olympic final, same training as before any other race. Right. Because that works. Execution of the race, same execution of the race.

30:13Michael Johnson:Right. But that moment. And we've talked a lot about this because for me, it is the critical moment. Are we talking about the ready room? Yes. The call room? The call room. That moment is the critical moment. And that's where it has to be an acknowledgement of the reality of the situation is that this is different. I want it more. The nerves may be more. I need to have even more control, right, in this moment. Of your thoughts and your— Exactly. Okay. Right. So in that moment, I think it is, you know, an understanding of the reality of the situation. It is understanding what you can control, what you can't control.

31:01Michael Johnson:And you need to be, for me, it was understanding that I'm at my best when in that moment, I am so focused on what I'm about to do that I can get to a point where nothing is going to distract me. There aren't going to be any distractions because I've already gotten myself into that sort of state. And that's where I perform at my best when I'm in that situation.

31:32Dr. Michael Gervais:Now, this is called an ideal competitive mindset. You just get, and I think I felt it. Did you just tap into it a little bit when you're speaking? Yeah. You did. Yeah, I just felt that. I was like, oh, shit. Here it is.

31:43Michael Johnson:That's me. So Usain Bolt is who broke my 200-meter world record. He was the big name track athlete after I retired. And I remember talking to him once early in his career, and I said, you know, everybody's seen him out there before, and he's the greatest entertainer. You know, he's the greatest runner ever. And the greatest entertainer, which made him so fascinating to watch, right? As a track athlete myself, you know, I just watch him like this. I just be into it, right? You know, it's like because he's such an entertainer. And it looks like, you know, when he's out there, he's just playing around to the camera and doing all of these things before the biggest moment of his life.

32:26Michael Johnson:And I said, what are you thinking about in that moment? And he said to me, he said, when I was younger and I watched you and you were really serious and focused and I tried to do that and it made me so nervous that I would run tight. And he realized and he learned that to get the best out of himself, he needed to play around, not, you know, and he needed to find and create distractions and learn to do that. And that was his routine. And if you watch him, he's out there kind of smiling at the cameras and doing all of these things, you know, right behind the blocks before the Olympic final. And when the starter says, runners take your mark, then it is completely different.

33:10Michael Johnson:Now he's focused. But if he gets focused too early, he gets really tight and runs tight. And he learned that about himself early. I learned about myself early that I need to be absolutely focused, no distractions, not thinking about anything else.

33:24Dr. Michael Gervais:What a cool insight because we all have our ideal competitive mindset, loose and focused versus like intense. Some are super chill, like nothing matters, but whatever that approach is, there's still an intensity that is required to be able to do the thing well, the deep focus and intensity. So your mechanism was on deep focus so that you could get into that rock solid place that nothing pulls you your focus, no matter what somebody else is doing in the call room. Do you have a moment where you were a disaster in the call room that I could learn from?

33:58Michael Johnson:Yes, absolutely. Olympic year in 1992, this was my first Olympics. Frankie Fredericks, who I mentioned earlier, he's my number one rival. and we were at a race probably beginning of the season, probably three months before the Olympics, maybe four. And he's never beaten me before. I've been undefeated against him for two solid years. And we're in the call room and everybody's kind of quiet. He said something, and I don't even remember what it was that he said. And he was just being nice. And it was just something about something that was going on. And I remember acknowledging that and being nice back and just not focused on what I needed to be.

34:48Michael Johnson:And I lost that race by two hundredths of a second.

34:52Dr. Michael Gervais:And you credit it to not being all in in your focus. It's convenient for me to credit it to that. It could have been anything else.

35:02Michael Johnson:But I realized at that point, that's not who I want to be. That's not what I want to be in that moment. What I want to be in that moment is absolutely focused. And so there were times after that where I had one competitor in the 400 who would want to get everyone, all of us around to pray before the 400 meters. And I'm a nice person. I don't want to offend anyone. And it took everything in me to just go, that's not happening with me. Even if everybody else does, it's just I'm going to sit over here by myself, which I did. Because in this moment, that's just not where I want to be. That's not where I need to be in order for me to be at my best.

35:50Michael Johnson:And regardless of whether that means everybody around here thinks that I'm an asshole or whatever that makes them think about me, I don't care. And that was where I wanted to be, to where in that moment, I don't care about anything else. Cell phones came in the latter part of my career, not the beginning. I never had my cell phone with me in that moment because I don't want to hear about anything. I don't want to get a call from anyone. I don't want to, you know, and wonder what that call was about or whether that's something I should have taken. And I want to be in that position.

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37:02Dr. Michael Gervais:She's amazing. And what her and her team are building is something I'm really excited about. Head to fatty15.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery for an additional 15 % off your 90-day starter kit. Again, that's fatty, F-A-T-T-Y, 15.com slash finding mastery, and the code is finding mastery. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, market updates, or text threads, I choose how to start my morning.

37:37Dr. Michael Gervais:That's always in my control. That's always in your control too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to findingmastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free. Again, head to findingmastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. What you're describing is with the prayer bit is that there's a pressure to conform that many of us do feel. And what sits underneath of that is this deep ancient desire to want to belong, to be accepted, to not be rejected.

38:22Dr. Michael Gervais:And the fear of other people's opinions is such a strong fear that we will do a lot of things that are maybe not in our best interest, but it's more convenient at the time to go along with the crowd, to go along with the influence of another person. For folks that struggle with FOPO, fear of people's opinions, what guidance would you give them?

38:46Michael Johnson:Think about the number of stupid people out there in the world. There are a lot of really stupid people out there. Caring what they think makes you pretty stupid. I mean, because I do care about what people think. It's one of the things I have to constantly remind myself of. And you guys asked me to write on the wall. That's what I wrote. Oh, you did?

39:12Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. Yeah, for the listener, we've got a wall of all of the true masters that come through here and just to share a pearl of wisdom or a philosophy of life. And you shared about that, something about staying true to yourself. Stop caring about what stupid people think about you.

39:29Michael Johnson:Oh, you did say that. Because that's my problem that I constantly deal with. Yeah. Trying to make sure that I don't, I mean, there are people that, you know, I mean, I care what people think, but I care what people think too much sometimes. And that's something that I struggle with.

39:45Dr. Michael Gervais:So for me as well, and I draw the line between worrying and caring. And so we need to care about each other and we need to care about the other person's experience around us. But this excessive worry, like am I okay in the eyes of others, is something that is very debilitating. And so that's what you're pointing to.

40:06Michael Johnson:Yeah. And I think that the other difference is who are the people that you're worrying about or caring about what they think? I mean, the people that are close to me, you know, and I have to constantly remember. When you're in the public eye, you can quickly get wrapped into what people think about you or say about you. When you don't even know those people and they're not even, you know, a part of your life and they're a troll on social media, which makes them probably a stupid person if they're trolling people on social media. I'll have to admit that sometimes I will think about and care about what they think and I have to try to just, you know, that does not matter.

40:41Dr. Michael Gervais:This is probably why you are so committed to self-discovery, to really know yourself. And I'm wondering if that's one of the ways that you've sustained mastery for so long is, I wonder if one of the insights in plain view or the quote unquote secrets, I don't think they're secrets, period. But the thing that's in plain view is your commitment to self-discovery, to really know yourself. Would you say that's one of the reasons you've sustained?

41:08Michael Johnson:Absolutely.

41:09Dr. Michael Gervais:So how do you do it?

41:09Michael Johnson:And being vulnerable about it as well. And being true about the things that you struggle with or that you, you know, don't understand about yourself. Yeah, that continued discovery of self and spending a lot of time, a lot of introspection, you know, is probably, again, as I said at the very beginning, that's one of the things that I think, you know, has been paramount in any of my success.

41:35Dr. Michael Gervais:Do you have somebody you do it with or do you have a process that's repeatable for somebody else to learn from?

41:41Michael Johnson:It's a lot of time with myself. When I was young, I was pretty shy. So it's born out of that, always thinking about, you know, myself and thinking about, you know, what I'm doing. But also that's when that what does everybody else think of me? You know, right. That anxiety. Yeah, exactly. So that's the balance. Right. So it's been good for me on the one hand, but it's also something that I've had that I've struggled with as well. But then I have really good friends who've known me forever that are helpful and, you know, that I talk to my wife. I spent a lot of time talking to my wife. We both are kind of similar in that sense of, you know, wanting to understand ourselves better.

42:21Michael Johnson:You know, it keeps you grounded, keeps you sane. You know, I've found that it's just an extremely useful tool for navigating life. You know, when you don't know what's going to happen next and, you know, shit gets thrown at you, you know, the better you understand yourself, the better you are able to deal with it.

42:38Dr. Michael Gervais:I think there's two main buckets in psychology. If psychology is the study of yourself, the figuring you out, right? Self-discovery and then there's a whole host of psychological skills. You've mentioned many of them in the conversation. They've just been kind of sitting right on the surface, which is, I call it master the controllables. You're saying control the controllables, same thing. We should probably identify what some of those are for you. You know, like what are the things that are most important? You did talk about self-talk. You talked about mental imagery. You talked about working well with emotions.

43:08Dr. Michael Gervais:And those are all skills. And the more you know yourself, it's like you get the big rocks in the container. And once you really, really, really know yourself, nobody can ever take that away from you. So it's really hard to move those folks around. Whether you're in a ready room or call room and someone's screaming and yelling, hooting and hollering, and you're like, no, I know myself. and that's theirs thing. My thing is coming in and just feeling that spark in me, you know, that when I'm running at easy speed and it's amazing. And whatever they're doing is not my, it's not my thing. And then when you come up from that, I can imagine you are absolute force to be reckoned with.

43:46Dr. Michael Gervais:Like there was no one moving you off the block. Right. Right. And you had all of the requisite behind you, physical and technical mastery that when you dialed in that psychological deep focus, you had a full package.

43:58Michael Johnson:Yeah, that's exactly what it is. The way you describe it better than I do.

44:02Dr. Michael Gervais:No, I think we both spend a lot of time thinking about this.

44:06Michael Johnson:But no, that's exactly it. And it comes from a place, I think it comes more natural for someone like me because for whatever reason, I'm a bit of a control freak. I feel more comfortable when I'm in control. What are you trying to control?

44:19Dr. Michael Gervais:What are those things?

44:20Michael Johnson:I'm trying to control as much of my environment and my destiny as I possibly can. How do you do that?

44:26Dr. Michael Gervais:Because you can't control the environment. You have no, I mean, I guess.

44:30Michael Johnson:I discovered most of this when I was an athlete. I discovered a little bit more as I've continued on after in my post-athletic career. But as an athlete, for example, in the warm-up area, the day of a race, there's always, you know, I can go down, I'm in a hotel, lots of other athletes. And then most races, there's a place where we all go to eat and, you know, we, it's a ballroom catered and everybody eats in there. Not like the hotel restaurant, but only for the athletes. And I would go in there. I got friends in there, you know, but not, you know, we sit, sometimes we sit down, you know, we, you know, on race day, I don't want to be around.

45:11Michael Johnson:I want to control my own environment. I want to control the conversations I have. I want to control who I'm talking to. I want to control whether I have to talk to anyone at all. I want to control my environment. On race day, I'm always ordering room service. I see. Stay in my room. Yeah, I see. My coach, my manager, my physical therapist, and my strength coach, all those people are part of my team. They know that I don't want to get into any small talk on race day. When we leave the hotel, I know what time I want to leave. Coach, we've decided together. my track coach and I were the main ones making all of the decisions right everyone else on the team sort of coach communicates to them this is what we're doing this is a schedule this is and you know we all get in a van together with our driver he's taking us to the track no small talk i don't want to get any small talk clear boundaries clear rules yeah this is how i want to be and then And when I get to the track, I chill for a bit.

46:11Michael Johnson:We got a routine. And I want to control as much of that environment. And I don't want anybody coming over to do small talk with me. So my team knows, you know, if somebody's coming over, you know, wants to talk to Michael, they're going to say, hey, you know what? Not right now.

46:26Dr. Michael Gervais:Talk to you later. One of the Olympic teams I work with, one of the athletes had one earphone in. Yeah, chit-chat's cool. But, like, yeah, be kind of quick because I'm getting geared up. no no headphones in no problem yeah okay one uh just kind of two lights out like i'm in yeah you know and so that was a signal to everybody and so everyone could help create that little boundary around her which is like hey do you mind if i let me see oh she's got two headphones no no yeah she's got one be quick yeah or there's not yeah yeah go ahead yeah yeah so like there's yeah okay

46:59Michael Johnson:so my team knew like you know based on the amount of time before call time right you know 30 minutes before, there's nothing. There's nothing. There's unwritten rules.

47:12Dr. Michael Gervais:So you've been an obviously world-leading athlete, and you are an incredibly successful entrepreneur as well. If we knew what you knew about operating in high-stress environments, how would we be better in modern life, which is there's plenty of stress for all of us.

47:33Michael Johnson:Yeah. If you knew more, if you knew as much about yourself as I know about myself, you'd probably be pretty good, you know, in high stress environment, in times of uncertainty, in pressure packed moments. And when you're trying to deliver your best, you know, because, again, that is, to me, the single most impactful thing on all of my success is understanding myself in a way that allows me to get the best from Michael in the moment.

48:06Dr. Michael Gervais:And it sounds to me like when, like you don't have like a structured program for self-discovery. It's something that is constantly running as an operating system. Like, oh, that's interesting that I was nervous there or that I didn't know what to say there, or I was on a glad path. And then it sounds like you're constantly like tuning and then figuring out what did I do to put me in that situation, whether it's favorable or unfavorable, useful or unuseful.

48:32Michael Johnson:Yeah, I'd say, you know, I'm pretty hyper aware of my actions, of my environments, of my thoughts.

48:38Dr. Michael Gervais:Are you more aware of your actions or your inner experience? Or equally the same? Equally the same. Yeah, so awareness is a superpower, I think, that you've, we're talking about self-discovery, but really you're with awareness.

48:52Michael Johnson:Right, yes, exactly. You know, I wouldn't say that it's totally unstructured because I'm so interested in the space. but I'm also looking at other people a lot, you know, and sort of, you know, what they get right, what they get wrong, because I'm very interested in this space and always have. So it's not just me. It's almost a hobby as well. You know, talk about curiosity.

49:16Dr. Michael Gervais:It feels like you're a really curious person.

49:18Michael Johnson:Only about certain things. That's one of the things that I would love to be more curious about more things, but I'm not naturally. I'm curious about the things that I'm really interested in. And this is one of them, you know, people's, you know, journeys to success, how they deal with obstacles, how they deal with stress, how people succeed. It's really interesting to me. I'm very curious about that area. I'm very curious about myself, which sounds weird, but I am because I always want to be the best I can be. I wanted to be the best athlete I can be. I want to be the best father I can be. I want to be the best entrepreneur I can be.

49:58I've always been very curious about, you know, myself and my own

50:03Dr. Michael Gervais:ability to succeed, to overcome, you know. When your coach says to you, Michael, I got something. I think it's going to change everything. And I think we're going to squeak out a couple of tenths of a second, and this is going to be a game changer. But that means that you're going to need to come off the blocks on your opposite foot. And we're going to change that. Do you go into curious mindset? Do you go into defensive mindset? Oh, 1 ,000 % curious.

50:30Michael Johnson:Yeah, I mean, for that, I mean, like. Do you get excited? Like, tell me more.

50:35Dr. Michael Gervais:Like, what do you mean?

50:35Michael Johnson:Yeah. So when I was competing, yeah, I mean, I was obsessive about finding the thousandths of a second. Because that's what's going to make you better. That's what's going to win races. I was absolutely obsessed with it. And I craved those moments when, you know, coach would give me criticism. You know, that whole idea of craving criticism, that was absolutely me. I don't need coach to tell me how great I am. I need him to tell me where, you know, that was not great. That's where the improvement comes from. And so, yeah. And like every year, my coach and I would sit down at the beginning of the year and I'd tell him, you know, here's what I want to do this year.

51:19Michael Johnson:This is the big goal this year, break the world record in the 400 meters or whatever. And he would say, okay, you know, let me think about what that's going to take, what we're going to need to change from a training standpoint. And it was always something, okay, if we're going to do this better, we're going to do more. We're going to essentially run faster. This is what it's going to take. This is the sacrifice you're going to have to make. And I would make the decision at that point, is that sacrifice something I'm willing to do? And that's the other thing. It's commitment. You know, people talk a lot about committing to, it's easy to commit to the goal that I want to be the world record holder.

51:55Michael Johnson:But when Coach lays out all of these things, we're going to have to change. That's where the commitment comes in. You got to commit to that stuff, right? When I decided I wanted to go for gold medals in the 200 and 400 and make history and become the first person to win gold in the 400 meters and 200 meters at the Olympics, I had to add a whole nother training session every day. and then also we went from five days a week training to six days a week training and to back that up. I'm going to start doing that now two months earlier than I normally would. So those are the sorts of things like, okay, that's a lot, but that's what you got to commit to.

52:30Michael Johnson:What scares you the most? Being unprepared. How did you prepare for this conversation? I'm not scared of you. You're such a nice guy. I'm like, you know, this will be easy. I do this so much and I love talking about this. that, you know, my preparation for this was minimal. Just driving over thinking, all right, you know, what I think we're going to talk about and how can I be helpful to people?

52:55Dr. Michael Gervais:What role do you want to take in the world now?

52:58Michael Johnson:I'm trying to get there now where, you know, I am helping people with my experience more. In my entrepreneurial days, the phase that I started that when I was in my early 30s, right after my track career, that's exactly where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing. Now I'd rather be spending less time building things myself and helping others build whatever it is that they're building.

53:21Dr. Michael Gervais:So that's something that folks that are inspired by the way you're thinking and the knowledge base that you have and the commitment to excellence that you embody, that if they're looking to get something off the ground, you would be a good companion in that. Or they're already kind of, I don't know, three cycles into funding and they've got some real skills. Yeah.

53:40Michael Johnson:I mean, look, I spend a lot of time with entrepreneurs. I spent a lot of time with the corporate America as well, doing different, you know, keynote speeches and things like that. But, yeah, just trying to help people cut through the bullshit because there's so much out there, you know, I think in this space, which that, you know, is important to me, you know, to help people. Typically, people will look at someone like me and say, well, he's done this at this highest level as an athlete. So anything that he says is probably golden, right? There's a lot of people who have done it at the highest level, and what they have to say isn't really golden because they only have their one perspective, but they believe that that one perspective can universally be applied to everyone.

54:20Michael Johnson:You have that now with not just athletes, but entrepreneurs. Okay, I, you know, sold my company for, you know,$10 billion. That doesn't mean that you know everything. And your particular way of building your company and how you did it and how you succeeded may not be everyone else's journey. So, like the example I gave when Usain Bolt's the greatest sprinter of all time, you know. You know, he didn't do it the way that I did. He did the exact opposite, right? But at the core is what we both realize is that we have to figure out what works for us and how we get ourselves in the right mental and emotional state in that moment to be able to deal with the pressure of that moment.

55:00Can you talk about relationships and how they sit in your life?

55:06Michael Johnson:Relationships have always been important in my life. I have three sisters and one brother. They're all older than me. I grew up with them. They've always been my best friends. They've always been my closest confidants. I'm the youngest, so I took a lot of crap from them. And so when I was, you know, fastest man in the world, I was still taking crap from them. And I love that. And it's always been really important for me. I know that I can go to them with anything. My coach, who was really the only coach I've ever had, he passed away last year, just right back in November. He lived a great life.

55:45Michael Johnson:was like a second father to me. And my dad, I was very close to my dad. And my dad was my role model growing up. And we definitely went through that cycle of, you know, child becomes the parent, the parent becomes the child at the end of his life. And I'm having a, you know, I don't know if you should do that, you know, kind of thing, you know, like, you know, but it was great, you know, throughout. I always valued that relationship. And, you know, I'm with my coach. Relationships have always been extremely important to me and they've always been a very valuable part of my life. and probably also one of the reasons why I've been able to be successful because I've had people that have been so important to me that have also helped me to understand.

56:23Michael Johnson:And when everybody just saw me in my identity as a fastest man in the world, those people saw me as my brother,

56:30Dr. Michael Gervais:as my son or my friend. Is there a practice that you have found to be valuable to invest in relationships that matter to you?

56:38Michael Johnson:I've learned, because I'm always learning about myself. So eight years ago, I had a stroke.

56:45Dr. Michael Gervais:Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn. Earlier, I mentioned LinkedIn Hiring Pro, and I want to come back to something a little more personal. We talk a lot about the people who make extraordinary things possible, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of ours. Janelle, Taylor, Alex, Emma, and our newest teammate, Chelsea. Every single one of them came to us from LinkedIn, and every single one of them has raised the bar of how we operate here at Finding Mastery. Our relationship with LinkedIn, it also runs a lot deeper than just using their tools. We also work with their teams on the corporate side, helping them build the kind of high-performance culture where great people want to stay, they want to grow.

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59:19Dr. Michael Gervais:Again, that's sunlighten.com and use the code mastery for up to$2 ,100 off. Right?

59:27Michael Johnson:Came out of nowhere. I was in great shape. I was working out one day. Started getting this weird feeling, weird sensation. Finally decided, just I know my body, something doesn't feel right. And my wife was like, yeah, let's go to the emergency room. Out of an abundance of caution, thinking it's going to be nothing. It was a stroke. Had to learn how to walk again. Everything. Right? And in that moment, I learned I have to depend on people more instead of always having them depend on me. I felt most comfortable when people would depend on me and I didn't have to depend on anyone. Didn't want to have to depend on anyone.

1:00:06Michael Johnson:And I remember my wife and one of my really good friends, you know, saying, you got to let people do for you and help you. At that point, I'm laying in the hospital and I can't walk. I'm like, might as well. Right. And I learned in that moment, you know, that I've got to be more dependent on people and allow myself to depend on these, you know, relationships that I have and have it a little bit more both ways. And that's been really valuable for me. But I say that to say that I constantly am, yeah, just trying to, I mean, I was, that was, I was 50 at that point when I learned to depend on people more in relationships, right?

1:00:45Michael Johnson:And that's what the relationship is there for, you know?

1:00:48Dr. Michael Gervais:Wow. Wow. There's a tenderness when you talk about this.

1:00:52Michael Johnson:Yeah, it was. I mean, that experience was a really interesting one for me in that people say, oh, what did you learn from that? You know, did you learn to appreciate, you know, life more? And I was already very appreciative of the life that I have, which is one of the things that got me through that. I remember we were in the hospital at one point. My wife said, somebody said something about why did this happen to us? And we both were like, why not us? We've been so lucky, you know. And I said that, and my wife's like, you're the only person that would say something like this in that moment, right?

1:01:21Michael Johnson:And she was like, but you're right. You know, we've been so lucky. And, you know, I think it's that sort of perspective, you know, that allows you to— I've been extraordinarily fortunate in my life, so I've never taken that for granted. And I think that that is what allowed me to get through that moment the way that I did. It was a really tough, you know, health is— When we first talked, like, how's everything going, Michael? And you're like, oh, health is good. And, you know, that's one of the most important things. And at that point, it was definitely in jeopardy for me. I wasn't in control, which is very important to me.

1:01:53Michael Johnson:And it was one of those situations where, you know, I was able to get through it because of all of the things that I learned. And I was able to really apply what I learned as an athlete to getting back to 100%, able to walk again, able to run again and do all the things and get back my quality of life. if I didn't have that experience as an athlete where I was able to recognize, you know, those tiny, small improvements and things like that, I don't know that I would have been able to fully recover from it.

1:02:19Dr. Michael Gervais:Thank you for reminding us of that and the tenderness that you have when you describe that part of your life and how important it is to be vulnerable in relationships because we all want to have meaningful relationships, but if we don't open ourselves up to them, people never really get to know us. And so we kind of skim on the surface and it's a hard thing to do. So thank you for that. Just to kind of round out the last questions is that, can I just give you a thought stem and you give like one or two word answers to a few things? Yeah, I'll try. It all comes down to? Execution. Success is? Never straightforward.

1:02:57Dr. Michael Gervais:Failure is?

1:02:59Michael Johnson:A certainty.

1:03:00Dr. Michael Gervais:A certainty? What does that mean?

1:03:02Michael Johnson:You're going to fail at some point. Very cool.

1:03:05Dr. Michael Gervais:If you could name a boat, what would you name it?

1:03:10Michael Johnson:For sale. You never buy a boat or rent it.

1:03:18Michael Johnson:Well done. Well done.

1:03:20Dr. Michael Gervais:Money is? Important, but not everything. Relationships are? Everything. I'm most curious about? That's going to sound weird myself. I do think that that is true for you, but I don't think it's a narcissistic thing. I think it's like, no, this is complicated. And I know that if I can sort it out to be just a little bit better, I'm going to be better for other people.

1:03:40Michael Johnson:That's exactly. Yeah. Better for other people, better for, selfishly better for myself. I want to win. Yeah. I want to win. And if I want to win, I got to figure out, I mean, it's up to me. I got to figure out how to get the best for myself.

1:03:53Dr. Michael Gervais:What a breath of fresh air, Michael. Thank you for capturing how you have been so special across, definitely track and field, but in business and in life. and to put it in words for us and be able to tell it in stories, but also get down to like the process of how you're getting better and how you have become one of the best in the world across multiple domains. So Michael, thank you for coming through. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I enjoyed it. Yeah, it's great. This was fun. Next time on Finding Mastery, we're joined by Dr. Jason Fung, physician, fasting expert, and bestselling author of The Obesity Code.

1:04:28Dr. Michael Gervais:In his latest book, The Hunger Code, Dr. Fung explains why so many traditional weight loss strategies fail. Not because people lack discipline, but because they're working against their own biology. He breaks down how hunger, hormones, and modern eating patterns shape weight gain and what we should actually be doing to improve our metabolic health and lose weight. Join us Wednesday, April 8th at 9am Pacific only on Finding Mastery. 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.

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1:06:17Dr. Michael Gervais:If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your health care providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.