#250: Dr. Michael Gervais, Renowned high-performance psychologist and founder of Finding Mastery – Train your mind

27:10Dr. Michael Gervais:And a team is not the end output. It's a team in service of something else. So it's like input to output to some other output. I'm responsible for being a good teammate to you, David. And if I am anxious, irritated, agitated, if I'm underslept, if I'm under-recovered, if I'm overworked, if I can't figure out how to use my words, if I can't figure out how to use my thoughts and my emotions to be in service of something beautiful and ambitious that I'm trying to work towards, then I am no good for you. and so i think most of us feel a little bit underwater in modern times i think most of us are under recovered i don't think the stress is actually too much it's a function of not being exceptional with stress and being exceptional at recovering as intelligently as you can so that you can meet the demands the exciting demands that are coming down the path for tomorrow.

28:17Dr. Michael Gervais:I want to remind you and I that the dark ages were way harder than today's times. Those are hard, hard times, right? Now, I'm not minimizing the challenges of today. I think they're legit. But it's like the tide has gone out, David, and we realized that we were swimming naked for a long time. So the recovery strategies to be able to know how to whether, you know, difficult experiences, emotions, and situations are required. And so that we can meet the demands of the moment. So I need to first invest in my inner life and my habits and practices so I can be a great teammate so that I can, if enough of those do that in the kind of the same setting, we end up being a great team.

29:06Dr. Michael Gervais:So that's how I think about it. When it comes to teams, it seems today the human characteristics that no computer can ever take the place of is that you want teammates that are empathetic. You want teammates that are collaborative. How do you think about those two concepts and how important do you think they are for leaders today? Let's start with collaboration. Empathy is the big one. Let me start with one I think is a little bit smaller in order. So collaborating towards what? So the leader needs to have a very clear vision of a compelling future that I see myself in and you see yourself in.

29:52Dr. Michael Gervais:And we both recognize we can't do it without each other. So I need to be great for that thing to ambitiously take place. And I need to be great teammate for you. So the collaboration is like a requirement that we understand and embrace that we need each other. And I'm not competing with you. I am actually competing within myself to be my very best so that I can be a great teammate. That's what collaboration means. So empathy is more of a first mover in this idea of collaboration. So collaboration, again, doesn't happen without clarity of a vision, clarity of the reason why we're going after that vision.

30:33Dr. Michael Gervais:So that's both vision and purpose in that language. And then empathy is like, to be a great teammate, I've got to at some level really understand, like, what's it like to be David? What's happening for David? You know, what is he going through? What are the things that he's struggling with? And what are the things that he's excited about? So empathy is like, I can tune to your emotional experience, but empathy is not enough. Empathy is good. It's foundational. And you're right. We don't get it from technology. We actually get it from our moms. So moms are one of the greatest teachers of empathy early on.

31:12Dr. Michael Gervais:But there's no excuse. You got to figure this thing out if you want to be connected to the emotional part of life and the emotional part of other humans. So empathy and then compassion rests on empathy. So compassion is I have a sense of what it's like to be you, David, and then I'm going to take action in ways that I can help. So empathy to compassion, to collaborate, to be a great teammate in service of this compelling future that has a deeper why underneath of it. You got me. I'm in, David. I'm totally in on those types of teams. And I've done a bunch of work with Microsoft, which I don't know if you know Satya Nadella personally or not.

31:57Dr. Michael Gervais:I think he's one of our most significant leaders, CEOs of our time. He is grounded in empathy. He is rooted in compassion. He is principle-based to go from a know-it-all culture to a learn-it-all culture so that we can be in service of a higher purpose. and then what they and in some way i've and i'll be super humble have contributed to their culture and contributed to this definition what makes a great leader according to microsoft it's uh great leaders generate clarity they generate energy and they generate results so clarity of what the vision energy they bring an energy into environment let's go let's get after it there's a there's a There's just like a symbiotic thing that takes place when somebody's got that passion and they deliver against it.

32:57And you've worked with gold medalists. You've worked with perhaps the top CEO of our time, Satya, who's done a phenomenal job at Microsoft. A lot of times along the way, leaders stall. They just kind of stall and they're not improving. How do you get people out of that rut? What kind of coaching do you give?

33:21Dr. Michael Gervais:That's a cool statement or cool premise. Just to open the aperture a little bit wider, it's like that's not just for leaders, it's for all of us. But there is how to help. We learned this early on in high-performing environments is that at the moment of something going sideways, something going that's not according to plan, If you haven't built relationships ahead of time, you're of very little service to the other people. So it's well in advance to that, let's call it stall or plateau or something that's taking place, or maybe it's a fatigue or a burnout or whatever it is. It's the relationship that is built over time in advance that carries through those challenging experiences.

34:14Dr. Michael Gervais:I don't have a silver bullet or a magic bullet, of course, but holding that person with an unconditional positive regard is kind of a first principle that really is important. Really wanting to understand their internal solutions. I do not hold your solutions for you, David. They're already in there. So my role, if we're working together, is to have an unconditional positive regard, understand what it's like to be you, and ask as many questions as you'll tolerate for me to hold up a mirror to what solutions already lie dormant within you. You already know it. You've already solved really hard things in your life.

35:01Dr. Michael Gervais:If you're a leader at this level now, you likely have been through some real fires in your life. So I'm just going to help pull it forward to my best ability. I've heard you say that confidence is simply a math equation. Explain. Confidence is a cornerstone for great performance. And confidence begins with this simple little calculus. and it's this thing that's always right underneath the surface because confidence is state specific. It's fleeting. It changes. It's temperamental, if you will. And once you understand the mechanics of it, you can have some consistency with it. So confidence is the calculus for confidence is that I am assessing the challenge in front of me and mapping that against my perception of my internal skills.

35:57Dr. Michael Gervais:So it's this external challenges in front of me. If I think that that thing is way over my skis, and then I start to slide and think like, man, I don't have the skills to meet that challenge. Confidence goes down. Anxiety goes up. If I look at the challenge and I go, ooh, that's a real challenge now. Okay. And you know what? I'm uniquely qualified. I've got a whole lot of things I'm going to bring to this dance. I don't know if it's going to go the way I hope, but I'm going to give it a great go. You with me? You with me? No? Yes? Okay. It doesn't matter. I'm getting after this thing. So that's the calculus.

36:33To have that calculus and to get the formula to work for you, you got to get your head in the right space. I mean, you know, how do you get into that ideal state that you need to get to to perform?

36:50Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. So you think about an athlete for a minute, 16 years leads up to whatever practice we're about to have or whatever game we're about to have. Let's just say it's game day. And there's been a ton of work underneath the surface to be physically, technically, and mentally great. the consummate professional the true master who's committed to their potential they use warm-ups as a way to loosen up their body tune into like this sharpen their skills just a little bit and to wake up their ideal competitive mindset to wake up their ideal performance mindset to wake up the thinking that helps create a vibe that is best for them.

37:36Dr. Michael Gervais:So the warmups are meant to tune physically, technically, and mentally. Now the bullseye for the mental bit is to know with great clarity, what is your ideal performance mindset? And so we work backwards from that. I don't, if I ask you, David, like tell me a time when you were really, it was amazing to be inside you, Like you were in your best state of mind. How would you describe that? Yeah, well, I always talk about the mood elevator. I think you got to climb the mood elevator and get all the way up to the state of gratitude. So you're at your best when you're grateful? When I'm grateful, my mind's open.

38:15I make my best decisions. When I'm angry and resentful or down at the bottom of the mood elevator, I don't perform at that high level. So I always try to at least get into a curious and interested state of mind, you know, but hopefully work my way up to a state of gratitude.

38:35Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah. So whatever you do to put yourself into the state of gratitude, I would assume you know how to do that. And if you don't know how to do it, then you and I would open up ways that you've done it well, you haven't done it well, find the commonalities and the themes. And it essentially comes down to how you are seeing the challenge ahead of you, how are you perceiving your skills, and ultimately what you say to yourself. So what you say to yourself impacts your emotions and your thoughts and emotions impact your physicality. So there's this kind of the trinity, if you will, about thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

39:20Dr. Michael Gervais:And when you combine those two, that essentially is your performance. And there's a process to be prepared. And there's a process to be ready. And there's a process when you get those two dialed in, allow you to perform to your upper limits of your capability. So preparation, readiness, performance. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais in just a moment. You know, the ability to regulate your own mental state is a huge advantage for leaders. And that's a key part of how American Express chairman and CEO Steve Squirey leads. My father would always tell us you can never get too high and you can never get too low, no matter how things shake out.

40:03And I watched him navigate life. And I think as you lead a company like this, you're always going to have highs and you're always going to have lows. And one of the things that I think I've learned since I became the CEO is that how the CEO sets the tone is how the tone goes for the entire company. And so I think it's really important that, you know, when things are going well, you stay even keel. But when things aren't going so well, you also stay even keel. But by staying even keel and not getting too emotional over things, it allows you to focus and to problem solve. Right. You don't want to be assessing blame.

40:39You want to problem solve. And I think that's been important. So for me, my leadership style has always been one that is balanced, never get too high, never get too low and just continue to focus. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Steve. Episode 188 here on How Leaders Lead. you know you you're also a big believer in optimism and you worked with the seattle seahawks for i think nine seasons or so and uh you worked alongside pete carroll i mean he's probably the tigger of the athletic world you know why are you such a big believer that optimism something that you know leaders in every field has got to really have to perform well i think okay cool question

41:23Dr. Michael Gervais:I'll answer it three ways. One is personal and it's not grounded in science. Um, and it's just personal. I like being around optimists. I like the energy that comes from people that say, yeah, but what if we could do it this way? Can you see how this could go be amazing? Like I love that exciting energy about exploring possibilities. So that's one it's personal to me. Then when I look at the science, there's really good science that supports optimism on two fronts. One for flourishing, for living a good life. Optimists report better across many variables when we study optimism. And then on the performance side, you probably remember this.

42:10Dr. Michael Gervais:There was an early research on optimism and sales, and it was from MetLife. Martin Seligman did this research from the University of Pennsylvania. I think it was in 78, maybe it was in the early 80s. I don't have the exact date in my head. But he measured optimism mapped up against sales performance. So he had a hunch and MetLife went with him. And he thought that optimists would outperform pessimists. And what he did is he took a group of people that did not make the paper screening. so they would not have gotten into the hiring process. They didn't have the stuff on the books, if you will, to get to the next stage of interview, but they scored exceptionally high on optimism.

43:01Dr. Michael Gervais:He squirreled away a small little cohort of super optimists and optimists and watched how they performed over a handful of years and they radically outperformed non-optimists, people that are more neutral, and pessimists. And so the lesson in that research is that optimist also supports high performance. And then the third variable is more experience, personal experience, is that I haven't met a world best that is not fundamentally optimistic. When you add all three of those up, I'm singing from as tall as trees that I can, like, hey, develop this skill of optimism. And so notice that I'm saying it's a skill.

43:51Dr. Michael Gervais:It's not something that you're necessarily just born with. We will always leave room for genetic coding for everything. But there are ways that you can develop optimism as a skill. and most people reflexively hear me say that and they go, wait, are we going to talk about holding hands and skipping through the rose pads and everything's always good and that toxic positivity BS? It's not that. It's not that at all. Optimism when done right is ground zero for mental toughness. Optimism done right when it's not naive, when it's not toxic, when it's grounded in reality and with a refusal to just give in to all the difficult information to say, ah, you know what?

44:43Dr. Michael Gervais:It's just not going to work out. When there's a refusal to think that way, when there's a discipline to stay the course even when it's hard, that's where optimism and mental toughness coalesce. I love that because, you know, optimism, a lot of times people just see the world with rose colored glasses and people walk around going, oh, yippee, yippee, we can do this. But it's grounded is the key, grounded in the reality, which is the key to really making that work. And, you know, one thing that is a reality that you have to deal with if you're running Microsoft or you're the Seattle Seahawks who win a Super Bowl one year or, you know, you're the Chiefs who've been winning everything.

45:27You got to overlap your performance. You just can't have one good year. You got to get better and better every year or keep that performance going. What's your thought on coaching people to jump over the bar again and again and again, just keep raising performance? Oh, I mean, that's the most exciting part, you know, is like there's more to unlock.

45:50Dr. Michael Gervais:And that's one of the differences between mastery and high performance and low performance, if you will, is like this excitement for what could be. And if you don't take care of your recovery, staying true to the standard is exhausting. It's a very exacting way of approaching life is this uncommon, consistent approach to getting better. It takes a toll on everybody. So there's a couple things toward it. One is, first and foremost, if you can think about how exciting things could be when you keep going and growing. Secondly is, I need people around me that challenge me. I need people around me that see me and love me and support me and want to carry my water when I want to put the jugs down.

46:52Dr. Michael Gervais:I need a community that pulls me forward too. And so I can do the same for them. So there's a bit of a community, there's a bit of personal excitement. And, and, and also say, nobody has to, nobody has to be on that path. Like you and I might be weird ones, you know, like whatever condition that you have in your life, you play a significant role in it. And so I squarely sit on the power of people having agency to be able to work within themselves, even when they're in the most dire, dramatically painful, full of suffering, exhausting, exacting, traumatic external experiences. And so I'm still going to shine light, just like some of my heroes in the world of psychology and in my personal life, like Dr.

47:49Edith Eager, Dr.

47:51Dr. Michael Gervais:Viktor Frankl, you know, people in my life that have suffered greatly. And they keep saying over and over and over again, hey, listen, you play a part in this. You play a part in this. So Michael, when you think about your own performance, when do you perform best? What state are you in? My ideal performance mindset is like when I'm going on stage or I'm working one-to-many in a in a boardroom or one-to-one. There's an openness and there's a commitment, openness to explore the ideas. But I am at my absolute best when I am deeply connected to the task at hand. And I'm a bit of a competitor in that way.

48:46Dr. Michael Gervais:Like I'm competing within myself to be right here with you. There's an openness, there's a competitive drive that's working inside. And then once those two things, and I'm super positive, like I do like that nature. When those elements are tuning well together, then it feels like I've slipped into that sixth gear and I'm no longer trying. It's just me perfectly being with the unfolding moment. Yeah, I've heard you also say that you have to be vulnerable. You have to put yourself in a vulnerable position to be great. Well, let's look at the Seattle Seahawks. Let's go back to American football for a minute.

49:25Dr. Michael Gervais:We see them on Sunday, and they do extraordinary things on the field. You've got to be a world-class athlete to sit on the bench of an American football team. So there is nobody on the team that is not extraordinary. Now, to be a starter, oh my God, it's a whole different thing. It's amazing. Now, the thing that I think most of us miss, and I certainly would have before I was part of these environments, is that on Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday is a day off for the athletes. On Monday, on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they're on the field and in the meeting rooms and doing film study, exposing what they don't know, exposing where they are quote unquote weak in their performance skill set.

50:17Dr. Michael Gervais:They are putting themselves on the edge of their capabilities, not knowing if this is going to be an amazing breakthrough kind of thing, or they're going to fall into a thousand pieces. And they're doing it in front of people that want their job. They're doing it in front of their coaches that determine if they play or how much they play, or if they stay on the team. They're doing it publicly in front of them, and they're doing it publicly in front of the rest of the world on Sunday. So that, we like to talk about risk-taking, but risk-taking requires making something vulnerable that is of value to you.

50:56Dr. Michael Gervais:And so when you make something that is vulnerable, I'm sorry, when you make something that is valuable vulnerable, you're in a state of trust. I trust that even if I drop the ball, I'm going to be okay. It doesn't mean I'm not going to get cut. It doesn't mean that I'm not going to get booed. It doesn't mean that I might not have people pissed off at me. But I trust I'll figure that out too. So there's a deep resolve in like, I will figure this out no matter how it goes. Resting on people that have high trust. And that's what allows us to be vulnerable with ourselves and with other people. I love that.

51:36I think I could talk to you for hours about this stuff. It's fantastic. but it's been so much fun. And I want to have some more with you and do my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? David, thank you for creating the space.

51:48Dr. Michael Gervais:Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes, let's do it. All right. What three words best describe you? Oh, that's cool. Honest, earnest, competitive. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? Oh, I have no interest in that. Okay. Your biggest pet peeve. When the toilet seat is left up and people flush. Who would play you in a movie? I get told probably three times a day that I look like Tom Cruise. If you could win a gold medal in any sport, what would it be? Surfing. What's the one thing you appreciate the most about the surf culture? The freedom to explore and the commitment to progression of self and progression of skill.

52:31Dr. Michael Gervais:What's something you've changed your mind about recently? That high performance begins where wellness ends. I thought and we thought that that was a true statement. It was dramatically wrong. So the same psychological skills that support high performance are the same exact psychological skills for well-being. What's the one thing you do just for you? Meditation. Beside your family, what's your most prized possession? Oh, you know what it would be? Felix Baumgartner. There's two things that just pop and I'll just share both of them. One is my son when he was in grade school, there was a bunch of Zen monks that showed up at a school for a week long and did a sand mandala.

53:14Dr. Michael Gervais:And so they were hunched over for a week making this beautiful mandala that was really large in size. And at the end, they gathered all the students around, they explained what they were doing, the deep focus and concentration that was required, the teaming. And then they said that we're going to wipe it clean and because all things are impermanent. And so my son was blown away. He loved it. And he grabbed a, they were giving away these little beads, wrist beads. And so he grabbed one for me and gave it to me and it probably cost, you know, $3. And so that's one of my prized possessions, if you will.

53:51Dr. Michael Gervais:And the other is I was a teammate for the Red Bull Stratos project where Felix Baumgartner jumped from 130 ,000 feet and he commissioned 10 watches just for the teammates. And it matters to me. You know, if I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Classic rock. What's something about you few people would know? I think it was like I had great test anxiety. I know I shared general anxiety, but I didn't test well. And I was afraid to kind of put myself out there and testing. So that was something I don't think I've ever said that out loud before. All right. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you'd never miss besides meditation?

54:34Like a moment, a good morning moment with my family. All right. Fantastic. We're out of the lightning round. And I just got a couple more questions and we'll wrap this up. You coach professional athletes. You coach business leaders. Are they the same or is it different? I mean, do you have to shift gears when you coach businesses or athletes?

54:59Dr. Michael Gervais:How do you think about that? They are actually just like you and me.

55:06Dr. Michael Gervais:They're no different than the rest of the world. They just have a different commitment, you know, and they found something that they can be good at. And so, but between athletes and executives, the where I spend my time is on the mind and the mind is portable across, you know, geographic region and discipline. And so many of the same tenants show up, you know, across the globe for people that are really trying to do something special in their lives. You know, as a business leader, what kind of process do you think you need to build into your life? You know, because you think about athletes, you know, I play golf.

55:49Process is critical. You know, process and discipline around what really matters is important in sports and in business. But when you think business specifically, do you have any thoughts on how you should develop process that will help you perform?

56:07Dr. Michael Gervais:One of the things I think that is, I think big sport is about 10 to 15 years ahead of big business. And in big sport, elite sport, what we do is we put mental skills training in the rhythm of the day. Okay. So our, our asset is the athlete is the human. That's our product. If you will, it's, it's human performance in sport. And so the, the only thing we're pouring into is to help others be their very best. So the entire day is structured around people being their very best so they can go do the thing that they need to do in an exceptional way on game day. And in business, there's very little of that.

56:50Dr. Michael Gervais:So we have products and services in business, but there's very little attention to helping individuals be great inside the rhythm of business. psychology in the rhythm of business is what I think is the new frontier for companies. You know, is there anything, Michael, that you've learned as you've worked through what it takes to be a great leader in any field that you try to take home and use with your own family? I mean, how do you think about that? I mean, it's like, how do you transfer that learning that you've gained and bring it home so that you're an effective leader as the father and husband?

57:36Dr. Michael Gervais:Yeah, cool question. And I think it's being principle-based. So I go back to that, almost where we started about lining up my thoughts, words, and actions in harmony with my first principles, with my values in life. If I can do that with a consistent basis, then I'm in I'm in a good place, whatever, whenever, whatever room that I'm in. And what do you see going forward as your unfinished business? Because you definitely have purpose for your life. The vision I hold is a world where people flourish, you know, and so unfinished business is helping decode and, and activate the best practices of psychological skills building that I've learned from best in the world in sport into people that would never have access to those locker rooms and those special rooms.

58:31Dr. Michael Gervais:So that's the unfinished business is like, how do I pull from my head and heart from the locker rooms and the amazing athletes that have taught me how they work? How do I democratize that to the rest of the world? That's the grand ambition for me. Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd want to give to anyone who wants to be a better leader. Everything you need is already inside you. Fantastic. Well, Michael, you know, I really appreciate what you're doing, you know, how you're making the world a better place. And I hope you can scale this learning.

59:12It's easy to assume that success is just a matter of talent, hard work, and strategy. But talking to Dr. Gervais, it's clear that your mindset matters just as much. Because look, no matter how smart or talented you are, if you can't steady your mind when the pressure's on or when conflict hits, then your leadership's gonna falter right when people need you the most. That's why the best leaders train their minds. Just like any other skill, when you do that, you gain confidence. You stay composed under pressure. You become a better teammate and a stronger coach. So here's an idea to try this week.

59:52Think about a big challenge you're up against. Then use Dr. Gervais' strategy to build your confidence around it. Ask yourself, how am I uniquely equipped to face this? What strengths and perspectives do I bring to the table? When you train your mind to think this way, you'll be ready to meet any moment. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders train their minds. Coming up next on How Leaders Lead is Peter Cuneo, the former CEO and vice chairman of Marvel Entertainment. So be sure you subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it.

1:00:27Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader that you can be. Thank you.