How to sustain a vibe with Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

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1:07They actually do it. Start to finish. Cases closed. Requests handled. No extra work for you. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. When I look back now at our entire partnership, what we allowed for was this room to recalibrate, this room to change, and then come back together and get to know that version of one another and get to know our partnership. As, you know, we were children and teens and adults and mature skaters. There needed to be room for evolution within that. We couldn't operate within this one set of standard rules and expect that to work for two decades.

1:47Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking, my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

2:04Next week, I'm launching my new book, Vibe, The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. It's about how to spark, strengthen, and sustain bonds. And you can pre-order it now in print, ebook, or audio, which is narrated by me and features the voices of many of the people in the book. I'm about to start touring the US and UK, and I'd love to see Rethinking listeners at the events. My conversation partners include Jennifer Garner, M. Night Shyamalan, Anne Patchett, and Matthew McConaughey. All right, all right, all right. You can find more info and take a vibe quiz at adamgrant.net. To celebrate the launch of the book, I'm doing some special episodes with pairs whose vibe I admire.

2:43Today is the first one. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moyer are the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history. They won three gold medals and two silvers over a 22-year athletic partnership before they retired in 2019. Tessa is also the host of a new podcast, Virtuoso, where she talks with athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, leaders, and creators about success, resilience, and purpose. I couldn't wait to talk with them about how they built and maintained such a great collaboration. It began when Tessa was seven and Scott was nine. We were so small, we couldn't see over the boards. And we would just hold hands, not talk, and cruise around the perimeter of the ice surface.

3:22Their relationship had to evolve as they became teenagers and then adults. And it was a lot of work, not just on the ice, but off it too. We also grew up in the age where mental coaching and sports psych was blossoming. So we started marriage counseling. You did marriage counseling? Yeah. Yeah, totally. It got more and more sophisticated as it went on, and we were able to really be students of that and understand that it wasn't just an important part of the game, it was the majority of the game. It's a myth that we either vibe or we don't, and Tessa and Scott's collaboration is a testament to that.

3:59Enjoy.

4:04Hi, Tessa. Hi, Scott. Hi, Adam. Hey, Adam. How are you? Good. It's such a treat to be on with you. Well, that remains to be seen. Let's see how this hour goes. I'm honored to have you. And Tessa, did you know when you invited me onto your show that I was just going to reverse this and give you a bait and switch and say, actually, come on my show. I love it. Well, leave it to you to always have some creative thinking in mind. I was blown away by your genuine enthusiasm. I was just excited. I would have brought coffee to this interview if it meant getting a chance to connect. You would have been drinking it by yourself then.

4:36Oh, you're not a coffee guy? I've never drank coffee. Wow. Really? Is that weird? Well, I go to bed at night dreaming about coffee. Yeah, I'd still be in bed if there wasn't coffee waiting. Wow. So yeah, I think it's a little weird for us. Yeah, it brings me extraordinary joy. Coffee, I can't imagine needing it. The energy is just there. And you can tell in your eyes you have that energy. That's special. Can you? Yeah, just like the way you sit and your energy as you talk. Absolutely. Wow. You don't need coffee. No one has accused me of having too little energy at any point that I can remember, except occasionally when I'm nervous.

5:16And do you get nervous very often anymore? Less and less now. How about you two? I feel like I'm in a stage where I'm really craving it. Like there was a period of time after the Olympics when I would have done anything to feel that like jolt of adrenaline, like the tingly in my palms. And I remember trying to, you know, get on stage in front of a lot of people and grab a mic and I just kind of wouldn't feel much. I would do live TV and see the light go on and really not feel any of that excitement. And so it took some time to sort of get a taste of that compared to what we would have felt on the Olympic stage.

5:51And now I'm at a stage where I want to be scared. I want the pressure. I want to try new things. I really want to be out of my comfort zone. So I feel like I'm getting nervous almost every day now, which is kind of refreshing. How about you, Scott? Oh, I think for me, I'm still kind of blown away that I don't recognize that I'm nervous. So I'd be very grumpy in the afternoon before a skate or show. And then like, it's just my coping mechanism. And then I would be ready for the event. But it still shocks me that I haven't like kind of caught on to that trend. I want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly, Tessa.

6:24You're saying you crave the butterflies? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because that's unusual. I think when I hear that, I think, oh, you're craving the opportunity to have something to look forward to. and it's the challenge, it's the performance, but you said you actually missed the feeling. Yes, and it's everything I was so eager to get away from when we retired. I remember just thinking, if I have a job that doesn't require me to drive to the arena at six in the morning and do double run-throughs to the point of feeling like pure just exhaustion and lungs burning, lactic acid buildup, like all of the things, if I don't have to feel that, I will be happy.

7:05and I really enjoyed the lack of pressure for a long time post-retirement. And now I'm just kind of saying, like, bring it on. I've been missing the very notion and the existence of pressure in my life because it's the thing that has unlocked performance in the past. And so I think I'm longing for growth and evolution and change and challenge. So, yeah, physically, I'm also seeking those feelings. Is that crazy? Yes. Yes. Scott, you never want to feel it again. No, I mean, I understand in a way, but maybe I'm not quite there yet. But I do still feel that when I play like beer league sports. It's funny, you know, like I play baseball I never played.

7:52So I'm really bad at it. So like I get those nerves and maybe that kind of fulfills that desire. Okay, so I want to talk to the two of you about your vibe. and I've had so many things I'm curious about. But maybe the place to start is when you first met, how did you gauge whether this was going to be the right pairing? About 10 years after? Right? I don't know. Like when did we actually... When did you meet? I met Scott when I was six years old and we started skating together when I was seven. So Scott was nine. anyone anyone that says we showed signs of potential when we were just seven and nine is completely lying um when did we know that there was something i mean i i think the vibe initially was pure excitement for two things one to compete and two to dance and the idea that this magical sport of ice dance could merge those worlds of art and athleticism even then if we weren't totally clued into the different facets of the sport.

9:01There was something about it we loved, and there was something that made it so much more fun to do together. I think for me, there's two distinct memories. You know, I was a boy in figure skating, so you're really one in a million, it feels like, in these little skating clubs. And then here comes this girl that showed up, and she jumps higher than me, skates faster than me. So the beginning of our partnership for me was really about competition. I didn't like that. I didn't like that she could do all these things. I remember being in a group lesson with her and she's landing her axle and she's doing all these things.

9:36And I was like, what the hell? And that kind of pushed me to a part in figure skating where the first time I can remember actually trying to be better instead of just having to be there because both of my older brothers skated and my mom and dad didn't want to hire a babysitter. And the second part I think would be how Tessa always challenged me. I think it is really why I fell in love with figure skating. She was always more mature than her age. She always was a very sophisticated communicator. Most of what I learned in my coaching, I learned from Tess. And those parts constantly being challenged like that, I just really craved and loved.

10:11And that's when I knew that there was something special in our partnership. Wow. Okay, wait. So I have to know more about the initial competition between the two of you. Scott, from what you just said, I get the sense that it was asymmetric. that you were envying Tessa and you were a little threatened by her, but Tessa, you didn't feel that in return. Surprise, surprise. I remember thinking, I mean, Scott was sort of the playful, curious, bad boy of the arena. Like he was always, he would pull... All still present tense things. Like, for example, he would pull the fire alarm to get out of doing ballet class.

10:48He, you know, would play pranks on the girls. He was just that like funny character. And I don't remember the competition between the two of us, but I do remember thinking that it was so fun to do the compulsory dances together, for example, when we were just little. So when did you start to think seriously about being partners? Well, we were kind of put together. It was an arranged partnership. So it's pretty wild because we came up together from a small skating club. We lived 15 minutes apart from each other. So it's just circumstance, so much of it. Tessa showed up and her grandmother was talking to my aunt and they knew that they wanted me to ice dance.

11:28And here came this little dancer, gymnast, super athlete into the rink. And it wasn't long before they were like, oh, there's Scott's skating partner. Like we were just following what our coach thought would be, like Tessa said, cute. But after a while, when we started to skate together, there was a magic that happened. And I think then we fell in love with ice dance. I'm not so sure that I was in love with the sport of figure skating before Tess. Actually, I can confidently say that that didn't exist. But then as we started to skate together and dance together, that's when we really started to have this partnership.

12:00But, I mean, it happened at six and eight. And those first five, six years, we are a bit more passengers, wouldn't you say, Tess? Yeah, I think you're right. We decided to move away from home when I was 13 and Scott was 15. So I would say that was a pivotal moment of a real decision to make a choice. And at the time, I think it was a choice. I can look back now and think we were making some serious sacrifices living away from home. I skipped grade eight. We missed prom and parties and sleepovers and a lot of what makes up an ordinary high school experience. We were at the rink early, missing parts of school.

12:36And that's when we became not only partners, but also family. I think we needed to support one another in such a specific way during that kind of fragile time of our lives. And it's also the time when I really think we went from, you know, not just Tessa and Scott, but actually this entity of us. and I remember pretty clearly in those days making decisions, not thinking through what I needed or what he needed, but actually what we required, you know, what was required of us to achieve a common goal. And so this kind of shared alignment was the driving force of everything in our lives. It's so interesting how, even just as you narrate the arc of starting to dance together, you're previewing a bunch of the themes that I'm excited to learn more about.

13:26So I'm kind of torn on where to go first, but maybe I just, I want to go back to the arranged partnership. Why were you paired? Well, I think I can answer this test because my aunt tells me all the time. So we had the same base coach who was my aunt Carol and Tessa was, I don't know, T, you're going to laugh and probably not say that, but she was a star. She was a really great skater. She had great jumps. She had musicality, you know, like you can't really scout at that age, but if you could, she had it. And I was the only boy around. So lucky for me, I think they just thought that that would be a good partnership.

14:05And so much of it back in those days, especially, it's just height. It's height and if it fits together and if they're on the same dances. But that's pretty much it. I wish it was a little bit more sophisticated than that, but it's a bit more of just a circumstance, I think. Well, I don't wish it was more sophisticated because I think one of the most interesting things I've learned about how people vibe is I think a lot of people believe that compatibility is something you match on. And I think the evidence is clear that it's more something you develop. And it sounds like the two of you were paired on kind of minimum physical compatibility.

14:40You had to be athletic enough and there were some height standards, but there wasn't a lot of attention to, are you going to get along interpersonally? Are you You can have chemistry emotionally, none of that. Gosh, it's such a good point. And I'm keen to learn more about your research because actually on the personality spectrum, I think you would find us at opposite ends. And what was interesting was sure, like, you know, we were able to find the power in our differences eventually, but we didn't need to be alike to be aligned. And I think our temperaments, our communication styles, even like the way we process pressure was completely different.

15:21And that ended up being part of this kind of secret sauce, the power of our partnership that we ultimately worked on. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't natural by any means. You don't need to be alike to be aligned. Bingo. How are you different? You said opposites, Tessa, on the personality spectrum. On what traits are you so different? The first thing that comes to mind is part of what makes Scott such a captivating performer is that he is fiery and passionate and so engaged, a little bit temperamental, but in the best way. Like, you know what he's thinking and feeling at all times. I would give anything to have that kind of transparency and even that awareness of my own self, the way that Scott seems to so innately.

16:13I think just naturally I learned to offset that. I learned to be more even keeled and calmer and just sort of like a bit of a toned down version of that. And I wonder how much of that is natural and how much of that was reinforced because of this dynamic between the two of us that almost required that of me. Is that fair, Scott? Yeah, there's just so many factors of that. First of all, it's even hard for me to hear you say all these nice things about me and for you to say that you're on the opposite side, because that's not quite how I see it. But the reserved part, for sure, when you were young, I agree with.

16:51I would be interested to find out if that would have been the same if I wasn't so wild and taking up all the space in the room. But that did change as we're more authentically ourselves. And I think that's when we're at our most powerful. So it's interesting, but now I sound old, but when we were growing up, maybe that was some more of the quote unquote acceptable roles. Tessa being a young woman in the sport of figure skating and me being this wild young man. And I think that that has a role to play in it as well. Scott, I'm glad you called out the gender stereotypes because I didn't hear what Tessa was saying necessarily as complimentary of you.

17:33I could replay what she said and say, wow, he is emotionally unstable. He is, in fact, he's too emotional to lead. Like unqualified, cannot control his temper. Like this guy is lacking in maturity. I think for sure at a young age, those things are true. So I can't disagree with them. But I'm much more comfortable with that as a 12 to, let's call it 28-year-old. But now I'm so much more refined, Adam. So at least I can do some breathing exercise and calm down, even though I'm just as wild and temperamental. But yeah, those are all accurate things. So I accept that. Well, but I actually think this illustrates one of the powerful features of your dynamic, which is you took something that could be interpreted positively or negatively, and you saw the good in it, right?

18:29So Tessa just describes you, I think, neutrally. And you're like, wow, thank you so much. But you're right, Adam. I mean, I think without realizing it early on, we developed that kind of like positive attribution theory too, where anything negative we'd associate to external events and anything positive that happened would be sort of a characteristic attribution to one another. And we did have this ability to be one another's greatest fan and somehow find like a way to lift one another up. I think we kind of put each other on this pedestal. Yeah, right. But by the same token, I mean, part of that fire that I described in Scott was what propelled us forward.

19:14I often say that he's the kind of person that can change the temperature of the room when he walks in. And I suppose to your point, that can be good or bad, but it was so important for us to have someone like driving the energy in that way. And almost to an unhealthy extent, I was putting his needs before my own. And that was not helpful for so many years. And so I think, Scott, what you're getting at is like towards the end of our career, we were able to find this, you know, more powerful equilibrium. but I suppose when it came to the discrepancies between us the conflict almost became information like it wasn't harmonious all the time but more often than not on the heels of some tension or disagreement was our most productive time because we would have thought of the work as this separate thing we were both working towards and it didn't feel personal we were able to just sort of put that aside.

20:11And it wasn't this like referendum on the friendship or the partnership. That is classic task conflict instead of relationship conflict. And one of the things I've, gosh, there's so many things to talk about here, but one of the things that I'd love to hear about is I think great partners often develop routines or rituals for having conflict without it kind of spilling over into the personal animosity problem that so many of us run into. So how do we disagree about a plan, a vision, a strategy, a decision without developing some animosity or frustration toward each other? Did the two of you develop ways of raising disagreement or even kind of kicking off a fight without it becoming nasty?

20:56Tough. We're bad fighters. Yeah. A few things come to mind. And Scott, I wonder if you remember this, but Marnie McBean is an Olympic rower, very decorated Olympian, a hero of ours and was a mentor to us before actually each of the three Olympic Games. She once suggested that we had a formula to begin the difficult conversations. And she said that when you're in them, you know how to argue, you know how to kind of state your point and go back and forth. But it's starting the difficult conversation. And we really took that to heart. Like we had kind of a meta conversation about how do we want to handle conflict?

21:29And there were a few key ingredients. One was having that sentence starter, you know, cut through the tension and the other could prepare to listen and understand. We never argued on the ice. That always remained our safe place. As long as our skates were on, that was the time to work and be productive and get the most out of every moment on the ice. And plus then no one's going to get stabbed with a skate. Exactly. Yes, that was. That's a big pro. Big pro. Always dangerous. The other component of that is the idea of trust, which over time, I think we learned that it wasn't just emotional. It was behavioral.

22:12Like, sure, we had this emotional trust that more often than not was there, but not all the time, not to be dependent on. However, the behavioral trust came with years and years of evidence that we would show up for one another, that we would do the work, that we would execute under pressure, that we never disappointed one another in the professional manner. And that kind of trust in the working partnership that we had was way more beneficial than any other kind of emotional trust. Yeah, because I think people misunderstand our relationship because a lot of our career, we were good friends, but we didn't have much of a personal friendship off the ice.

22:51So we loved working together. But when it was the weekend, we both ran. in our separate directions. It's so intense, but you're totally right. Professionally, even in our biggest fight, we both knew we wanted to accomplish the same goal. That was a big thing for us. Like we never want to disappoint each other. And when we didn't get along personally, or we were hurt, we didn't want to let the other person down was the biggest thing in our lives. So to be able to at least deliver professionally was like the bare minimum for us, because there was a level of care there and a bond of performing together.

23:30And there is something so unusual about the intensity and the intimacy of an ice dance team. You know, we push away from the boards and it's just us. And those relationships are, they're different than any other relationship you have in your life. That's powerful. Today's episode of Rethinking with Adam Grant is brought to you by Olympic Hospitality. The Olympic Games are coming to Los Angeles in 2028. This is a once-in-a-generation event that you will not want to miss. It's more than a ticket. It's a story you share with your family and friends. And the ultimate way to get closer to the action is with an Olympic hospitality package.

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26:29So early in the conversation, Scott, you said it was a few years in before, I think you used the word magic, before the magic started to happen. And Tessa, you said, I'm gonna go back to your point that you didn't need to be aligned. How did you get to that point of alignment? Like, how did you go from sort of just, you're showing up with very different goals to then wanting the exact same thing. And what does that teach us about how we can all be better allies with people that we want to be able to collaborate effectively with? Well, I go back to a meeting we had with one of our coaches, Suzanne Killing.

27:07You two? Yeah, exactly. How old were we? Do you remember? Oh gosh, we would have been 10 and 12, something like that. Somewhere around there. She took us off the ice. We're still wearing our skates. We put our guards on and we sit in this little meeting room with a window that looks onto the ice surface. And not only did she have us kind of assess the way that the other teams around us, the other ice dance teams, communicated with each other and sort of evaluate how productive that was for them. She also highlighted to us what we say to each other and how we say it has extraordinary impact. She was the first person that I ever really heard talk about like this common goal that we had and that we need one another to accomplish those things and we need each other at our best.

27:52And kind of then and there, we had this like code of respect that we learned to cultivate. You know, like as young kids, we never name called. We never blamed one another. we sort of vowed not to coach one another because we also had so many external coaches that it was better if we weren't turning that inward to change the dynamic of the team but in fact we would go to bat for one another almost be a little defensive of any negative coaching and that right there that one meeting sitting by the rink with Suzanne changed the course for us I think I mean I think that at the very least so many seeds were planted and it was up to us to every day make a choice to sort of lean into those things that we had discussed.

28:36Yeah, it was one of the biggest secrets to our success. I think we saw that as a real tool in our toolbox that we could use. And we used way better than the people that we trained with our competitors, because we were collaborative every day working together. But I think it really does go back to that meeting with Suze and the values that she instilled. And, you know, we're in a little skating rink and we're all trying to get program's ready and the deadline's very real. I think I was probably being a bit of a jerk. But for her to be like, full stop, we're getting off the ice and we're talking about this.

29:10And I'll never forget that. I can picture the room and it was a huge moment. This is such a compelling lesson for how to be great allies. The idea that you're going to sit down and come up with a code of respect, which includes not only what you do to support each other and try to work toward your goal together, but also what behaviors are unacceptable to both of you that no name calling, no blaming. I mean, I think that would apply to frankly, any kind of partnership, the idea of not coaching each other. That's such an interesting way of making sure that you're always pointed in the same direction and nobody's stepping on the other's toes.

29:46And I don't, you know, obviously I think there's probably a time and a place where that makes sense for some people, but just the act of deciding what is it that's going to preserve our partnership? What are the behaviors that might threaten that partnership? And let's align on that. That's almost as important as aligning on the goal of becoming two-time Olympic champions, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. I think more than, yeah. More than? In some ways, because again, like that goal was there for us, you know, like that's just clear. A lot of people were aiming towards that. But our competitive advantage was harnessing the power of what we could be as a pair and really protecting and nurturing that partnership together.

30:32And I feel like I wouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't say as a former skating partner, current friend, current pal, Scott's been painted to be this like terror. You were also the nicest, funniest, sweetest guy ever. I feel like that hasn't gotten enough talk on this pod. Oh, that's very sweet. But quit using the past tense. I'm still on these things. You just don't get to see me as much. Yeah. You don't have to spend 12 hours a day with me. True. I want to get really concrete and specific about how you would initiate a difficult conversation. Can you model or demo for us? Start that conversation with him.

31:07Show us how you would do it. Cup of coffee first. Coffee. Zucchini muffin from Campanelli's, which is close to the rink, away from the ice. Now I recognize it was very like situation behavior impact kind of feedback, but it was when you did this, this is how I felt. And I need you to know it's important for the sake of our work. I need you to know that's how I felt and try to give space. We had small techniques, like even opening your palms on your lap, like opens your body language to better receive feedback. I think we're pretty coachable humans. That was part of what, you know, got us so far in our career.

31:48But even receiving feedback from one another and having that like small little body language shift made a difference. And I mean, I'm not trying to romanticize this because it was difficult, but that was one way that we would have like had an in to the conversation. We're lucky, though, like a lot of our conflict resolution, we had a third party, too. Yeah. And some of it that helped. But the big conversations, as I said, we were big feelers. So we never really fought physically, obviously, but not even like name calling or like our fights would just be not talking and not like in a mean and spiteful way, but just like our professional relationship didn't have the same joy and passion.

32:33And that was punishing enough for the both of us. You know, so the older we got and the better we got at kind of fixing these, we would just address them earlier and just leave a room for them and leave a bit of that personal time at the end of a week or the beginning of a week for either a personal check in or to make sure we're not carrying things forward to kind of start fresh. And those, I think, were some of the biggest habits that helped. Given how much you seem to like and respect each other, it's surprising to me that you said you weren't really close friends off the ice. And I want to talk more about that.

33:09I want to do that through the framework that I wrote about in Vibe. When I think about making a strong connection, I think about three wavelengths we can connect on. And I've come to call them allies, pals, and companions. Allies are people who share your goals and you're on a common mission together. Pals are people who share your interests and hobbies, and you just enjoy being together. And companions are people who share your values, and you care deeply about each other and provide each other a lot of emotional support. From what I've heard so far, it sounds like you were primarily allies for a lot of the time that you competed together, and you didn't really need to be pals or companions.

33:50Accurate or inaccurate? Absolutely. The allied part is right. I mean, that was number one, accomplish our goals. I think we were pals, in my opinion, but there is a companion part to it as well. As I said, we care deeply about each other. So I think we just, we blur the lines in all three. And we wanted to, in the end, do it just as much for the other person as we did for herself. I think actually the last two years of our career, that was our major motivator, was to do it for each other. And now you're sitting there, Adam, just like, yeah, that's the ally part. I think for sure. I mean, you're right.

34:29Allies, yes. I think companions, yes. Very aligned on values. I think the PALS component came and went throughout the 22 years. I think when we were operating on all cylinders and like really at the peaks of our career, PALS was included in that. But it wasn't consistent. And there's something interesting about, I don't know, this idea that we were extraordinarily emotionally and physically connected, but that closeness required space. Like in order for that to be able to flourish, we needed to have our own identities or needed to feel as if we had identities outside of skating, outside of the partnership.

35:10And we needed to give each other some breathing room in order to then build that bond even more closely. but what's so interesting is like when we were pals nobody had more fun than us like we had a blast like in the like stupid little car rides or traveling the world when we were in that pal state but then there was also like the other side of a relationship where it's like people thought we were crazy for this but when we got on an airplane we didn't sit together like we just it was our time to be alone so we did I guess we're strange now you're making me realize that that we are, it's weird.

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38:23So, Tessa, you said that when you were firing on all cylinders, you were pals. And I have a chicken and egg question about that. I think it's easy to assume that becoming pals brings out the best in you because you're having more fun together. That activates intrinsic motivation. It's easier to push through the hard parts of practice. Maybe you look like you're having more fun on the ice and that's ultimately good for your performance. But I also wonder if being pals is a consequence of success. Because when you're winning an Olympic gold medal, you are celebrating and it's hard not to have fun together.

38:59And I guess I'm curious about, does it go both ways? Is that a virtuous cycle? Which causal arrow is stronger? And well, I have another question too. Three-part questions are bad, but I'll let you choose your own adventure in terms of the one other piece of this that I'm really intrigued by is, did you have routines for becoming stronger pals or closer pals? and did that actually contribute to your success as partners? I think to answer the last part first, yes. In the end, like once we had a more sophisticated approach to training and competing, we would actually schedule personal time to hang out.

39:39And sometimes that was with our sports psych. We'd go and get coffee or dinner. But often around competition, we knew that, okay, on a practice day, we should prioritize time together, whether that's a walk around a new city, the Olympic Village. And that just became part of one of the rituals to bring us closer and to find time to be together that wasn't so intense and so specific around the strategic approach to skating. The other part's really interesting. Yes, I think success brought us close together, but also maybe the failures even more or the vulnerability of defending a title, I would say.

40:17Like in our second Olympic cycle, we had just come off of winning a home Olympic Games. And we went into the first Games as complete underdogs. No one knew us. We didn't have a sponsor. We weren't on any like medal contender hopeful list. It was like an athlete's dream come true because we had nothing to lose. And yet we were chasing something that meant so much to us. Then suddenly, like the flick of a switch, we were the team to beat. We had the target on our backs. And anything less than gold was a failure for Canada, or so we felt. And I think one of the times when I think back on our career that I felt closest to you was in the Olympic Village in the 2014 Olympics because it really felt like us against the world.

40:59It didn't feel like we had a close support team that we could trust. There was like this raw vulnerability of taking the ice, not feeling confident and not feeling worthy, and yet chasing that gold again. And I think we really relied on each other. And so that's a moment when I think being pals paid off. But it was really driven by the necessity of helping each other through the low and the loneliness. That's my attempt to answer your three-part question. You did a good job. I think you just made a complex web even more complex. It's what we do in psychology. Can't help it. I think that the simplest relationships, they're primarily defined by connecting on one of these wavelengths.

41:51So if somebody is just your pal and you enjoy hanging out and you don't lean on them for emotional support and you don't have any goals to pursue together, it's kind of the peak low maintenance relationship. And if somebody is just your ally and you know you're locked in on the same goals, but you don't have to spend a lot of time getting to know each other, you have complimentary skills, like that's relatively straightforward to manage too. And if somebody is a great companion and they're there when you need them and vice versa, but otherwise like your lives are just kind of moving in different directions, that doesn't require a lot of effort either.

42:27What each of those misses is you're not as close because you don't connect for multiple reasons. You don't have the same repertoire of like reasons to look forward to seeing each other and ways that you can intertwine in each other's lives. But I haven't seen until now, and this is a long preamble, but my aha is your relationship has moved in and out of these different phases. And so you've always been allies, but the pal and companion connections have waxed and waned. And that's okay. Yeah, it would be interesting to map a graph and correlate like the successful times and the wins and the losses and to see how that maps along those three categories.

43:09But you're right. It had to be OK, at least for the purpose of this long term partnership that has served us so well. I would love to see that research project done. That is a doctoral dissertation waiting to happen. Sounds like a lot of work. I think we when we're really close and we're really friends, it's at a deep level and we're enjoying every part of it. And if we're not there, you know, I don't remember there being like anger, but I don't think we were really able to fake that. And I think that's just the bleeding of the lines of the three, but fascinating stuff. As far as companionship is concerned, I'm thinking about similar questions around, I think that sometimes companionship is really helpful for a collaboration.

43:53The closer you are as companions, the more you care about helping each other succeed and not disappointing each other. And so there's a benefit there. On the other hand, I think there's a lot of pressure and a lot of sometimes emotional baggage that comes out when you have that kind of companionship. And sometimes it's just easier to focus on what's happening on the ice. And so I'd just love to hear the two of you reflect on what were the pros and cons of, I guess, the emotional intimacy that you had when it spiked and when that was less a part of your collaboration. Every time that we were really on and really like in our best performance energy, we had a disconnection.

44:35So there is that emotional intimacy. I don't know if we were able to manipulate it or rely on it, but I think we used it in our biggest performance to really be there. Like we felt like two hearts beating at the same time, you know, breathing at the same time, there for each other, looking in each other's eyes, squeezing each other's hands. You know, that intimacy is how we connected and I think is related to our success. Mm-hmm. We had to learn each other almost like a language that after so many years, we could read one another incredibly well. And that was, you know, body language, cues, energy, when to push, when to leave something alone.

45:17Like that fluency was only built because it was years of getting it wrong, years of misunderstanding, years of making assumptions about what the other person was thinking, repairing, recalibrating, leaving space for that kind of growth. I love this idea of learning each other like a language. I'm like, I don't speak Scott. How do I get better at that? No need. It doesn't serve you in any way. But no, I think it's a great metaphor. It's a great metaphor for what happens in so many interactions when people either clash or just fail to click is it's like trying to communicate in two different languages.

45:58Yes. and like you talk past each other or misinterpret each other or become at odds with each other because of that. Do you have insights or advice on how to accelerate that process? If you wanted to read someone more accurately, what did you learn about how to do that? I mean, the most obvious thing is to pay attention, but to really tune in and then to not be afraid to check in, you know, like if Scott walked into the rink and I could see his jaw was clenched or his fists were tight, I would immediately assume that I had done something wrong. And yet later when I would vocalize something, he'd say, oh, you know what?

46:37I didn't sleep great. Or traffic on the way here just got to me and I'm just making things up. Yeah, neither one of those things would have ever happened. But that was evidence for me to think, oh, actually, I wasn't right. It's not about me. Not everything is about the way that he's interpreting, you know, my existence here. And then, you know, through the squeeze of a hand, luckily our work was so physically connected. I knew that like what I needed from him and in the moments when I was like most scared about to take the ice was a wink, the squeeze of a hand and just for him to say like, we got this kiddo.

47:10and I wasn't eventually afraid to ask for that. And so, yes, we knew each other so well, but there was this real open dialogue about how we were communicating both verbally and with our body language. Is that, would you agree, Scott? Yeah, yeah, totally. That's really powerful. It makes me think about a great paper led by Elisa Yu on what's called emotional acknowledgement, which is something I underestimated the importance of until I read this evidence. So when you talk about tuning in and checking in, like even just saying, hey, Scott, you seem upset. Making that statement, the evidence shows, increases trust.

47:52It allows us to understand each other, to get on the same page. It's also a little bit of a risky move on my part to say, hey, I was paying attention to your facial expressions. And here's what I read. There's a little wrinkle in the data, which is, if you mislabel the other person's negative emotions, you get penalized for doing that and Scott's gonna say no I am not upset but now I am well now now you're identifying yeah probably the first six years of Tessa's ice dancing career but you were also really good at that you just give me my space and then I'd come around hopefully but I do that a lot you know daily just like that hey you're stressed how are you feeling and I think I did learn that just from trying to communicate with Tess.

48:37And that's the most important. I love that, tuning in. That's where I was thinking, I'm taking that one with me. It's a great way to look at it. You do that so naturally. That's like one of your superpowers. Or at least if you're wrong, you know, and you've built the trust, you can have those check-ins. Like, hey, this is just from me caring. That's it. I just care. And are you okay? Like, are you, what's stressing you? I'm sure we can figure it out. And then, so we did do that, especially later. And then the permission, the permission to feel those things and then realize that we're still going to continue on and get it work done.

49:13And we just call it the Ashton Eaton approach. Like if we're not having a good day, that's a great opportunity for us to have a good day. Anybody can train when everything's going great. But if you're really in the dumps, when you have a bad emotional day, that's when it's the hardest. But then eventually we'd just be like, okay, you know, we know we can be awesome on the good days. We're having a real emotional low, acknowledge it, but then let's see what we can get out of today, despite the fact that we're in the low. That was when we became very powerful. Scott, this is, it's right out of the data.

49:47I love this. You just nailed why being companions can make you better allies. I think this is the one other finding from the research that opened my eyes was when you take the time to comment on somebody else's emotions, you're not just showing that you care enough to pay attention to them. You're also willing to incur the cost of addressing whatever the issue is, right? So Scott, if you point out that Tessa seems like she's lacking confidence, you're also sending her a message. Hey, it's important to me to work with you and build up your confidence. And that is a big investment in a relationship, isn't it?

50:25Yeah, totally. And with the confidence issue, the thing that I did so poorly early, I would get so frustrated. How come you're not confident? You have every right to be confident. And where I think I really misstepped is I took away her, yeah, kind of her permission to feel that way. Of course, she's just getting ready for a big event. She's going to put herself out there. You'd have to be psycho to not actually be a little not confident, right? So, yeah, learning as I go still. Well, this has just been such a joyful learning experience for me. I can't thank the two of you enough for joining. I guess I've been watching you since you were first in the Olympics.

51:03And I knew you were magic on the ice, but your relationship is just as magic off the ice. And now to see the vibe you have just talking to each other, we all need more of that. And I think the two of you both modeling it and also unpacking it for us is just immensely valuable in this increasingly lonely world where people are struggling to connect. So I cannot thank you enough for being willing to share your bond with all of us. Thank you, Adam. That means a lot. Thank you. That was fantastic. So fun. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by TED with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glazer.

51:45Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pillar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winnick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hilash, Banban Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manivong, and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown.

52:10I can't believe we made it through an entire podcast without talking about the parallels between ice dancing and synchronized diving. Physically, the synchronized diving is one of those things that's just like, I don't understand. Like gravity is for us very controllable. All it is, it's like it's melted ice, right? And I think you'd make really great synchro diving partners. No, we've gotten away from the spandex and the unitards.

52:44Thank you.

53:15Thank you.

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