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Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

Written by: Dr. Michael Gervais
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Dive into the minds of the world’s greatest athletes, leaders, thinkers, and doers with Dr. Michael Gervais—a high performance psychologist and world-renowned expert on the relationship between high performance and the mind. Dr. Gervais’s client roster includes Super Bowl winning NFL teams, Fortune 50 CEOs, Olympic medalists, internationally acclaimed artists, and more.

On Finding Mastery, Dr. Gervais sits down with the best at what they do, like David Goggins, Brene Brown, Toto Wolff, soccer legend Abby Wambach, neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — translating their life stories, mental skills, and personal practices into applicable tools you can use to unlock your potential.

Walk with us to the edge of human possibility and learn what you are capable of. New episodes every Wednesday.

© © All rights reserved 66694 Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Self-Help Success
Episodes
  • The Psychology of Healthy Relationships | Dr Thema Bryant

    The Psychology of Healthy Relationships | Dr Thema Bryant
    Oct 14 2026
    What happens to the rest of your relationships when the one you have with yourself goes untended?Dr. Thema Bryant is a clinical psychologist, tenured professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, director of the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory, and former president of the American Psychological Association. She hosts The Homecoming Podcast and wrote Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love.Her starting point is a finding she keeps returning to. One of the biggest predictors of your mental state is not your achievement or your bank account. It is the people you spend your time with.Thema and Mike get into her working definition of trauma, the difference between guilt and shame, and why so much people pleasing begins as a strategy for staying safe. Thema talks about being evacuated from Liberia as a teenager during a civil war, and the shift in her own identity after her mother died last year.This conversation is also for the person doing well by every external measure who sees no reason to do any of this work. It is not that you need to, Thema says. It’s that you deserve to.Asked how we would lead if we knew what she knows, Thema’s answer was that you would not leave yourself behind.Enjoy the conversation.__________________________________Links & Resources:Dr. Thema Bryant’s Website: drthema.comDr. Thema Bryant’s Books: Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love, Reclaim Yourself: The Homecoming Workbook, Homecoming: Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole, Authentic Self, The Antiracism HandbookDr. Thema Bryant’s Podcast: The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema (video version on YouTube, audio on Spotify and Apple Podcasts)Mentioned in this conversation: Dr. Lisa Miller’s research on spirituality as a protective factor for mental health. Her Finding Mastery episode: The Psychology of Spirituality | Dr. Lisa Miller. Her book: The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life.Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X#FindingMastery #ThemaBryant #DrMichaelGervais #MattersOfTheHeart #Relationships #Trauma #Healing #Shame #EmotionalSafety #SelfWorth #Attachment #Loneliness #Therapy #Psychology #MentalHealth #HighPerformance #Emotionaltrauma #reltionshiptrauma #selfhelp #selfhealingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • The Psychology of Storytelling | IN-Q

    The Psychology of Storytelling | IN-Q
    Oct 7 2026
    “…the stories that we tell ourselves and other people become our lives.”— IN-QThis is a conversation about the story you are living inside, about creativity as a practice rather than a talent, and about why being witnessed helps us release what we might otherwise carry alone.Before this conversation started, IN-Q walked the entire Finding Mastery team through a poetry workshop. Each person wrote about a personal experience with risk that changed the direction of their life, then read it out loud to the room. Mike opens this episode saying he has never started a podcast feeling the way he felt coming out of it.IN-Q is a spoken word artist, two-time Emmy-nominated lyricist, multi-platinum songwriter, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Inquire Within. He has written songs with Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Aloe Blacc, and he was one of the original members of Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles, the open mic he calls church without religion.IN-Q and Mike get into the three guidelines he gives people before they write, and the night he read his old breakup poems and realized every one of them applied to the new breakup.He also describes giving himself the room every morning to decide not to be a poet. Choosing it again each day – instead of waking up already being one – keeps the work from turning into a life he inherited from a version of himself that has already faded away.Both of them tell stories about an old chip on the shoulder, and the two trace back to a similar place. The chip became fuel. IN-Q calls it unhealthy fuel, and describes chipping away at it now, trying to turn it into a sculpture.Change your story, change your life, is how he puts it. He also tells you exactly where to start.Enjoy the conversation.____________________________________________________________________________Links & ResourcesIN-Q’s Website: in-q.comIN-Q’s Books: Inquire Within, The Never Ending Now Poetry JournalIN-Q’s Album: The Never Ending Now (featuring Isabella Turso)IN-Q’s Poetry Special: IN-Q – Live at the Ace Theatre, streaming on Amazon Prime VideoIN-Q’s Poetry Workshops and Retreats: in-q.com/poetry-workshopsSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletterDownload Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    59 mins
  • The Psychology of Inner Peace | Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

    The Psychology of Inner Peace | Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
    Sep 30 2026

    What if the calmest person in the room isn’t avoiding pressure, but experiencing it differently?

    Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is one of the world’s most recognized spiritual teachers and humanitarian leaders. He founded the Art of Living, which teaches meditation, breathwork, and service in over 180 countries, and he is the author of Notes for the Journey Within.

    Stress has a use, and Gurudev compares it to a pinch of salt in food, useful in that amount and unconsumable past it. Most of us have taken on far more than that, and have never learned how to put it down or manage it well.

    Gurudev and Mike get into why he defines success as exhibiting your limitation, why he thinks failure is worth being proud of, and why authority over your own mind is the only authority there really is. Mike asks him when his body last went into fight or flight. He says it never has.

    This one is for people who are working hard and running warm. What Gurudev points back to is something simple and repeatable: breathing, meditation, and learning how to release stress before it accumulates.

    Near the end, Mike asks him to finish a sentence: Mastery is... Gurudev’s answer: recognizing you are not there.

    Enjoy the conversation.

    ______________________________________________________

    Links & Resources:

    Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Website: gurudev.artofliving.org

    Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Books: Notes for the Journey Within: Essentials of the Art of Living, An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker, Celebrating Silence

    The Art of Living Foundation: artofliving.org

    Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery

    Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!

    Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/

    Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter

    Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset

    Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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    34 mins
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