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.
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What if the real crisis we're facing right now isn't political or technological… but a crisis of attention? Jon Kabat-Zinn is a molecular biologist, professor emeritus of medicine, and the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), the program that helped move mindfulness from contemplative tradition into modern medicine, psychology, and high performance. The last time Jon joined Finding Mastery was four years ago, as the war in Ukraine was beginning. Four years on, the world hasn't g...
What if the most important skill of our moment isn't knowing more, but knowing what's actually worth caring about? Mark Manson is the bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything Is F*cked , with three #1 New York Times bestsellers and tens of millions of readers around the world. The last time Mark joined Finding Mastery was in 2020, mid-COVID, when uncertainty was loud and the world felt strange. Five years on, the world is no less strange... it's just strange diffe...
Why is it that so many of us are loved... and yet don’t actually feel loved? Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is a Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside and one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness. Her newest book, How to Feel Loved , co-authored with relationship scientist Harry Reis, lands at a strange moment: a time when more people than ever say they are connected, and more people than ever say they don’t actually feel it. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Sonja offers a quie...
Why do so many conversations break down, even when both people are trying to connect? Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators . This is his third conversation on Finding Mastery, and the timing matters. The world has shifted since the last time he and Dr. Michael Gervais spoke. Families, friendships, even whole countries are talking past each other. AI has quietly eroded the signals we used to read each other b...
What questions are tugging at you right now, and how might exploring the answers help you live and perform with more clarity? We're back with another special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast: an Ask Me Anything episode, built from the deep and sometimes vulnerable questions submitted by our community. Joining Dr. Michael Gervais again is Jeff Byers, former NFL player, Co-Founder and CEO of Momentous, and a longtime friend of Finding Mastery. Jeff built Momentous on a foundation of transpar...
What does it really take to stay at the top for 16 years and still know who you are when it ends? Andrew Whitworth is a Super Bowl champion, four-time Pro Bowler, and the oldest left tackle in NFL history to start a Super Bowl. He spent 16 seasons protecting the most valuable position on the field, finished his career by winning a championship at 40, and walked off in one of the most viral moments in NFL Films history, sitting in a circle with his kids, telling them “that was daddy’s last game.”...
Are you playing the game, or being played by it? Tom Bilyeu is an entrepreneur, co-founder of Quest Nutrition, and founder of Impact Theory, one of the most-watched interview platforms in the world. He has spent years studying the systems that shape financial outcomes, and in this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, he makes a case that most people find unsettling: the financial system you're working inside was not designed with your interests in mind. Tom argues that the single most importan...
Why do we keep chasing happiness in ways that don't actually work? Dr. Laurie Santos is a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale, where she created the most popular course in the university's 300-year history, the Science of Well-Being . Since then, that course has reached millions of people around the world, and her podcast, The Happiness Lab , has become one of the most trusted resources on the science of living well. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Laurie pulls...
Why do diets so often fail... is it discipline or biology? Dr. Jason Fung is a physician, nephrologist, and one of the most influential voices challenging how we understand metabolism, obesity, and chronic disease. He is the bestselling author of The Obesity Code , The Diabetes Code , and his newest book, The Hunger Code , which explores a deceptively powerful question: what is actually driving hunger, and what does the answer tell us about why so many people struggle with their weight? In this ...
What separates the athletes who perform when it matters most from those who don't... and can that difference be trained? Michael Johnson is one of the greatest sprinters in history: four-time Olympic gold medalist, nine-time World Champion, and the former world record holder in both the 200 and 400 meters. He was also, by his own account, one of the most psychologically prepared competitors the sport has ever seen. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Michael takes us inside the hidden...
There's a version of honesty most of us have never tried. Not brutal honesty. Not radical honesty. Something quieter and more demanding than either: a genuine commitment to saying what is true and useful, and nothing else. That is where this conversation begins. Sam Harris, neuroscientist, philosopher, bestselling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up app, joins Dr. Michael Gervais for a conversation that moves across truth, consciousness, AI, religion, and the i...
What if the biggest barrier between you and your potential isn’t talent - but a belief you’ve never questioned? Nir Eyal is a behavioral design expert and the bestselling author of Hooked , Indistractable , and his newest book, Beyond Belief . In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, he explores a deceptively powerful idea: that beliefs operate like the hidden software of the mind, shaping what we notice, what we feel, what we attempt, and what we assume is possible. At the center of the c...
What does it look like to bet on yourself, embrace reinvention, and build a YouTube channel that reaches millions? Michelle Khare is the creator and host of Challenge Accepted , the award-winning YouTube series where sherains with elite performers, athletes, and professionals to take on some of the world’s toughest stunts and professions. But this conversation goes far beyond spectacle. It’s about the psychology underneath the performance: how Michelle prepares for high-pressure environments, ho...
What questions are tugging at you right now, and how might exploring the answers help you live and perform with more clarity? We’re back with a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast: another Ask Me Anything episode, built from the deep, thoughtful questions submitted by our community. In this AMA, Michael Gervais is joined by Jeff Byers, former NFL player, Co-Founder and CEO of Momentous, and longtime friend of Finding Mastery. Jeff has built something very special with Momentous, a sup...
What if the hardest part of money isn’t earning it, but knowing how to use it well? Morgan Housel, bestselling author of The Psychology of Money , returns to Finding Mastery to explore the core idea behind his newest bestselling book, The Art of Spending Money . In this next chapter of his work, Morgan shifts the conversation away from accumulation and toward a deeper question: after the basics are covered, what role should money actually play in your life? While most financial advice focuses on...
This episode features Dr. Angela Duckworth and Dr. Michael Gervais diving into the contemporary crisis of youth mental health, where anxiety, depression, and loneliness are at historical highs. They explore how technology, social media, and a disconnection from nature are reshaping well-being. The conversation also redefines "grit" as a blend of perseverance and passion, emphasizing the importance of aligning with genuine interests and making intentional choices in parenting and life to create environments where young people can truly thrive.
What if one of the biggest nutrition mistakes we’re making isn’t what we eat, but what we’re missing? Dr. Tim Spector is one of the world’s leading researchers on the gut microbiome and how it shapes metabolism, immunity, and even mental wellbeing. In this conversation Tim challenges the conventional nutrition playbook, explaining why calories are a poor guide to health, why most diets backfire, and how ultra‑processed foods can disrupt hunger signals in ways that make “willpower” a losing game....
Data on an NFL sideline is immediate. Decisions are filtered through fear, experience, and instinct. In this episode of The Game Inside the Games, Dr. Michael Gervais and NFL legend Brandon Marshall explore the tension between analytics and intuition—what happens when information is instant, comprehensive, and impossible to ignore. As technology reshapes decision-making on the NFL sideline, the real question becomes: when the moment arrives, what do you actually trust? Gervais draws on his conve...
Some moments don’t fade. They wait. In this episode of The Game Inside the Games, Dr. Michael Gervais reconnects with Ricardo Lockette as returning to the Super Bowl setting brings old emotions back to the surface. The conversation moves beyond the game itself into grief, loss, and the weight of moments that never fully resolve. Lockette speaks candidly about the Super Bowl heartbreak, the injury that ended his career, and why public grieving can be harder than physical pain. Drawing on their cl...
The huddle is one of the quietest moments in football—and one of the most revealing. Before the play is called, before anyone moves, a team comes together in a space where trust, tone, and connection matter more than words on a whiteboard. In this episode of The Game Inside the Games, Dr. Michael Gervais and All-Pro wide receiver Brandon Marshall go inside the huddle to explore what really happens in the moments before action. Rather than breaking down strategy or schemes, the conversation focus...
The noise at the Super Bowl can be overwhelming—tens of thousands of voices colliding into a single roar. But the loudest voice a player hears isn’t coming from the stands. It’s the one inside their own head. In this episode of The Game Inside the Games, Dr. Michael Gervais and All-Pro wide receiver Brandon Marshall sit down with former NFL MVP Cam Newton to explore one of the most overlooked forces in elite performance: self-talk. Rather than revisiting highlights or headlines, the conversation...
The Super Bowl isn’t just a physical game — it’s a psychological one. In this special Game Inside the Games episode, Dr. Michael Gervais is joined by NFL coach Matt Patricia and former All-Pro Brandon Marshall to unpack one of the most defining moments in Super Bowl history: Malcolm Butler’s game-winning interception. This episode explores what it looks like to perform under pressure when the whole world is watching. Subscribe and follow along all week as The Game Inside the Games delivers daily...
What does it mean to live wisely in a loud, distracted, and often reactive world? Ryan Holiday— bestselling author and modern Stoic philosopher— returns to explore how wisdom actually works… not as a theory or a prize of age, but as a daily practice of reflection, humility, and courage. Ryan breaks down why wisdom takes work, how Stoic philosophy applies to modern parenting and leadership, and why the ability to think deeply and act deliberately might be the rarest skill in today’s world. This c...
What if the real risk to our health isn’t aging itself, but becoming metabolically weak? Dr. Gabrielle Lyon — physician, researcher, and one of the leading voices redefining how we think about health and longevity — shares why muscle sits at the center of lasting strength, energy, and vitality. In this wide-ranging conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, she explores why health isn’t something to manage later with prescriptions, but something to build deliberately through strength and daily disci...
What changes when anxiety shows up—and you stop trying to outrun it, and start learning how to work with it? Dan Harris—journalist, bestselling author, and host of 10% Happier—returns to Finding Mastery to explore practical ways to work with anxiety. Dan unpacks how meditation, compassionate self-talk, and exposure built his capacity after a panic attack on live TV—and why curiosity is a powerful antidote to fear. Dan and Dr. Mike go beyond optimization into the human side: rebuilding from colla...
If you’re trying to be productive, what if the answer isn’t to do more… but to do less, better? On today’s episode, we welcome back Cal Newport — Georgetown computer science professor, bestselling author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity , and one of the most influential voices on focus, sustainable achievement, and the hidden costs of our digital lives. Cal and Dr. Mike pick up where their first conversation left off — exploring why the human brain can’t do its best work while juggling five ac...
The most powerful way to enter a new year is not with resolutions, but with a deeper understanding of how to connect with the people who matter most. As we close out the year, the Finding Mastery team is taking time to rest, re-calibrate and reflect — practicing the same principles we talk about on this podcast. So today, we’re sharing a conversation from the Finding Mastery Vault with two legends in the science of relationships: Drs. John and Julie Gottman. Together, they’ve spent more than 50 ...
What if the greatest gift you could offer this season isn’t something you buy—but rather the way you choose to meet yourself and others—with kindness? As we pause new releases over the holidays, the Finding Mastery team is taking time to rest, reflect, and be with our loved ones — because we believe relationships are part of the practice of mastery itself. So today, we’re re-releasing a powerful, audio-only episode from the Finding Mastery Vault: a conversation with THE Sharon Salzberg, one of t...
What would change if you stopped trying to push through fatigue — and instead learned what your biology is trying to tell you? On today’s episode of Finding Mastery , we sit down with entrepreneur, author, and biohacking pioneer Dave Asprey — founder of Bulletproof, Upgrade Labs, and widely regarded as the father of the modern biohacking movement. This is Dave’s second time on the podcast, and it’s a nuanced exploration of what it means to live with vitality and consciousness in a world obsessed...
What if the future of work isn’t about technology at all — but about unlocking more humanity in each other? On today’s episode, we sit down with Kathleen Hogan , Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at Microsoft, and one of the key architects behind the company’s cultural reinvention. Kathleen helped lead Microsoft’s shift from a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all” culture — embedding empathy, curiosity, and growth mindset across a global workforce of more than 220,000 people. In this convers...
