How a UFC Fighter, Olympic Skier, and Extreme Climber Master High-Pressure Moments | The Mindset Roundtable

Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training, a high performance psychologist. And this episode, it's unlike anything we've ever done before. So last summer you may remember that a few members of the Finding Mastery team, along with ex Games champion and Olympian Kaya Tursky, UFC champion Vitor Belfort and famed climber Tommy Caldwell, went aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, while she was on deployment in the western Pacific. While we were on board, we recorded a podcast with the ship's commanding officer, Captain Daryl Cardone, and the commander of the air group, cag, Captain Patrick Corrigan. It's a great episode. If you haven't listened to it or watched it, I really recommend you make the time to do that. It released last July and you can just go to findingmastery.com podcast and search Reagan. It'll come right up. Now, before we went on board, we were stuck at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, waiting for a typhoon to pass through. And it was just wreaking havoc in the western Pacific. The weather was terrible. There we all were waiting in the hangar for the storm to blow through. And we had a high performance psychologist, an MMA fighter, a climber and a world class Olympic skier. It's kind of like the start of a bad joke. Yet there we were. So what we decided to do was, was to make the most of our time. We sat down on whatever we could find in the hangar and we had a conversation. It was kind of an impromptu roundtable. It was a wide ranging discussion that delved into adversity and resilience and high performance mindset. And each of them has faced extreme challenges from high altitude survival to fight night pressure to life threatening injuries. And in this conversation we, we break down the mental frameworks and strategies that help them do more than just survive. They emerge stronger and more invigorated than ever. If you've ever wondered how elite performers navigate fear and setbacks and the unknown, this is a conversation you will want to take the time to listen to. So with that, let's drop into this special roundtable from a hangar at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the persons expressing them and do not represent the views of the United States Department of Defense or Department of the Navy.

Mike, you want to set up? So how did you guys get into what you're going?

So I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and I born a broken family. So I was very hyped so they discovered that I was I think I considered a genius. But they, but in the sense of like the kid that can be put into sleep, he can do things. So they found the sports as a way of like can he put his energy there so he can't sleep.

You were restless?

Yeah, like I was like all over the place and very active. And I think back in the days that thing this depths attention just like people make up when you split special kid, they make up rules. Like they want to put in meds. And I remember they put in meds. But actually I was very active. I was just active and sport was my thing. So I grew up in a very like rough area. So I was bully, I was a stutter kid. Like I stutter. So I remember my teacher said read a essay and I was reading say you study. I said yes, I am. So my first bully was my teacher from school. So. And it was funny because back in the days they don't have the word bullying. Now it's bullying. So I think sport driven. But I mean martial arts just was a place where I can express myself and feel, just feel like take ownership of you who you. The insecurity that was designed and creating me. I think every kid is like a little bit more like you need the reinforce of a teacher your parents and I think martial arts gave me that you capable of doing.

So the martial arts in the beginning was it about like protecting yourself from things like bullies or was it. It sounds like it's a little bit of both. You had the protecting yourself and then you had the like finding something that made you feel full.

Yeah, I think martial arts, everybody should just. I call martial scientists is the way you discover yourself because the weakness is strength. And I mean we all, we all in a martial we always fighting something, you know, fighting a disease, you're sick, you're fighting, you know, so you're always fighting something or you, you want to achieve something. You're either in offense or defense, in life in every area. So but in martial arts teach you to be relaxed, teach you to kind of okay you, someone's choking you, you say okay, let me take my time. Don't tap. You can fight. So martial arts, so in every martial arts teach you a different principle. Since jiu jitsu teach you you're in a very bad situation, use your leverage, you know, using his trainer against himself. So and then you have the striking, you overpower someone and then you have the wrestling. Like in wrestling you can never run back, you can never go Back Jiu jitsu, you can stay in a different mode and let the other guy. So every martial arts has your strength and your weakness, and then you discover this in yourself. I started working what I'm good at, not what I'm not good at. So I think that's called the. I don't know how they call them psychologists, but, you know, working on your strength, not in your weakness. So I think that's kind of it.

Cool.

So I'm Kaya and I'm from Montreal, Canada. Grew up there in the. In the cold. So started off on skis really early on in my life, but quickly transferred over and spent my time in the skate park. Aggressive inline rollerblading, that's a really niche sport. Pretty uncool, I know, but I loved it. I loved it. I really thrived in the skate park. And When I was 17, I hadn't skied in about 10 years, tried it once, and just fell in love. Everything transitioned really well. I learned my balance, my air awareness, my understanding of transitions, and I just thrived on the mountain. And I love the speed, I love the air. I love the intensity that freestyle sports brings to my life and the challenge. And what I love about my sport of slopestyle skiing is it's a judge sport. So difficulty, amplitude, execution, creativity, style. And I was obviously always a wild child. Loved pushing, just exploring those edges, pushing my limits, seeing. Seeing how far I could take myself. And I was also a really creative kid, always in the art room, trying different crafts. And so slopestyle skiing was my perfect outlet. I loved it. I was on the. On Tour for about 12 years. X Games, World Champs, Olympics for Team Canada.

You still compete at what age?

So I competed in rollerblading first internationally. I became pro rollerblading when I was 14. Then I switched over to skiing at 16, and it took me about six months to sign my first pro contract. So. Really? Yeah.

You've never been on skis before that?

I had been when I was a kid, but not in the park or anything, just really cruising. So when I made that switch at 16, I just. I knew there was something there. And I was still in high school, convinced my parents, like, hey, I want to move out west to Whistler. Let me give it a year. And my dad was a professor, and he's like, I don't know. School was very important to him. And I said, let me try this. I just. I have a deep feeling that I can do this. I can be really fucking good at this. And so I moved out to Whistler, actually Squamish, so about an hour away. Took the Greyhound bus every day by myself, skied by myself. I've been, I was self taught rollerblading and self taught skiing. Never been coached until way later on in my career. So yeah, self made and love to fly. That's me. I'm that kid. You know, in my sport we fly up to 80, 90ft doing. Yeah, we're going maybe 45, 50 miles an hour forward and backwards, upside down, doing like double course, double flips.

Now how you train that you go to a gym and kind of.

Yeah. So obviously a lot of physical training, agility training, have to have really quick feet because the impacts are hard. But you also have to have your muscles turn on instantly. Right. A lot of visualization because it's really dangerous. So I need to absolutely not just see the trick, but feel it. Really feel the trick. I've never attempted a trick in my life without being convinced that I can land it because I've done it in my head several times.

So you create your own tricks?

Yeah, I create my reality, I create my run in my mind before I do it. And by the time I'm doing it on the hill, it's been done many times and I know I can do it. I've got it. Yeah.

That's dangerous.

Who taught you that?

Figured it out. Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

I don't know. It's my gift. It was a gift to me.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

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I mean, it was my way of keeping myself safe. I wasn't rogue. Of course I have a different relationship with fear than, than most. I can kind of entertain those limits, push those limits. But I, I have this incredible trust in myself because I've, I've thought it through and if I attempted everything without thinking it through, I'd be dead. I don't know, I'd be crippled. I don't know. It just, it was automatic. I, I visualized and it was stuff for the skate park first and then I'd land the tricks. I was like, okay, let's just keep building.

So like at the skate park or once you got into skis, you didn't have peers that were like teaching you how to visualize at all. Like it wasn't something you talked about.

No, actually I remember when I started first working with you, you're like, how did, where did you learn that?

It struck me then, it struck me now. Like I personally didn't have any coaching in, in my Sport. So it was like. It was the culture that would kind of teach you. There wasn't like a coach.

And then.

And then I translated that. Once I found something that I really loved, which is the science of excellence. There was no. There was a structure in the university setting. But, like, I kept just going further and further trying to figure out a solution that worked for me. It sounds like that's kind of similar.

You know, it's what kept me safe. It's what built trust in me. And I had the building blocks. And again, I couldn't go for it. And unless I saw it because I knew that the consequences were just too high. The risks are too high. When you're. When you're doing a.

That's a real. That's a real. Like. There is no. You cannot stun that. Like someone cannot do for you.

Like.

No, no. If I'm going for my Switch Double Court 1080, I need at least 60ft. I can't do it on a small jump, so I need to know. I need to be sure I can do it. And so I visualize it a thousand times before I did it and I landed it second try anyway.

You didn't practice in foam pits and stuff back. They didn't have that stuff back.

So when I first started. No, because I started back in 98, rollerblading and then skiing about 10 years later. Later on in my career, we had access to foam pits, water ramps, trampoline. So when I was a Red Bull athlete, I had. We. I worked with the Red Bull coach. Matt was the best. And so that's where I. I took some of my, like, bigger tricks to the next level, let's say.

Yeah, cool. Well, I try not to fly in my sport. Most of the time I'm flying, things are going wrong. Yeah, little. Little tiny bits of time in the arrows, but, you know, big ones. But anyways, I'm Tommy Caldwell. I'm big wall free climber, which is not going to be. I use ropes just not to be confused there. And I'm best known for a lot of different types of climbing, but probably if you had to put one out in front of him, is climbing the Dawn Wall on El Capitan. There's a cool movie about it, but yeah, I got started super young. I did have a great mentor and my father, not really a coach per se, but like a life mentor climbing, didn't really have coaching at that. At that time, but he showed me how to be in the mountains. And his main gift in life, he still has this today. Honestly is to reframe adversity as adventure, which is this creed, like makes things that are hard seem great. That's what brings you to life. So he would take me on kind of these outdoor, these kind of insanely dangerous to other people climbs when I was really young, but it wasn't dangerous cuz he was so experience. But we'd get in these kind of hairy situations and I could see his eyes light up and I didn't understand how much of a gift that was at that age, but it served me so well. So as I got older and got more and more into climbing, I started to kind of crave the adventure. Like I would seek it out. And so I started climbing big walls and I thrived there. And then I had this experience where I went to Kyrgyzstan, my first big engine international expedition. And I got kidnapped by an Islamic group of militants and held hostage for six days.

They point gun triggers.

Yeah, yeah, it was gnarly.

And you hang. You cannot do this.

You're like climbing mid climb.

Yeah. We were a thousand feet up a wall and sleeping in our portal edges and they came to the base.

We're not hanging. You cannot put your hands up when you're.

We were sleeping. Yeah. They shot up at us to, to signal that we had to come down and we came down and they raided our base camp and we escaped in the end by me pushing a captor off a cliff and us running for it. So it's like just an insane story. But this was this experience that was so kind of traumatizing. I was 21 years old and there was four climbers. And I feel like the four of us didn't all respond in the same way. But I came out of it with this kind of like this like I was traumatized for sure in a lot of ways. But after a year or so, I was able to like really feel like I need to live every day to its fullest. Like life is tangible, right? Like it could, it could be gone any minute. And then I also had this side of me that was like. I went through such a hard thing and I. Because of the tools my dad had given me it, I like turned that into strength. And so I really got my feet back underneath me. I was starting to pretty quickly. And then I chopped off my finger with a table saw, which is terrible for a rock climber, and then just.

Kind of slide a couple in there.

And I had a similar thing that you were telling me about earlier where my doctor came and he's like, you're not going to be able to professionally time anymore. Your fingers are so important. And. And my girlfriend at the time when the doctor left she was like that guy has no idea what you're capable of. And I harnessed that and I Those two experiences together created this like incredible growth in my life. I just had so much like fire and zest that I was able to come out of all of that and use it.

So you use what your dad taught you?

Yeah, yeah.

The adversity that I had. Yeah, the adversity I had. I was like I could harness this.

My whole career been dealing with fear comes a lot of creepy doubts. And I understand that fear has doubts. Fear is good. Doubts are bad. So kind of created things called I recognize, I rebuke and refrain. So when I recognize I have maybe five seconds to recognize. Because if I let it go longer, that builds up. And I think negative emotion tends to creep a fighter. So we have so many fights Muhammad Ali with George Foreman as an example. You can never let person get into your head. So that's kind of like trash talking thing works. You have to create your own reality. So the reality. So the way I prime my mind is just going through my process and remind me who I am. That's my identity as a. As an athlete. So that's helped me a lot just to be able to silence everything and. But especially the inner voice that comes and trying to like. Like. Like almost like a wood. You know that bird. How you say woodpecker.

How did you learn or when did you learn to do that? How did that come to you you to stop that negativity and catch it.

The first fight I was so afraid I signed a contract with God. It was a way of kind of saying God. And so I was very. It was my free to write would give me that thing. I was very selfish but was a way of expressing with a napkin in the way in. And then I signed a contract. I have to do it. I just have to fulfill.

Feel it in contract with yourself.

Yeah, like with. With a napkin. And I signed. I said God, if you give me that fight I would do this and this and that. Then I signed. So now I have to go and do it. It's almost like a was a very naive. But I was very selfish. I asked give me the victory. If you give me the victory, I will do this for you. But since I signed it I have to go in and accomplish now going back was a selfish but was the only way I knew it.

You still have the napkin. Did you keep that no, I wish.

The way I prep for competition or for bringing my best, trying a new trick again, it's usually really high risk out there for me. So I visualize the night before. If it's a competition, I visualize the run twice. That's it. It has to be done perfectly from top to bottom. Usually 8 features. Ish. So if I mess up midway through, I have to restart about a minute is the run.

So two is the total. So you'll keep going until you get two baked.

Yeah, exactly. So land it. I mean visualization, the feeling, the trick, the crowd, the noise, everything. And then when I'm dropping in, I. I always had this one song that I would loop during my training that would fuel me. And when I was in the Stargate and they were like ready to go, my little ipod shuffle in one ear and it's like as soon as I heard it, it was go time and that was my cue to let everything go.

It's almost like a tennis player like you know, when they, they rip the record, you know, like Nadal.

Yeah, Nadal, you know, doing his.

So he, you, you do all that and you, you had your.

It was almost like part of a routine.

Yeah.

You know, I had my lucky underwear too, my Joe boxers and. But yeah, the music really cued me in and as soon as I dropped in, nothing else existed. Just trusted all my training, everything I found it would, it would differ from week, like from competition to competition. Yeah, but it was hip hop usually. Yeah, like just hyping me up, you know.

So when I was younger, I really struggled being ready. And that's what led me to the science of it. I had no process, no plan. I was over rotating and focusing on what they were going to think of me if I didn't do well, whoever the they was. And so I, I had no ability to be in the present. And then when I first came to like understand there are better ways, I was looking for a thing to calm me down, to focus me, to help me build confidence. I was looking for something and there's lots of good skills that I would do some breathing stuff, I would do imagery and I would have a pre performance routine. But that always felt short to me. It never gave me the fullness that I was looking for. And so then what I do now is like. So my performance now is like giving a public speech. It's like I'm not doing sport, obviously, is that I've made a fundamental decision in my life that there's no such thing as a big Moment. And that might not be what works for people, but I back into it. There's no such thing as a big moment. There's only this moment. And if I can practice being all of me, bringing myself forward in this moment, then I. Over time, I'm practicing being all of me a lot throughout the day.

When you say there's not a big moment, you don't make nothing bigger than what it is now, than what it is right now. So, yeah, and that being present is creating the state of flow, like you.

It does help you're here, so I don't have to try to do these things to be okay. And it gives me way more time to practice being me. You know, present is what we're talking about. Calm, confident here. Focused, adjusting, being in love with the unfolding moment. Like, that's what I want, the state I want to be in. But I can't wait for the stage moment. I can't wait for the starting gate at the Olympics. I never had that moment, but I can't wait for those moments. I need to practice as often as I can. So it first hit me like, there's no such thing as a big game. There's this game, big half, big quarter, big play. There's just this play. So that's. It's more of a position in life than it is for me, a tactic. Now, those tactics work. The science is awesome around them, and I use them. I use them sometimes still.

It's like one coach told me to say, victor, how many rounds? How many rounds you fight, you say, just one round. If you win, finish. If you don't, you go, you have one more, and you have one more. So it's like you counting the rounds is a very stressful thing.

Yeah.

Oh, two to go. Oh, three to go. That, I think that anticipation that what's kill like that.

That kills the moment or that kills the opportunity in the moment where you.

Just say present, being present, like you in the corner. Just. Just read three breaths. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, my God, I have two more. You start overthinking, and you cannot be in the moment. That's such a.

One moment at a time, one step at a time. I had a note on my sleeve that said, one step at a time. In slopestyle skiing, there's seven, eight features. Often if I was scared, if weather was poor, for example, I would. I'd be scared. Feature seven, feature eight. I'd be thinking about it, and then I'd be messing up. Right. Right at the beginning, I'm not. So it Was like one step at a time. That was my cue, one moment at a time. So that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it so like you guys are great competitors, right. And it seems like the visualization always worked really well for you. For me, when I tried it just made me kind of too nervous, like. So I've taken the opposite approach where I just, I kind of don't do any visualization. I just start going, I just go up there and start climbing. And I feel like, yeah, I feel like what I do is so much about minimizing the emotional reaction, minimizing the risk and just executing. And so it's, it feels, when I talk to you, it feels like the anti strategy in a way.

Are you. So are you a risk manager or risk.

I'm a risk manager for sure. Yeah. Like climbing is. No, no, I'm like actually really adverse to risk. I would say most people would look.

At you or not understand that analysis.

Yeah, I mean climbing is not an adrenaline sport. If adrenaline happens, something's going wrong. And so I'm really trying to be in places that should probably induce some adrenaline and having. Having none.

And how do you, how do you do that? That, yeah, that's really cool. That's the Ying and yang. Everything come together.

Right.

Like same with you. Right. And actually all three of you.

Right.

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I think for me, it's more like. It's not the fear of failure. It's like, when you fail, it's almost like you embarrass yourself. I get knocked out. What's the worst? I remember my wife, what the worst that can happen. She told my daughter, the worst that can happen with your dad, you get knocked out. At least someone goes to war, sometimes they don't come alive. Your dad's just gonna get knocked out. My dad, like, it's funny because to.

Understand you're not afraid of being hurt, that's not the thing.

For me, it's not the first. So this I remember was like, man, I get knocked out, I'm gonna get embarrassed. I'm gonna let people down, you know? So I used to think, and. And that's not a good way to think because I think that you don't fight your best fight. When you don't fight to win, it's like the lion trying to be something else. He's not gonna be able to hunt. So I felt like, you. You have to know, what type of fighter are you? Some guys are more like in the endurance type of thing. I am a lion in lion hunt. In certain way, you cannot try to be someone that you cannot.

I love that.

And I mean, sometimes I want to prove I can fight two, four rounds. I get off my strength. So you just got to know who you are, what type of animal you are, and just. Just be that guy. And I. What you're saying, like your sport, you cannot have adrenaline. Since her sporting might is full of adrenaline all the time, and you got to control it.

Yeah. So how do you work through sticky spots? So I don't want to over practice. I don't want to do imagery. I want to have, like. The only thing I'm doing that's stressful really is like, rich, deep, honest conversations with my wife, you know, because she's a truth teller and she holds up a mirror, and I see myself in those conversations, but I'm not sure if that's how you would answer it. Like, if you're on an allege or whatever you would describe it, you're on. You're trying to find the next hold.

And next hold I'm thinking about, what's the next one I'm going to grab this year. So what do you think?

It's hard to answer it in the context that you're thinking. I think in climbing, you're like, how do you grab the next.

Next hold?

I mean, sometimes you don't and you fall off and then the rope catches you and you get back on. But when I think of sticky situations, I think of, like, unexpected danger or storm coming or something. You know, you're in something that just feels heavy. And honestly, the way that I've learned to get through that is generally to use humor. Like, there's nothing that's more that feels better in the mountains than being in something that should be kind of extreme and bringing lightness to it. Those are the partners that I look for that can do that. Yeah, you smile.

Yeah.

You have joy. Because sometimes, like, you think it should be scary, but it's just in your head.

And if you do that too much, what's the problem? Like, too much of anything is a problem, right?

Yeah. Like, if you actually are close to death and you're laughing, that's not good. But I think so much of the time in what I do, you just. It just seems kind of scary or it seems uncomfortable when it really isn't all that dangerous. And so that's when you can break the word.

Can you give, like, an example of it?

Like, I did this incredible climb with Alex Arnold in Patagonia a bunch of years ago, where people had been trying this thing for, like, decades. They would always talk about, like, this conversation with death and this big scary mountain that they were trying to climb and all these scary things. And Alex is just such this, like, no big deal kind of guy, and he just would always make jokes. And we realized that the heaviness that they're bringing to it wasn't necessary. Like, we were up there doing the same thing, but just kind of like laughing our way through it. And it turns out that it. Yeah, it was really uncomfortable, but really wasn't all that dangerous. And I think that's the case in my sport a lot of the time.

Yeah. The framing of it goes so far. Right. Like, what I do is dangerous or what I do is serious.

Yeah. Like, you have to really get good at discerning what is actually dangerous versus what it just is emotionally feels dangerous. And learning how to control that emotion.

That's good.

Yeah.

It's like I surf in big waves, you know, like sometimes can sound scary, but start small. We start with the. Then they get big. So I ask, I ask a guy, say, how do you surf the big Start small. When I'm. When I'm on the ski know and the tow in the waves start small. It builds up in the middle.

Oh. Even when they're surfing a big wave, you're saying it's like it's a small little thing and then before you know it, it's.

It's a monster. But I mean for us, it's a monster right away because we watching. But I mean. And like for us, we are. He's there. Like I'm in the ring and I know she has a big moment, you know, wherever, like she, she does a see, she's in the moment. Sometimes you're close. You want to see, See this thing? I want to close my eyes, right? Yeah, you, like, you literally, like, you cannot see it. Like if I see you compete, I get more nervous that I'm competing.

It's the thing that we forget is like you were climbing trees maybe at age 4, and we forget all of the climbing at 4 and 5 and 6. And now we see you climbing these radical walls and you were wrestling as a young kid or you were rollerblading. Like we lose track of that when we're just watching.

Yeah.

It's important to remember all the time that we put into it.

In my sport, it's high, high adrenaline like you. But I can't operate on fear. I have to size it up my feet. But then I have to, as soon as I drop in, if I'm thinking mechanically about what I need to do, it's not going to go well. It's. I gotta really sink in.

And is it all about your subconscious? Like your conscience gotta be. You gotta trust.

It's trust. It's full trust. It's. Yes, there's danger and I recognize that. But. But knowing what I know and knowing what I've trained, once I've decided I can do it, I'm just going out there to prove to myself, to show to land what I already know, I've learned, landed.

And that one minute sounds like fast for you. Or it's.

I don't even know if it's slow or fast. It's just, it's no time. It's just in it.

But how about that Fundamental commitment. I've seen it, I've already felt it. And I want to prove to myself that I can act physically, do what I mentally saw.

It's. Yeah, but it's not an ego thing. It's not, oh, I got to go out there and prove it. It's just, just, I, I, I see the future, I see the jump I, I'm going to do. Switch 10, 80 on it. I see it already or I feel it already. Now I'm just going to go do what I already know in my mind.

What are you trusting? You said it's about like, trust. What do you, what are you trusting?

My speed sense, my air awareness, my ability to set the trick perfectly.

So that's a trust of my abilities.

Yes.

How much of it is a trust of, like, even if I blow it, that I'll be okay because I'll figure out whatever life happens then. If you were to weight those two, is it more about I'm trusting my abilities to navigate or it's the bigger trust that, like, no, I know how to figure things out.

I know that if things go wrong in the air, I know how to fall, I know how to catch myself. I'm very aware of every, you know, microseconds, like milliseconds. I, I'm, I'm so in it that when I'm taking off, if I take, like before I'm in the air, I know I've, something's gone wrong and I'm gonna fix it, I'm gonna correct it. I trust myself totally.

So it was like a year after Kyrgyzstan and I was getting my feet back underneath me, and I was at this part in my climbing life, like, there were weren't really professional climbers back then. There wasn't enough money in the sport. But I was like one of the, one of the first people that like, had the chance of being able to do this full time. And if I had cobbled together enough money to buy this like 400 square foot piece of crap little cabin, and I was, I borrowed some tools for my parents and it was just fixing it up and remodeling it and not knowing how to use a table saw. And I ended up chopping off my finger with the table saw. Just terrible as a climber. Like, very, very bad. Like, the type of climbing especially that I was doing is all about finger strength. And it was especially bad because, like, the doctor told me, you know, everybody, everybody around me is doing the math. Like, if you're gonna be the top of your game and you Lose a finger, that's like, 10 of your strength gone.

Especially this they call the three fingers. This finger is one of the most important ones.

Yeah. And so I was in the hospital, and my doctor. The doctor tried to reattach it. I spent three. I spent two full weeks in the hospital, went through three blood transfers and several surgeries. We tried everything we could.

And then before you go there, like, what. When you. When it. Zip. When you cut it. Yeah. In that moment, like, what was the first thing that you. How did you respond to that moment?

Yeah, I mean, the. The immediate reaction was like, my climbing life. Like, so that was the first thing. Yeah. I didn't care about how my hand looked. It was like. Like the immediate thing was, like, climbing, like, my hand. My life is about my hands.

And so did you think, okay, we're going to fix this, it's going to get fixed, or was it like, oh, kind.

Yeah, like, I. I was like, well, we'll sew it back on. You hear those stories of that working?

Yeah.

And so, yeah, you had. I had hope in the beginning. So, yeah. I have all these experiences in my life where I'm like, I. I've been through some major stuff, and I feel like I should be more traumatized than I am, but I've never really, like, gone to therapy. I've never tried it. So I. I tried it recently. I tried to go to therapy to just, like, see if we could. I always wonder if I'm gonna get old and, like, it's gonna all hit me at some point, and I'm like, have a mental breakdown or something, because I just don't feel. I don't feel traumatized the same way everybody, like, looks at me and thinks I should be. Honestly, even other people in pa, they all are, like, pretty majorly traumatized, and I just haven't had that. So I tried to go, and nothing. I didn't find anything, really. Honestly, I talked him through the story. It felt slightly emotional, but I was like, I don't know. I think. I just think I dealt with it.

I love this. Because sports psychology, the emergence of sports psychology, was to study how the greats do it and then decode it. So we would study you to say, well, how did you do it? Because you went through something that was what most people would consider traumatizing a couple of different ones, and you're not. So, wait, hold on. How'd you do it?

Well, I think Kyrgyzstan, maybe. What helped me is the way it ended. It was different for me than the other people. On the expedition because I was the person in the end who had to. Who made the hard decision. Like, I decided to kill someone. I think people kind of wonder, like, would they be able to do that? Would they make the decision? I mean, one of the hardest things you can happen in your life, like, would you have the power to do that? And so even though it was really terrible in a lot of ways, it was empowering in a way. Because I knew afterwards that, like, when. When things are really on the line, I now know that I have the ability to react. And so I think that probably healed me.

I wouldn't know. This is me personally. I don't know how anyone else would respond, but I would want to know that I took action.

Yeah.

Rather than. I'll tell you, like, this is going to sound. Yeah. Like, I remember when I was a little kid and there was a sound in the room, and it was a dark room, and I'm like nine years old, something like that. And I remember I got really quiet. I thought there was someone in the room, like an intruder. And I got really still and quiet. And even to this day, I remember, like, when I realized that was my first response, I'm like, that's not going to get me through life. Like, to be tight and small and don't be seen and don't be heard. Like, so I see me in you. Like, would I have that ability as an adult now to say, oh, yeah, take action? I think you'd probably be able to do it.

It's true. And I mean, you got to know when. And I think that's what you succeed in. You pick the right time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So because if you were to do early, wouldn't work. So it's reacting on the right time. It's like when you sharing with me before the story, I say, you're waiting for the right moment.

Yeah.

And that's what it takes. A hero is just not here, is not the moment. It just create you. You waiting for the moment. Basically, you create that moment of the situation. Situation.

That is kind of what I think we're talking about is like the readiness to be in the moment, whatever the moment calls for. Do you see it that way or is that me layering on something to it?

You mean in the. In that experience? Yeah, the readiness to be in the moment.

Like you. All of your life experiences that you were ready for that moment.

Probably in retrospect. But I didn't, I didn't, I didn't conceptualize that in the moment. That's for sure. But in retrospect I'm like, yeah, the things my dad brought to my life, the way that I was trained, the physical abilities we had to endure for six days, all these things added to the eventual successful outcome, I suppose. And so I feel really lucky to have had that life experience of the past before that.

The past before that.

Yeah.

What do you hope people take away from that part of your life experience?

I think what I started with the idea that you can, that you can experience these really hard things and then, and then turn them to have them fuel you towards bettering yourself.

I like what you said about the, you know, adversity.

Yeah. Turning adversity into adventure.

Yeah, I can see that on your story.

And dad actually said that. Or did you grow, create?

No, that, that's a, that's a narrative that I kind of developed like that. That's what he did without having words to put to it.

Yeah. Adversity to adventure.

Yeah. I mean he was an adventurer by heart, you know, and he loved, he.

Lit up the moments of adversity.

Yeah. Like when I was a little kid, I remember climbing a big mountain with him and in an intense thunderstorm and running down as lightning crashed all around us. And then we got into these trees and you could just see this excitement. He's like, this is what's. This is what, this is what life is all about. Like, not only is this going to prepare you, it's also a great story to tell to our friends. And you know, he just like loved that kind of stuff. As long as we weren't actually.

You know what I love about you? You tell a story and you laugh, you smile.

Yeah, right.

Like you're the type of guy like you want to be on your team when things go, go out the fence. He's like, you smile like that's. You make that moment be more relaxed.

What were your guys moments or phases of life that were like.

Hardship.

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Like before my title fight, I go home And I heard my mom and my wife, hey, your. Your sister has been missing. I said, what? And then we stay like three days on the street looking for her and she's being missing. So like for me it's like what? And I mean, it's unacceptable. And I mean, someone missing and I know was something. She went to lunch, have lunch and she never came back. And the thing would strike me on like someone knows someone saw someone. Not just one, no one get missing in center. Center of Rio de Janeiro. So I find strange to fight, but I went to a big depression after. So you know, in. In psychology, I don't know how they call that, but I. I found strength to fight and become a champion. But when I come that I didn't respect the time that I need to myself until I. I combat that. So. And until like I forgive. Let me live my life because I'm. I'm trying to.

So you held it all together like so into depression. You used all of it to fight. And then what? And then you were champion.

Then I become a champion.

And then like it just fell apart.

Just fell apart. And by then I went to a deep hole.

Yeah.

And then I came back. I want revenge. I want. I want to. I want payback. And then I discovered if I don't forgive, I cannot love anymore. And I was not loving my wife, not loving my kids. So it's like I was just, Just angry. And I mean, that's not a good way of living. So you have to. It's almost like you. You have to rebirth. And of course you never kill someone. But I mean, I hurt a lot of people before feelings promising. So and then I went through a process of calling everyone I could to ask forgiveness. So I remember I called my cousin and said, hey, I'm calling you. Because I lied that day. I told you, told you that I didn't have time to have dinner with you. I was busy. I. I just didn't want to go. So I start being honest with people.

Yeah.

It's like a 12 step program.

Yeah.

But I mean a lot of people. And I started. I started remember people that I didn't have content. I do in my mind now I want you to forgive the people that hurt you. So you. You ask, ask forgiveness. Now you have to do the opposite. And I was going through it. In the end, it was the best thing I did in my life. Because honoring a contract without sin requires faith. That was the hardest thing in my life.

So powerful.

Yeah.

My story starts two months after I signed my first Pro contract, I quote, unquote, made it. I was ready, I was on fire. And I showed up to a bigger event, which is a singular jump. We're performing a big trick over 50, 60ft. I was 18 years old and this big air was constructed. It's often on the ski mountain, but this was constructed on scaffolding in the San Francisco giants stadium. About 10 floors of scaffolding. So huge. And we trained in the morning, competed in the afternoon, went for my trick, 5:40, executed it well, landed backwards, so 5:40 is one and a half rotations. Landed backwards maybe about 5:30. So a tiny bit off. Before I knew it, I found myself slipping and sliding on stairs. They were two by fours, nailed in along the landing for the crew to walk up and down. And because it was in the heart of the San Francisco Giants Stadium, the sun was beaming and the snow had melted and exposed these stairs. So I found myself going backwards at I don't know what speed, just mobbing down these stairs. And I'm frantically, frantically trying to grab onto anything I can to stop my momentum, but I'm just gaining speed. And then all of a sudden, inevitably, I caught an edge and bam. Just hit like a ton of bricks. And I didn't lose consciousness. And I remember thinking, this is what it feels like to break all of your ribs. Of course, the wind was knocked out of me and people rushed towards me, and within seconds I started coughing blood. So that's when they knew it was really serious. Rushed to the hospital, emergency surgery. Wake up two days later, heavily sedated, feeding tube machines beeping all around me. Doctors came to see me and informed me that I had basically hit so hard, I sliced my pancreas right in half over my spine.

Oh my gosh.

Clean break. I'd also lacerated my kidneys, bruised my lungs, but the pancreas was the big you. And doctors straight up told me, we have never seen something like this before. We don't know how you're gonna heal. We don't know if you'll be diabetic because your pancreas is a major digestive organ and plays a big part in your insulin. 18, first event on the scene. First event after signing my first pro contract when I made it. We don't know if you're gonna become diabetic. We don't know if you're gonna maybe develop pancreatitis in your future. You might be very sick. We just don't know.

And this is how it started.

This is how it started. That's crazy. You might be able to ski, but you're probably not going to compete. You won't be able to take these kinds of impacts because you now have half a pancreas. Because they removed. They weren't able to fix it. So obviously. What are you talking about? I just started. This is just the beginning for me. Obviously I'm shattered. I'm feeling all sorts of emotions, anger, but I. I don't know, I had this nugget inside of me that was like, if, if there's any fucking chance I'm gonna. I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna do it. So flew home and was sick as a dog, really nauseous, lost about 30 pounds. On top of that, I have an incision about 6 inches tall on my stomach and about an inch deep. And they had. It got infected, so they had to let it. They opened it and let it heal from the inside out. Second intention. Healing, that's what it's called. Yeah, healing by second intention. So they have to open it so the infection doesn't continue to go inwards.

Wow.

So for three months I had to go every day to the clinic to get it packed and cleaned, packed, so on and so forth. So every day was a struggle. Obviously I went through major depression at first, but I don't know, I'm stubborn. I'm stubborn and I didn't want to take no for an answer. And so I just. It was day to day, I had to narrow the focus and I didn't know, obviously I wasn't sure if I could get back, but I knew that if there was a shot that I would. And so I did a lot of visualization. I would just.

Healing imagery.

No, or performance, but not to, not necessarily to get better, but it's because that's what I dreamed of, that's what I longed to do. So if I couldn't be out there, I just, I would lie in bed and I just, I would kill to be out there. And I slowly got stronger. I slowly was able to sit up straight, walk straight. And nine months later, got on the hill in New Zealand. Almost made my debut back. Blew my knee out. So my first two years on the.

Scene, so boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I've taken a lot of hits early on, blew my knee out. That's little cherry on top. So the second time I went back to my doctor now, okay, you're not going to ski, like, you're not going to recover from this. But this is a general doctor. And my now is like, I know my Will is so much stronger than this. But it taught me that I can overcome the impossible, or almost the impossible. There was. Everyone outside of me doubted it, and I. I did it and I went through that knee injury. So it's two years off. My first two years on the pro scene were off, and then I came back.

This is adversity for real.

This is.

This is what goes. I think what you just mentioned, this is crazy. The simulation, what they choose, adversity and adventure.

Like, you only know how strong you are once you go through it. If it's all easy when you hit that. That block. I've seen a lot of athletes not come back from a knee injury because they just don't believe it. It's mental.

The injury goes here. Your injury never came here.

I mean, it dabbled. It dabbled. I doubted, but I. I know because my. My belief, my vision was stronger. And. And then I went on to, you know, I hold the record for most X Games gold medals in women's free seed history. So I did all right.

And the thing I wonder, we all have these kind of similar stories, and we came back from them. Right. But that doesn't happen to everybody. And I. And I really wonder is that. Is that. Is that our nature? Is the nature that let that happen? Are we different or is there like, something. Yeah. Like what is that? What. How do we get to the bottom? Like, how do we make this useful to other people?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a mistake to. You did it. And somebody who's really struggling is less than in some kind of way. We don't. We don't really know. There's a genetic component. There's a biology, there's an environmental, there's a cultural, there's a psychological. There's lots of. There's access to good medicine. Like, there's lots of things that go into the mix.

It's a combination of things. No.

Yeah. There are some best practices that are pretty well understood when people are going through a traumatic experience, but it's not for everybody. Not everybody has access to those. This is why, like, you didn't go and work with a psychologist based on your trauma. Right? Do I have that right? Yeah. Yeah. It's not about the strong person. It's something that I did. I had to go. I needed help, you know, and so. But there's something about the way that you've navigated internally that there's an unlock. There's something there to better understand.

Is it about preparation ahead of time? Is it about, like, we had Your answer? Yeah, for me it was. But, yeah. So I felt like the, the trauma I went through was like the right dose, you know, it was proper, but if it would have been too much, maybe I would have never come back to it. So come back from it.

In my case, I had people around me, like my spiritual father challenged me and said, stop. Someone just say stop. This thing can endure for the rest of your life and you're going to be miserable.

And faith was a huge part of it, obviously.

And I'm a big believer because faith without action is not faith. And that's what people realize. Like, faith is not like, I'm going to. I'm going to pray and I'm going to give God one week. If he doesn't do it, I'm going to give up. No, I'm going to believe it until. Even if he's not coming back, it's solved for me. Case of my sister is solved. I can live my life. And now I understand whoever did, they don't owe me anything. They don't owe me anything. And that give me strength and give them great condemnation because I believe everything you plant, you reap, good or bad.

We are gardeners. Yeah.

We are gardeners.

We are gardeners.

Yeah.

And the, and the other thing I think is really, really important is having the, like, the support structure, the community around you. So, like, you need to, you need to love those people around you so much because at some point you're going to need that back.

It takes a balance.

No one does it alone 100% on that. There's some fundamental commitments that all of us made and then we stuck with those over time. And I love your dosing. It didn't feel like it was too much. That's a really cool takeaway for me. So before we go, I want to give you a sneak peek at next week's episode because it's one you definitely want to tune into. I'll be sitting down with the imitable president of Microsoft America's Deb Cup. We're diving deep into the power of purpose, both in leadership and in life, and how emotional connection drives Success. That's Wednesday, February 19th. Make sure you subscribe. And while you're at it, tell a friend. It means so much to us. Foreign. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest, no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or Follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple, Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Hunch over to findingmastery.com newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals@findingmastery.com sponsors and remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional, so seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode. Be well, think well, keep exploring. Come on.