Dr Michael Gervais (Sports Psychology, Identity Crisis and Forging Performance) - Episode 106
Behind The Shield
James Geering
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2025
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr Michael Gervais is a Sport Psychologist, author and Podcaster who has worked with some of the world's top athletes. We talk about mastery, the psychology of fear, self talk, tribalism and much more.
Gervais is a high performance psychologist working in the trenches of high-stakes environments with some of the best in the world, training the mindset skills and practices essential to pursuing and revealing one’s potential. His clients include world record holders, Olympians, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, MVPs from every major sport and Fortune 100 CEOs.
A published, peer-reviewed author and recognized speaker on optimal human performance, Dr. Gervais has been featured by NBC, ABC, FOX, CNN, ESPN, NFL Network, Red Bull TV, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Outside Magazine, WIRED, ESPN Magazine and others.
He is the co-founder of Compete to Create, a digital platform business helping people become their best through mindset training. The firm works with a limited portfolio of Fortune 500 companies and leaders to switch on culture and individuals through high performance mindset training and coaching. Clients include Microsoft, Boeing and Zynga.
He is also the host of Finding Mastery, a podcast that takes you inside the rugged and high-stakes environments of those on the path of mastery to explore how they train minds to be at their very best. Gervais unpacks and decodes each guest’s journey, psychological framework and mindset skills and practices. Past guests include Los Angeles Lakers head coach Luke Walton, Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington, FUBU Founder Daymond John, Mercedes Benz Formula 1 Owner Toto Wolff, Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood, ultra marathoner David Goggins, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion Carli Lloyd, CEO of Amusement Park Entertainment Jimmy Smith, Pixar’s CFO Lawrence Levy, Seattle Seahawks Head Coach, Pete Carroll, big wave surfer Ian Walsh, among many others.
Dr. Gervais received his undergraduate degree from Loyola Marymount University. He completed his PhD while studying under the father of American applied sport psychology, Dr. Bruce Ogilvie, at San Diego University, Integrative Studies.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome, guys, to episode 106 of Behind the Shield podcast. |
| 0:03.5 | As always, my name's James Gearing. |
| 0:05.4 | And this week I bring to you a man who was recommended by one of my past guests, Peter Park. |
| 0:10.5 | And I've also enjoyed his podcast, which is called Finding Mastery. |
| 0:15.2 | And my guest is Dr. Michael Jave. |
| 0:17.7 | Now, Dr. Javeh is a renowned sports psychologist. He's worked with many, many of the |
| 0:22.8 | nation, excuse me, the world's top athletes. And I was fortunate enough to pick his brains and see how |
| 0:28.3 | it pertains to the first responders, the soldiers of the world. So we delved into many topics. |
| 0:34.6 | We talked about the psychology of fear, flow state, how that triable teamwork |
| 0:41.3 | affects the outcome in the sports world and obviously how we can apply it to the first responder |
| 0:46.3 | community and just an array of other topics that really, really, you know, tested me and made me |
| 0:52.8 | look at the way I think and my own self-talk. And I definitely walked away |
| 0:57.2 | from this, realizing that I've been doing some destructive thinking myself. And it really kind of |
| 1:03.1 | renewed the way I look at the internal monologue. So I really, really enjoyed this. So as I always |
| 1:09.1 | say, please go to the iTunes, rate the show, share the show. |
| 1:13.2 | That's the biggest thing. |
| 1:14.0 | Just share. |
| 1:14.6 | Help this project. |
| 1:15.7 | Get to everyone that needs to hear it and just share and share and share. |
| 1:18.5 | Find an episode that you love and send it to everyone you know. |
| 1:22.5 | So with that being said, I introduced to you, Dr. Michael Javeh. |
| 1:26.4 | Enjoy. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from James Geering, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of James Geering and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.