Why Most Athletes Break - And How We Didn’t | Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2025
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What does it take to win an Olympic medal—while navigating the mental and emotional rollercoaster of the Games?
On today’s episode, Dr. Gervais sits down with Olympic silver medalists Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes, their legendary coach Marcio Sicoli, and moderator David Belasco to go behind the curtain of Team Canada’s incredible 2024 beach volleyball run.
This is more than a sports story, it’s a masterclass in resilience, trust, and unlocking human potential under the world’s brightest spotlight. From navigating emotional turbulence to breaking routines that held them back, this conversation reveals the uncommon mindset and team culture that fueled their breakthrough.
In this conversation, you’ll learn:
- How radical honesty built trust that carried them through pressure
- Why shared values created unshakable team alignment
- The emotional reality of Olympic highs and lows
- How breaking routines unlocked their best performance
- Lessons in leadership, resilience, and culture from the Olympic stage
This rare inside look at Team Canada’s silver medal journey will inspire you to rethink what’s possible when purpose, honesty, and courage collide.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. |
| 0:02.7 | If you're trying to grow your business, which I think most of us are, your work is about more than just running the day to day. It's about building something with intention, shaping culture, growing a team, setting the stage for what comes next. And when it comes time to hire, you want a partner that matches that same level of clarity and care. That's where LinkedIn jobs comes in. |
| 0:21.6 | They make it simple to post a job, tap into your network, and connect with high quality |
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| 0:30.9 | stronger job descriptions faster. Because the right hire is more than just skills. It's about |
| 0:35.9 | alignment. With deep candidate insights, LinkedIn helps you feel confident that you're bringing in someone who's the right hire is more than just skills. It's about alignment. With deep candidate insights, LinkedIn helps you feel confident that you're bringing in someone who's the right fit, both for the role and for your company's values. And we can speak from personal experience here. At Finding Mastery, we've used LinkedIn jobs to find our last several hires. If you follow Finding Masterry on LinkedIn, you would have seen these posts. And as an aside, if you don't follow us, please do. We post content there that you can't get anywhere else. It's how we found our recent project managers, Janelle and Taylor. And it's how we found our lead producer, Emma. We love what LinkedIn has created. And it's been such a great service for us as we've grown. If you're looking to grow your team with intention, this is a great |
| 1:11.5 | place to start. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash finding mastery. That's LinkedIn.com |
| 1:17.8 | slash finding mastery to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Picture this. It's late |
| 1:24.0 | 2022. Spending more time with my family and pouring energy into finding master. |
| 1:29.5 | Then, my phone rings. |
| 1:31.6 | It's legendary beach volleyball coach Marcio Sicoli. |
| 1:35.2 | His voice has that unmistakable spark. |
| 1:38.2 | He says, Jervais, I've got something interesting for you. |
| 1:40.7 | You're definitely going to want to hear this. |
| 1:42.3 | Now, when Marcio says something interesting, |
| 1:45.3 | I know that this is not a casual lunch invite. A few days later, I'm sitting across the table from him |
| 1:50.5 | and two Canadian athletes I hadn't yet met as a team. Brandy Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Podetta's. |
| 1:57.5 | We're crammed into a beachside coffee shop, mismatched chairs, half-cold cappuccinos, and within minutes, |
| 2:04.4 | I feel it. This wasn't going to be a casual meeting. This was going to become an adventure. |
| 2:09.7 | Welcome back. Or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's |
| 2:14.8 | greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Now, the idea of the idea of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais, |
| 2:18.6 | by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Now, the idea behind these conversations is |
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