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Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I ve got an invitation for you.
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Join me at this year s Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness.
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This is the one time a year
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that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend.
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People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspreet Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Cinchero, and many more.
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You ll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.
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So if you re ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023.
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Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I ll see you there.
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I don t think confidence has to be part of it.
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Belief is important for sure.
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Believing more because it just helps you have the courage to try and that s the most important thing if we re really getting down to the nitty gritty is just having the courage to try despite the chance that you might fail.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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What is the Olympics like?
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Was that the dream for you growing up?
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No.
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Well, it was a part of my dream.
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I had a little notebook when I was younger that was like, I m going to be Olympic champion.
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I think it was that something was like, I m going to be the youngest Olympic gold medalist in history.
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And that actually did happen.
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15, 16, how old were you?
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I was 18.
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18.
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18.
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I was the youngest swallow in gold medalists.
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Sure.
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So there s an asterisk on that.
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But that was one thing I wrote in a journal.
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But really, mostly, my goals had nothing to do with the Olympics.
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My goal was always, I want to be the best skier in the world.
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I always looked up to Bodie Miller as my big idol.
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And he was, at the time, he won the overall globe.
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He was winning individual races.
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And he was inspiring people.
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And one of my favorite movies of all time was his documentary Flying Downhill, which is like, I don t even know.
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I don t know if you can buy it somewhere now.
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I don t I would literally want to go back and watch it again, but I m not really sure where to find it because I had it on a DVD.
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And I don t have a way to play it anymore.
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But that was my most inspiring.
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He really inspired me to truly want to be a ski racer.
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Really?
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He s the reason I identified myself at eight years old as a ski racer.
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And I just- Did you watch him on TV or in the Olympics?
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Yeah.
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Or where did you see him?
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I watched him on TV.
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I watched him on...
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Ugh, we would get these DVDs every year.
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It s called, like, World Cup Winning Runs, and it s, you know, it s produced by U.S.
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Ski and Snowboard.
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Sure.
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And it s, like, the crazy ski fanatics, like, whatever, like, your how-to videos and things like that.
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But it was just a compilation of all the season s best winning runs.
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And my parents used to get those DVDs, and I would watch them, and it was, like, all Bodhi s runs, and just...
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Amazing.
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And then, you know, during the Olympics as well.
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But it wasn t... I think maybe what helped me sort of steer away from having the big, big Olympic dream was actually seeing some of what he experienced through the Olympics.
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And he had great, great successes.
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He got the medals and everything.
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And he also had, like...
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the terrible Olympics that I wish I could have gotten into his mind and known what was going on for him at the time.
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If it was about pressure, if it was about this or that, or if he just didn t really care because he was the kind of athlete who s like, I don t care about the one medal.
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I want to experience
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whatever it is that feels fulfilling in that moment.
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And it might not be winning the Olympic medal.
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It might be like just experiencing the Olympic scene in a different way.
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And people always have an opinion and judge it and get right into it.
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And I saw that as a child.
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And it was like, I don t
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want to ever have to deal with something like that.
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Like, dude, you re saying, why do people have to have an opinion about it?
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And the opinion itself is like adds pressure and that makes it harder.
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I feel like that sort of watching him go through the successes he had and the challenges that he faced gave me some insight into
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like, my own philosophy and what I find important in skiing, which is, it s literally just about... Like, it s kind of so boring, but it s just about the turn and making really good turns.
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Interesting.
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So, it s like, when you talk about the process and stuff, and I know that gets... I feel like in sports, people really, really... wanna hear about, like, your goals, that you wanna be the greatest of all time, like the Michael Jordan story, like the, I know you re gonna be...
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NBA champion, like, you re going to do this.
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You re going to be the greatest.
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And all of the hype and the pressure is built up.
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And then he does it.
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And it s like greater than.
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And I ve always been like, I don t think I m going to do any of this.
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I really just want to be a very good skier and ski well and ski fast.
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And maybe someday I can kind of be the best in the world.
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And if I can do that, maybe I ll hold on to it.
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And now it s been like 12 years of racing world cup where I ve been more or less at the top level.
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And it s still like, I m still in disbelief, but I still, I always don t go back to the days watching like my greatest idols like Bodie Miller and you need to coast legend on your person and all of these, these athletes that I looked up to and
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I don t know.
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You see the struggle that they have, and you see it from an outsider s perspective, and then now having gone through a lot of that and seeing it from the insider s perspective, we all feel it and experience it differently.
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Feel what?
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The pressure?
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The pressure, or the failure, or the success, whatever it is.
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everybody s inspired by something different.
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So some athletes, there s some athletes out there who literally can win races just because they want to be, they just want to win it.
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Like just thinking, I want to win this race gives them the right mindset and the right intensity that they just, they do, they win it.
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And when I think I want to win, I never win.
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Really?
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Never ever.
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If I m thinking about winning, I will not win the race.
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It s happened.
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It s almost like 100% of the time.
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So what do you need to think about?
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I have to think about like the intensity of my skiing or like I have to think about racing the course versus winning.
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It always has to be like what s happening between the start and the finish line, not what s going to happen after the finish.
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And that s, I don t know, it s kind of,
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It s a little bit, I feel like it s a little bit corny, but it s so, it s like without fail.
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You gotta focus on the next turn.
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Yeah, the next turn.
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Like the process of getting to the finish is what allows you to win the race.
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And that s where my mindset has to be.
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What do you struggle with managing more?
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Overcoming failure or having all the success?
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Oh, I mean, I feel like it s been,
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I ve gone through phases, I mean I m only 28, but I have gone, like I could sum my career up so far in different phases.
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In the beginning it was, it was almost like there wasn t pressure.
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I didn t really have, I had success pretty early, but
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It was always like, this is so surreal.
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I wonder if it s even real.
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It might be a dream.
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Because you re the young one on the circuit.
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Yeah, I m young and people keep expecting it to not happen.
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You have nothing to lose.
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I kept exceeding expectations and my expectations were so high I didn t care about anybody else s.
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And then, you know, that s like the first three to four years of my career.
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And then I started to like then I had my first season where I sort of I did struggle and I struggled a little bit more like finding the fine tuning of my ski equipment and different things and my first struggles with my coach at that time.
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like when things weren t really clicking.
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I was, I might be the luckiest ski racer of all time that I got, that things clicked for me earlier than they do for most other athletes.
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I feel like that s really important is you have to, you have to click with the equipment you have.
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You have to click with the coaches you have.
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People have to be on the same page and the same mindset and the same goals.
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And for the first three, four years of my career,
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I had that.
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I almost didn t have to try.
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Part of that was because my mom traveled with me as one of my coaches as well.
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And she, like, she fought battles for me.
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She helped to make it click.
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But, um, and she still does.
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But that, like, there s so many of these different variables that have to go into place, fall into place, or, I don t know, be forced into place.
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That goes beyond just making good turns.
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And then when that came down to my job, which was literally just making good turns, I could do it.
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And so then I started having success early on.
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And it was just like, people were like, this is not real.
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This can t keep happening.
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And then it did.
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And then it was like, everybody caught up.
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and the media and public and just everybody watching caught up to it was it was this season I had I actually got injured but I was out it was 2015.
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2014, 2015, yeah, 2014, 2015 season.
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And I got injured like December, 2014.
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And then I came back February, 2015.
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So I was like out for a good chunk of the season, but I had an MCL strain and a tibial plateau fracture.
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And then a bone bruise, which was probably the thing that like ends up holding everybody back the longest.
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There s surprisingly little research on bone bruising.
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But anyway, that s a totally different topic.
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So when I came back to skiing, I kind of focused more on just slalom.
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But that season was insane, because I started out the season in October.
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And the first two races of the season were these two slaloms in Aspen.
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And I won.
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I reset the record for the best
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great, the largest margin of victory in a World Cup.
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How many seconds?
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It was three, over three seconds, which is like, I mean, we, we win races, lose races by literally one hundredth of a second.
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And that s typical time differences.
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Two tenths, three tenths is big.
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Five tenths is like,
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insurmountable.
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And then if you re getting over that, like people dream of winning a race by maybe a second.
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Wow.
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And I won this race by three seconds.
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I was like, I don t really, I don t know what just happened.
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After an injury.
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That was before the injury.
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Okay, I was going to say.
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So then it was the next race series that we went to where I got injured.
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And then when I came back in February,
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I kind of focused on just the Solemn races for the rest of the season.
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I did some giant Solemn races, but it was just like mostly focused on Solemn.
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And I think my average
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It was like my average time margin of victory for the whole season was over two seconds.
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Oh my goodness.
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So pretty much every single race besides one, I won by over two seconds.
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That s crazy.
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And then the one race was my comeback race.
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It was 5 tenths or something.
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And that season is like the worst thing that happened to me, because it set everyone s expectations that I was now going to win every race by over two seconds from the rest of my career.
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So I came back the next season, or when you finish the season, you have your summer period training, blah, blah, blah.
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First race of the season was in Finland for 2015, 16.
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And I won it by 7 tenths, 6 tenths of a second.
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She s slowing down.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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So everyone was like, are you worried the competition s getting so much better?
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Are you getting worse?
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And it was this whole, it was a weird, weird thing where I d never, I d never experienced a victory where people put such a negative spin on it.
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And that was, that like then set me into the next phase of my career, which was a lot of like
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performance anxiety.
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Really?
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And it all surrounded around, like, what media would say, what people around me would say.
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And not the closest people, but even then, like, even those closest to me would be like, oh, it d be so great if you could just, like, stomp on this race, like, if you could win it by a second, two, so, like, we wanna get back there.
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And... and I get it.
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I just was like, I don t...
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You re doing the best you can do.
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I m doing the best I can.
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I don t think we re there.
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I actually think the competition is much stronger.
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what like that happened, that was a moment in time or a season in time.
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And I don t think we re going to be in a place where I win races by two seconds anymore.
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And but that expectation that then lasted, it s like a four, it s like a four to five year delay, like took people four to five years to catch up to the expectations I set in the beginning of my career.
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And then it took them four to five years to figure out that that might not be the what s going to happen.
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all the time.
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It was just weird.
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So there s this phase where I was puking at the start of every race.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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Terrible.
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Every race.
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Almost every race.
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Just because of anxiety, fear?
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Because of anxiety.
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Was it more worried about what the people closest to you were going to say, what the media were going to say?
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No.
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It was media.
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It was like fear of losing, more just fear of what disappointment comes when you don t exceed the expectations.
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I d been really used to kind of exceeding people s expectations, and then
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And then it was like, I m still winning, but just winning alone isn t good enough anymore.
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I actually have to win by more.
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And if I m going to exceed people s expectations, now I need to make winning by two seconds, three seconds a regular thing.
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That s a lot of pressure.
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I mean, it is and it isn t.
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It s sort of, it s so much that it s like, it s not realistic.
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And I knew it at the time, but I didn t know how to explain that.
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And it just,
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like it s taken me a long time to get the point to this point now where I just realized that people will catch up.
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And I also realized like during that period of time you know after every race we go through the mixed zone and there s go through all the media and I felt like the media was directing questions in a very negative way if I didn t win by
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a certain amount, or if I had a really strong reaction one race, they were like, why is this one so much more important to you?
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And those are all fair questions.
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My mind would go there if I was them as well.
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But I would really answer, I would take their question so literally and answer to that.
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And now I realize
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People still do that.
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They kind of try to get into your mind and they say they ask a question, but it s insinuates that you feel a certain way instead of just asking how you feel sometimes.
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and there s nothing wrong with it honestly it s just like if you ask the same question over and over and you want to word it a different way and sometimes sometimes a reporter might ask like you know is it really disappointing that you came in second this race this was this was um this season when it was the 85th the okay so
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There were two slalom races in a row in the Czech Republic, and I won the first one.
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That was my 85th victory.
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And then the second day, everybody was thinking this is going to be your 86th.
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And for everyone around me, it was a done deal.
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And I was not there.
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Mentally, emotionally, you were just disconnected.
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Mentally, emotionally, I was tired.
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It was a really, really long stretch of races.
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I raced seven races in 10 days and with travel literally across Europe.
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It s just as much emotionally draining as it is physically because you have to mentally and emotionally prepare.
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for hours before every race.
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Racing is probably more mentally and emotionally draining.
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Physically, you re prepared for really whatever it can get.
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You ve been training so hard.
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And then they all just get intertwined.
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And then you re like, why don t my muscles work?
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I just and sometimes all I need is just one day, one recovery day, and then I m literally back to it.
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But I just
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Back-to-back was tough.
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Yeah.
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Those back-to-back races, this was the last race series before World Championships this season.
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And I was on a low, just drained.
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But I was having a good time.
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I loved racing.
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I won the first run of the second race.
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And so I went last on the second run.
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I was in the lead the whole way down.
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And I lost the lead in the last part of the course.
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And I lost the race by 7 hundredths of a second, or something like that.
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to one of my lane endure a competitor who is an amazing human like she desert she skied so well she s she s been it s she was on the podium for like some of my very very first podiums of my career and she struggled and then had injuries she s come back like she deserved it
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And I didn t have any questions about that.
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But for sure, people were thinking, this could have been 86.
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Like this would have been the record matching performance.
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And you could have done it here at the scene of your very first
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World Cup race when you were 15 years old, it would have been fateful.
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The whole thing, it was all of this, the puzzle piece, it was all fitting together and it didn t happen.
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And I, I was like, people were asking this, it was like, I am so excited for Lena.
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I mean, I get it.
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It s not 86.
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Okay.
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What do you like?
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Whatever.
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But I m so happy for her.
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And I m so excited about my race yesterday.
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And I m actually really happy about how I skied most of it today.
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And I m looking forward to work.
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Like I started to use this, this kind of positive reframing of the questions about how I really felt.
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And
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It was wild how the mood around me shifted from being like, walking on eggshells.
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Is she disappointed?
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What s going to happen?
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Is she going to cry?
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Is she going to throw a fit?
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I m like, I m good.
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And everybody was like,
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Oh, okay.
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We can celebrate the second place too?
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That s cool.
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And I just realized how much more control I have than I ever knew before of like the closest people around me and their moods.
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I can help them
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Like, I can help them feel okay.
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If I don t win a race, they feel like it s their fault because they didn t do the work they did to prepare me.
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But sometimes it s not on them.
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Sometimes it s just, like, the factors don t come together in the right way and the other athletes skied better.
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And, like, it took a long time for me to realize that it wasn t, it s not just me disappointing them.
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It s also they re afraid of disappointing me.
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And it goes, like, the coaches want to do their best.
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They want to see me win because they care.
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Some people want to see me lose because they re sick of seeing me win.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s like, there s this whole dynamic, this whole like culture in there.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you have to really, you have to kind of figure out how to separate those things, I guess.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Speaking of coaching, where would you be without great coaching in your career and in your life?
2
SPEAKER_00
Nowhere.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, yeah, no, my whole life is like,
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been really lucky with my coaches, starting off with my parents, my first coaches in my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
They both taught me how to ski.
2
SPEAKER_00
And like I said, my mom, she s been my coach since I learned how to ski.
2
SPEAKER_00
But she traveled with me my first year in the World Cup.
2
SPEAKER_00
She still travels with me now.
2
SPEAKER_00
And people have a bit of a misunderstanding because it s like a frustrating thing for her and for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
People will go up to her and be like, when are you going to stop following Mikaela around?
2
SPEAKER_00
What do you do all day when she s skiing?
2
SPEAKER_00
She s on the hill.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s helping set the courses.
2
SPEAKER_00
She sets some of the courses herself.
2
SPEAKER_00
She videos.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s pulling fence, setting fence.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s literally a ski coach.
2
SPEAKER_00
She s just employed by me, not the US Ski Team.
2
SPEAKER_00
So people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And some of her friends even will be like, come on.
2
SPEAKER_00
coming out with me more, Mikayla s fine and they don t realize how much of an impact she has on my career and like my mental stability and just being able to exist in Europe for six or seven months at a time without being home, without being
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I m fairly familiar with most of Europe now, but you re still not home, you know?
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s something, like, I m trying to, like, inception people s minds so they get it, so they stop asking her those questions, because she s like, ah!
2
SPEAKER_00
There s nothing like everyone around you making you feel like you re completely inconsequential and someone who s like in your daughter s career and who is she to say that she s like important, but I m the one who says it and it s like, oh.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, so.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
So she s a very important coach.
2
SPEAKER_01
So what s the biggest lesson your mom has taught you?
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot.
2
SPEAKER_00
And this might not be the actually most important lesson, but
2
SPEAKER_00
Pretty early on, she and my dad kind of set this philosophy that, like,
2
SPEAKER_00
things are worth doing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how to put this.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s more fun to do things if you can do them well.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there s a way to do them well so that it s fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s comes with like a methodical approach and studying and learning.
2
SPEAKER_00
And this could be with school.
2
SPEAKER_00
It could be like math is more fun when you understand it and it takes a little work to understand it.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then it s then it s like doing a puzzle that s actually fun or
2
SPEAKER_00
soccer growing up with my brother he s two years older two and a half years older than I am and we both you know we both wanted to play soccer and try out for the local travel team in New Hampshire and it was a really good team and like we needed to practice and my mom like helped us she she
2
SPEAKER_00
got the books and some DVDs, and we would study, like, different drills and soccer moves, like, things we could learn, and the Maradona, and all these, like, fun tricks, and... And just, like, learn how to juggle a soccer ball, like, the basics of that, learn how to dribble properly, learn how to, like, then you practice working on speed, you practice running technique, all of those things.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was a step-by-step, like, fundamentals.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we would work on that in the summer, and then we d go back to our team in the fall,
2
SPEAKER_00
And, especially my brother s coach, he was like, okay, Taylor is a Cinderella story of soccer because he had a growth spurt the year before.
2
SPEAKER_00
He grew a foot and a half.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he literally, he like lost the ability to run.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my mom brought him back.
2
SPEAKER_00
She taught him how to run again.
2
SPEAKER_00
She got him like coordination.
2
SPEAKER_00
like bought him a unicycle to practice balance and all of these different things, like ways, because his whole goal was to get back on the team with his buddies.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he came back and he ended up being the fastest runner on the team.
2
SPEAKER_00
And his ball handling skills were like light years improved from what they were.
2
SPEAKER_00
And his coach was like, this is unbelievable.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve never seen something like this happen when a kid grows a foot and a half.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it takes longer to get your coordination back than that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my mom s like, yeah, well, that s what happens when you, like, work at it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it was all fun stuff, too.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, all summer long, Taylor and I would just play soccer together.
2
SPEAKER_00
And with skiing, it s the same.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s all, like...
2
SPEAKER_00
you learn the different skills and the fundamentals and tennis too.
2
SPEAKER_00
Tennis is something we love and it s so much fun to do it when you re playing well and it actually stinks when you re not playing well.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s kind of our, that s like a little bit of a family philosophy and my mom just happens to be
2
SPEAKER_00
like the greatest teacher that I know.
2
SPEAKER_00
She just knows how to break down movements and explain it in a way that makes sense that people can learn.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, Taylor and I have a joke that she will see somebody struggling on the ski hill, and someone we don t know, just like someone public, just skiing.
2
SPEAKER_00
She ll see them struggling, can t make it down a trail, and she ll go over to them and help them.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s like five it s like the five minute crash course and how to become a World Cup skier.
2
SPEAKER_00
And by the end of that literal five minutes getting down to the bottom of the trail, they re arcing turns and like enjoying it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we re like, this is literally the difference between people doing the sport and not doing the sport.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because it s brutal if you can t make it down the hill.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it is so fun if you know how to, like, carve some turns and you can get down.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s, like, the motto of life, kind of.
2
SPEAKER_01
What did she teach you during those... that season or seasons of...
2
SPEAKER_01
high pressure with the media, or not winning as fast, or losing every once in a while.
2
SPEAKER_01
What did she teach you about managing stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and that psychological pressure?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, she actually encouraged me to start talking to a sports psychologist.
2
SPEAKER_00
And... she set me up with somebody that we knew, actually a family friend, but also a psychologist, and...
2
SPEAKER_00
She, like, for a long time, I felt like, I don t need a sports psychologist, because I am actually very mentally stable, and... And you re winning.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m winning, and I m strong, and I just, I never felt pressure.
2
SPEAKER_00
Not never, but I didn t, pressure wasn t something, like, I didn t really get nervous for the first bunch of years of my career.
2
SPEAKER_01
And... You were just having fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was just having fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even at the Olympics, and the Sochi Olympics, and standing at the start for the gold medal run,
2
SPEAKER_00
I was not nervous.
2
SPEAKER_00
Part of that, I was pretty sick, so it might have been a little bit distraction, but I was just, like, pretty not even confident, just, like, at peace.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I got into a phase where I got really nervous.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how to handle it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my mom, she d help me focus on things that were in my control.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, she d help me focus on the skiing, the technical aspects, and just things that I could control.
3
SPEAKER_01
as opposed to media or conversations or other athletes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or just like the random blips and thoughts that you get in your head throughout a race day.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, race day is, it s wild actually in ski racing especially.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a nine to 10 hour day from the time you get out of bed to the time you get back to your hotel room after the race is over.
3
SPEAKER_00
And during that period of time you have
3
SPEAKER_00
two minute long intervals that are actually important.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the rest of it, in 10 hours, the rest of it is sort of inconsequential, but also very important.
3
SPEAKER_00
But those two minutes, you need to be on and good.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, sometimes you re like, how do I manage this?
3
SPEAKER_00
And your mind goes everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you prepare for those?
3
SPEAKER_00
How do you prepare for it?
3
SPEAKER_00
How do you get through it?
3
SPEAKER_00
You literally, your brain is like,
3
SPEAKER_00
the thoughts that run through my head on a race day.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I don t know how to ski this.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t, I don t know the combination in a slalom court, like this flush or in a downhill.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
3
SPEAKER_00
Downhill is crazy.
3
SPEAKER_00
My mind goes totally wild.
3
SPEAKER_00
Cause you re, you re going like something between 60 to 80, um, at any given moment.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then you re going off these jumps and some of them carry pretty far.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like
3
SPEAKER_00
Women s races are typically around 20 to 40 meters, but there are some jumps where, like, I ve gone 50, 55 meters, and I, ever since I was little, I had a kind of scary accident going off of a jump, and ever since then, I have, like, recurring images of myself falling off of a jump, like, crashing backwards, hitting my head, helmet flies off, like, my limbs are
3
SPEAKER_00
flinging around.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that is in a downhill without fail.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I see a jump, I m like, I know that s not going to happen because I know what the technique needs to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m solid in the air, but I have to breathe and focus myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I ll literally be in the course, racing it, skiing up to the jump, imagining myself messing it up.
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Until the moment I go off and I m like, now or never.
3
SPEAKER_00
You better do right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
What has the sports psychologist taught you about how to not fully eliminate the memory of pain from the past, of falling or potentially falling or whatever it might be, but how to know that s happened before so you re not reckless, but also be at peace knowing you ve mastered skills to be prepared for this moment?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well now I ve worked with, since that first season where I started working with a sports psychologist, I ve now worked with several different psychologists, couple different sports psychologists, and now actually just like a clinical overall psychologist.
3
SPEAKER_01
How helpful has that been?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s been really, it s been huge.
3
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of it was like learning things about myself that almost maybe got hidden over the years.
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe I started to shift my focus from the things that were important to me to the things that seemed important to everyone else.
3
SPEAKER_00
And just finding a balance because both actually, I feel like both things are important.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of times we talk this day and age about self-care, self-love, and
3
SPEAKER_00
like just placing emphasis on what s important to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if there s people around you that you love, it s okay if their opinions matter to you as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just like, find the balance between what seems like it should be a priority, and you should prioritize yourself, but that doesn t mean that you discount what everyone else is saying.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just like,
3
SPEAKER_00
take it all with a grain of salt, do your own personal weighing situation, and come to your conclusion based off what you think is most important.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I didn t necessarily have the balance at that time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So with my first sports psychologist, we worked on finding a balance of what s important to me versus what s important to the media, or how
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I started doing some media prep questions, like we would figure out what people might say that would trigger me and give me that.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not just like, it s not just puking.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s feeling like you re choking.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
It like triggers, not that anyone wants to know this, but it triggers a gag reflex, but it literally feels like in the collar of your shirt is too tight and you just, you have this pressure point right here, like your food stuck in your throat and that just like that triggers it will make you throw up.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And
3
SPEAKER_01
And you were trying to figure out what s causing that choking.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m like, why do I feel like something s closing in on my throat right now?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because there s literally, if you ve seen me in the start, it still happens sometimes, but it doesn t scare me anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
If I pull down my race suit, sometimes it feels like it s right there in my throat.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I ll take my fingers and I ll just pull down my race suit like this.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s normally a sign that I m feeling nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I don t mind it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not, it doesn t necessarily trigger like me to go off on the side and like puke or whatever.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just, I m just like, Oh, I need a little space in my throat.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s, I m comfortable in that space now.
3
SPEAKER_00
But it took me like multiple psychologists to get to the level, like the last one I worked with,
3
SPEAKER_00
actually heading into the most recent Olympics, we were talking a lot about being comfortable or getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you are likely to be uncomfortable when you don t know what the outcome of something is going to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re not in control.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re not in control, and you want to be in control.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that was a really, like, that s how I always used to
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t care what the outcome was.
3
SPEAKER_00
I really cared how I got there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then we ll figure it out, like, when I cross the finish line, then we ll see if it was good enough to win or not.
3
SPEAKER_01
And... Why do you care more now than you did then?
3
SPEAKER_00
Uh... I wouldn t... I actually think... I ve sort of come full circle a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, it s almost like when I was first starting out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Um...
3
SPEAKER_00
And some of that probably has to do with this season and the record.
3
SPEAKER_00
Basically, this season, I never felt like I should have been the person who was close to resetting this record.
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t a goal.
3
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t on my radar, actually, ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
I watched, like, Lindsay do that, get there, and I was like, that s happening for her.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I never, ever... I had never, ever thought that I would be that one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Um, so even getting that close this season, I was almost like, didn t want it to happen.
3
SPEAKER_00
I almost wanted Ingimar to stay the record holder for all of eternity.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why did you not want to break the record?
3
SPEAKER_00
I just, like... Uh...
3
SPEAKER_01
Why did you want to diminish your own greatness?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I, I, I guess I just felt like if it happened then, well, if ever, if it happened, everybody would start calling me.
3
SPEAKER_00
the greatest of all time.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t see myself that way.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, I do struggle a little bit when the world puts a label that doesn t coincide with my label for myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m like, I m just hearing- How do you label yourself?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t, Mikhail Shifrin, like, I got a name.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just, the GOAT term is just like weird to me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I feel like there s more than one.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the term itself, it implies that there s only one, but there are more than one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like people will debate LeBron James, Michael Jordan, like any of the others for the rest of eternity.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s good.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s a beautiful thing about sports and skiing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I hope that people debate
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m part of the conversation, like that in and of itself is enough of a win for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I hope you will debate it for the rest of all time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, I hope it s part of the conversation that two American women are at the top of the conversation for greatest of all time.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, that s really cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s really cool for American ski racing, for our sport, for lifting the sport up in the U.S.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t want to take that title.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, I want it to be the conversation, because the conversation means people are talking about it and interested.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I, like, I just don t see myself taking that over.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I want Ingimar, like, I want him to be the legend that never, like, his name never ever disappears from the sport, because he set the sport on the trajectory.
4
SPEAKER_00
trajectory it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
So there s all these reasons why I was sort of conflicted about that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But in the end of the day, I just felt like, well, I m not retiring.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m doing well at this right now.
4
SPEAKER_00
If I keep skiing this way, I probably will break the record realistically.
4
SPEAKER_00
Probably reset.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t like the break term either.
4
SPEAKER_00
Reset the record.
4
SPEAKER_00
Not in skiing.
4
SPEAKER_00
You don t want to say break in skiing.
4
SPEAKER_00
So realistically it was going to happen.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, whatever, it ll happen when it happens.
4
SPEAKER_00
And just like letting that go and just not caring about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like the beginning of my career when I sort of was just interested in finding out what my potential was.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Less pressure and seeing what you re capable of anyways.
4
SPEAKER_01
How old are you now?
4
28?
4
SPEAKER_01
Is that right? 28.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, no spring chicken.
4
SPEAKER_01
Dude, man, I just turned 40, so I m trying to get back into college shape right now.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m training like a machine.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think you re doing okay.
4
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m curious, 28, the most accomplished ski racer in the world, or one of the most, what is your biggest fear moving forward in your career and also in your personal life outside of your career?
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t really have, right now I can t really think of a fear I have in my career.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe the only thing might be injury, which has just always been, that s always there.
4
SPEAKER_00
I do get afraid when I m skiing.
4
SPEAKER_00
A lot of racers will say they don t have any fear, and I definitely do.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
Crashing at 60 miles an hour is not fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
Even if you ve got a helmet on, it s not fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
And some would argue you can t have fear because you have to be willing to do that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, well, I m still afraid of doing that, but I m going to do this anyway.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I think there s all different ways you can approach that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You don t have to fear hold your back.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I definitely have it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I do think it s important to admit when you have fear to yourself, because it s like a relationship and you re like, I gotta let you know that I m feeling this right now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you still go for it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, that s a different side of things.
4
SPEAKER_00
Probably, I think I m probably gonna know a little bit more about what I m afraid of once we get back into the race season.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s things pop up that I, right now, I don t feel it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I maybe feel a little bit on top of the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
This past season was amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have nothing else that I expect to do, but I m still like, I m still training.
4
SPEAKER_00
I still feel
4
SPEAKER_00
Like I m doing great with my skiing and I feel like people have figured out that Expectations are sort of meaningless because I ve done I ve exceeded them.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve failed miserably the only thing I can really think of that would be a fear of mine is like how it goes in the upcoming Olympics and mostly
4
SPEAKER_00
If I were to not win any medals again, how would people react again?
4
SPEAKER_00
But I actually asked somebody, kind of an advisor and one of my sponsors recently.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I just was like, this is a real thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m afraid to hype myself up going into this next Olympics or allow anybody else to hype me up because what if it happens again?
4
SPEAKER_00
And Beijing was a standalone event.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was very unique with conditions.
4
SPEAKER_00
There were a lot of things there, like COVID.
4
SPEAKER_00
There were just a lot of things that built up prior to the games and during the games that
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like it wasn t even not it was fully against me in a way, but everybody has to deal with something that s against them and some people made it anyway, and I didn t so there s that but I still feel like
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, the cards could stack up that way again and I could do my best and it still might not work out.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m not afraid to try, but I have a little bit of a like, what are people going to say then?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because now people still say,
4
SPEAKER_00
you know, like record schmeckered, you don t have any gold medals.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, I actually, oh, we talked about this before.
4
SPEAKER_00
I feel the need to defend it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, I actually do.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have Olympic gold medals and I have many world championship gold medals.
4
SPEAKER_00
So like, you don t know what you re talking about, but that s like.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you have a fear of, when is the next Olympics?
4
2026.
4
SPEAKER_01
So what are we, three years away?
4
SPEAKER_01
Three years away.
4
SPEAKER_01
Roughly three years away?
4
SPEAKER_01
Your fear is in three years, what happens if I don t win a medal or if I m not a gold medalist again, what will people say about me?
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_01
How is that serving and supporting you in your life right now?
4
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just kind of exists.
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It s like it doesn t have any impact on how I feel for this coming season.
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And this past season helped me a lot because I did get, I did win world champs medals.
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And
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It was sort of like, is it a big event thing?
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Is it a karma thing?
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Is it like, what is it about this?
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And there was a lot of kind of drama surrounding this past World Championships.
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So it was just like... Can she do it?
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Yeah.
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And you did it.
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Yeah.
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And it was like boiled down to how I skied.
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But I almost, like the first race I did, the combined event, like I was skiing great.
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And I skied off the course, I DNF d again, three gates from the finish.
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And there was like, there is a reason, we don t have to get into it now, but it was like, oh my gosh, it s happening again.
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I had a great run and then I just, all I needed to do was make it past the last two gates.
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It s just... But you were leading.
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I was leading.
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It would have, like, for sure, if I made it to the finish, it would have been a win, but it wasn t, because I didn t make it.
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Wow.
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Was that a mental error in the moment?
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No.
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Or was it a... It was actually... Well, it was a little bit of a mental error, but it was actually... There was a section of the course that... It was literally the last two gates of the course that was prepared differently because of the way the sunlight struck the hill, but also because they moved the finish line down from...
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the earlier run.
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So it was like soft snow for the last two gates of the course.
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And I saw that and I didn t mentally, I didn t adjust to it.
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So it was a little bit, it was a little bit mental.
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I for sure I could have done that differently and made it to the finish, but I did, I was just like full gas and I didn t adjust.
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I want to ask a few final questions.
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This is, I can do this conversation for hours with Michaela.
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This is inspiring for me.
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I love talking to athletes who excel at the highest level.
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Um, so it s really cool to hear your perspective and your, your thought process on performing training, coaching, failure, success, all these things.
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How do you visualize for success?
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I know you mentioned early on that you don t really think about winning.
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You think about the next turn and really the whole course and the process of the course and getting through it.
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But do you dream and visualize about success the day before, the night before, months before a big event?
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How does that process work for you?
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Yeah.
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It s kind of like a little bit multifaceted.
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Like I will visualize myself winning a race and like standing on the podium in the festivities after.
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I will visualize that, but that s more like I, that s more in the downtime when I m daydreaming, when I m training in the gym and I wanna, like I need one more set and I m like, this is killing me.
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And that s kind of like,
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You think of that.
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Yeah.
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I kind of, that kind of helps me a little bit in those situations.
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Um, but then there s a visualization, like actual technical.
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imagery of my skiing.
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And that I do almost every day.
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I think about skiing.
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I dream about skiing.
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And it s literally just dreaming about the way that I want to ski my turns that I think is the fastest way to do it.
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And when I m actually, like right now is sort of the off season.
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It s a lot more training in the gym.
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So I haven t been on snow since the end of May.
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and so right now I m maybe not thinking about it as much but I ll be on the snow on snow again at the end of the month at the end of July and as I get closer to that I m gonna like I m gonna pull up videos and watch my skiing image and look at some of my races from last season especially the races that I didn t win to see like maybe watch the whoever won those races and see what they might have
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done better and see what I can focus on for these upcoming camps as we get closer to the season.
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Where is the snow in July?
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I m going to man this.
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There s snow there now?
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, there is snow there.
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Holy cow.
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There s snow there now.
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I was like, end of July, there s snow somewhere.
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I know.
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Well, it s just mostly because- I got to get up there.
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It s mostly because the West Coast got so much snow this winter.
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Normally, it wouldn t be good at this time, but I think it s really good.
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But then otherwise, we ll go to Chile in September.
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Oh, that d be cool.
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That s a good time.
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This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of my interviews.
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It s called the three truths.
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So, you re 28, but let s imagine you get to live as long as you want to live in this world.
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You get to extend your life as long as you want to live.
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And you get to accomplish and experience all the things you want to experience in life.
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From skiing to whatever activities you do after skiing, to life, to family, whatever.
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Any dreams you have, you get to have them come true.
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But for whatever reason, you can t leave anything behind.
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No one can watch the races you ve done or any content you ve made.
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You ve got a YouTube channel, which is really great.
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I want people to watch that behind the scenes.
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But all the things you ve created, this interview is gone.
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Hypothetically, it s all gone.
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But you get to leave behind three lessons you would leave with the world from your life experience.
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Three things that you know to be true that feel good to you.
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What would be those three truths or lessons you would share with people?
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I think, um, that it s some, I m not sure who said this, but failure isn t final.
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That would be one thing.
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Um, and that it can actually be a lesson to help you succeed.
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Um,
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Two would be everybody needs to compromise sometime.
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Compromise is part of life and love and relationships.
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I feel like never forget where you re from.
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is just like your roots and your upbringing and the life that brought you to where you are.
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Cause there s, there s lessons in there and hidden lessons that you ll be learning for the rest of time.
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I feel like the first like eight years of life probably taught you everything you need to know, but you just didn t know it then.
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Those are beautiful.
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How can we be of support and service to you?
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Oh goodness.
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You re on, you ve got a, you know, massive following on social media and I see on the Instagram, I see you on the threads lately.
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Threads, yeah.
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Threads, I m a, I m a, turkeys out on threads.
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You got your, you got your YouTube channel, which is, you know, showing really vlogs behind the scenes of your life in between the slopes, which I think is really cool.
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Yeah.
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Uh, which we ll have all this linked up for people in the episode, but how can we be of support to you in this season of life?
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Oh my goodness.
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You re up for a couple SBs.
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Up for a couple SBs.
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This will come out after the SBs, so we re putting the intention out of good things to happen for you.
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I mean, it s maybe less just for me, but ski racing is something I m clearly passionate about.
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It s an incredible sport, but skiing in general.
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And there s so much about the snow sports that s so beautiful, incredible, the community,
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the family, the friendships you make along the way.
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And I always wish that I, like, I know so many incredible athletes and people who love skiing, love snowboarding, love snow, love snow sports.
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And I m like, just say it, tell people, spread the word.
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Because it is maybe a little bit selfish that
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I want people to do it because I want it to have a future.
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And there s a lot more to it than that.
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There s a lot more we didn t get into about climate and everything.
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But if it s a necessity for humans, we ll find a way to make it environmentally like forward thinking, progressive and friendly.
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And I want it to be something that people care about.
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And I feel like that comes with a spark from people talking about it.
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So mostly what you ve already done, bringing me on the show and talking, that s actually support enough.
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Of course, for me personally, but for skiing.
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Go ski and snowboard.
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Just try it.
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I m a big snowboarder.
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I haven t done it in the last couple of years, but hearing about going to Mammoth makes me want to go now.
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I know.
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If you ever do a weekend camp in the off season, let me know and invite me and my girlfriend.
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We ll come up and snowboard.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, that would be so fun.
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Spread the message of skiing to the world.
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SPEAKER_03
I need to think about that.
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Yeah, you should put on your own weekend adventure for people.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh, that would be great.
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That s a great idea.
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Yeah.
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Well, I want to acknowledge you, Michaela,
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your courage because I think the courage to say that you aren t that confident in certain areas of your life I think is really inspiring because I think a lot of people look at you and think she wins constantly by large gaps and she s won all these medals and she s the most winningest
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you know, skier of all time and all these things and thinking you have this confidence in you, which I know you do, but I hear you saying that you don t in certain settings of life.
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And so I really acknowledge you for having the courage to talk about that and also giving language to what it means to be great at something you do.
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You can still be nervous, you can still be insecure, but having the courage and trying and doing it to the best of your ability is what it s really all about.
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And so you ve embodied that for
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really the last, I guess, 10, 12 years since you ve been on the scene of skiing and really putting yourself out there.
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So I acknowledge you for your courage and your confidence, which you re very confident to me.
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Thank you.
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So I acknowledge you for that, Michaela.
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My final question is, what is your definition of greatness?
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I think greatness is
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The feeling that you get when you do or experience or watch something that gives you the shivers down your spine, the sort of inspiration, just the feeling like, I can t believe I m part of this moment.
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I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.