The Hidden Cost of Winning Too Much | Mikaela Shiffrin

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is the Olympics like? Was that the dream for you growing up? No. Well, it was a part of my dream. I had a little notebook when I was younger that was like, I'm going to be Olympic champion. I think it was something that was like, I'm going to be the youngest Olympic gold medalist in history. And that actually did happen. 15? 15, 16? How were you? I was 18. 18. 18. I was the youngest swallon gold medalist. Sure. So there's an asterisk on that. But that was one thing I wrote like in a journal. But really mostly my goals had nothing to do with the Olympics. Like my goal was always I want to be the best gear in the world. I always looked up to Bodie Miller as my big idol. And he was like at the time, you know, he won the overall globe. He was winning individual races. He was like and he was inspiring people. And one of my favorite movies of all time was his documentary Flying Downhill, which is like I don't even know. I don't know if you can buy it somewhere now. 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. And I don't have a way to play it anymore. But that was my most inspiring... He really inspired me to truly want to be a ski racer. Really? He's the reason I identified myself at eight years old as a ski racer. And I just... Did you watch him on TV or in the Olympics? Yeah. Or where did you see him? I watched him on TV. I watched him on... We had, we would get these DVDs every year. It's called like World Cup Winning Runs. And it's, you know, it's produced by US Ski and Steelboard. And it's like the crazy ski fanatics, like whatever, like your how-to videos and things like that. But it was just a compilation of all the season's best winning runs. And my parents used to get those DVDs and I would watch them. And it was like all Bodie's runs. And it's just amazing. And then, you know, during the Olympics as well. And, 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. and he had the he had great great successes he got the medals and everything and and he also had like the terrible olympics that like i wish i could i wish i could have gotten into his mind and no one was going on for him at the time 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. I want to experience whatever it is that feels fulfilling in that moment. And it might not be winning the Olympic medal. It might be just experiencing the Olympic scene in a different way. And people always have an opinion and judge it and get right into it. And I saw that as a child. And it was like, I don't want to ever have to deal with something like that. Do your thing. Why do people have to have an opinion about it right and the opinion itself is like adds pressure and that makes it harder I feel like that sort of watching him go through the the successes he had and the challenges that he faced gave me some insight into like my own philosophy and what I find important in skiing which is it's literally just about like it's so it's kind of so boring but it's just about the turn and making really good turns. 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 want to hear about like your goals that you want to be the greatest of all time. Like the Michael Jordan story, like the, I know you're going to be NBA champion. Like you're going to do this. You're going to be the greatest and all of the hype and the pressure is built up. And then he does it and it's like greater than, And I've always been like, I don't think I'm going to do any of this. I really just want to be a very good skier and ski well and ski fast. And maybe someday I can kind of be the best in the world. And if I can do that, maybe I'll hold on to it. And now it's been like 12 years of racing World Cup where I've been more or less at the top level. And it's still like I'm still in disbelief. But I always still go back to the days watching my greatest idols like Bodie Miller and Yannick Zekoslich and Anya Paris and all of these athletes that I looked up to. And I don't know. It's just like 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. but feel what the pressure the pressure or the failure or the success whatever it is like everybody's inspired by something different 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 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 and when i think i want to win i never win really never ever if i'm thinking about you rarely lose yeah if i'm thinking about winning i will not win the race it's happened it's almost like 100 of the time so what do you need to think about i have to think about like the intensity of my skiing or like i have to think about racing the course versus winning 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. And that's, I don't know, it's kind of, it's a little bit, I feel like it's a little bit corny, but it's so, it's like without fail. You got to focus on the next turn. Yeah. The next turn. Like the process of getting to the finish is what allows you to win the race. And I, that's, that's where my mindset has to be. What do you struggle with managing more? overcoming failure or having all the success oh i mean i feel like it's been 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 in the beginning it was it was almost like there wasn't pressure i didn't really have i had success pretty early but it was always like, this is so surreal. I wonder if it's even real. It might be a dream. Because you're the young one on the circuit. Yeah, I'm young and people keep expecting it to not happen. I kept exceeding expectations and my expectations were so high. I didn't care about anybody else's. And then that's like the first three to four years of my career. 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, um, like finding the fine tuning of my ski equipment and different things and my first struggles with my coach at that time and like when things weren't really clicking 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 I feel like that's really important is you have to you have to click with the equipment you have you have to click with the coaches you have people have to be on the same page and the same mindset and the same goals and for the first three four years of my career I had that I almost like I almost didn't have to try grant like part of that was because my mom traveled with me as one of my coaches as well and she like she fought battles for me she helped to make it click but um and she still does 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 that goes beyond just making good turns and then when that came down to my job which was literally just making good turns I could do it and so then I started having success early on and it was just like people were like this is not real this can't keep happening and then it did and then it was like everybody caught up 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 um I was out it was 2015 um 2000 the 2014 2015 yeah 2014 2015 season and I got injured like December 2014 and then I came back February 2015 so I was like out for a good chunk of the season but I had an MCL strain and a tibial plateau fracture. And then a bone bruise, which was probably the thing that like ends up holding everybody back the longest. There's surprisingly little research on bone bruising. But anyway, that's a totally different topic. So when I came back to skiing, I kind of focused more on just slalom. But that season was insane because I started out the season in October. And the first two races of the season were these two slaloms um in aspen and i i won i that was i reset the record for the great the largest margin of victory in a world cup how many seconds it was three over three seconds which is like i mean we we win races lose races by literally one hundredth of a second and that's typical time differences two tenths three tenths is big five tenths is like insurmountable and then if you're getting over that like people dream of winning a race by maybe a second and i won this race by three seconds i was like i don't really i don't know what just happened after an injury that was before the so then it was the next race series that we went to where i got injured and then when i came back um in february i kind of focused on just the solemn races for the rest of the season i did some giant solemn races but it was just like mostly focused on solemn and i think my average it was like my average time margin of victory for the whole season was over two seconds So pretty much every single race besides one, I won by over two seconds. That's crazy. And then the one race was my comeback race. It was five tenths or something. 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 for the rest of my career. So I came back the next season or, you know, when finish the season, you have your summer period training, blah, blah, blah. first race of the season was in finland for 2015 16 and i won it by seven tenths six tenths of a second she's slowing down yeah yes everyone was like are you worried the competition's getting so much better are you getting worse and it was this whole it was a weird weird thing where i'd never I never experienced a victory where people put such a negative spin on it and that was that like then set me into the next phase of my career which was a lot of like performance anxiety really and it all surrounded around like what media would say what people around me would say 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 too so like we want to get back there and and i get it i just was like i don't you're doing the best you can do i'm doing the best i can i don't think we're there like i actually think the competition is much stronger. And what like that happened, that was a moment in time or a season in time. And I don't think we're going to be in a place where I win races by two seconds anymore. 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. And then it took them four to five years to figure out that that might not be the, what's gonna happen all the time. It's just, it was just weird. So there's this phase where I was puking at the start of every race. Really Yeah Terrible Every race Almost every race Just because of anxiety Because of anxiety Was it more worried about what the people closest to you were going to say What the media were going to say? It was media. It was like fear of losing, more just fear of what disappointment comes when you don't exceed the expectations. I'd been really used to kind of exceeding people's expectations. And then it was like, I'm still winning, but just winning alone isn't good enough anymore. I actually have to win by more. And if I'm going to exceed people's expectations, now I need to make winning by two seconds, three seconds a regular thing. That's a lot of pressure. I mean, it is and it isn't. It's sort of, it's so much that it's like, it's not realistic. And I knew it at the time, but I didn't know how to explain that. And it just, like, it's taken me a long time to get to this point now where I just realize that people will catch up. And I also realized like during that period of time, you know, after every race we go through the mix 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 a certain amount. Or if I had a really like strong reaction one race, they were like, why is this one so much more important to you? And those are all fair questions. My mind would go there if I was them as well. but I would really answer I would take their question so literally and answer to that and now I realize people still do that 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 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 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 we okay so there are two slalom races in a row in the czech republic and i won the first one that was my 85th victory and then the second day everybody was thinking this is going to be your 86th and it for like for everyone around me it was a done deal And I was not there. Mentally, emotionally, you were just disconnected. I was tired. It was a really, really long stretch of races. I raced seven races in 10 days and with travel literally across Europe. It's just as much emotionally draining as it is physically because you have to mentally and emotionally prepare for hours before every race. Racing is probably more mentally and emotionally draining. physically you're prepared for really whatever it can get but then they all so hard yeah and then they all just get intertwined and then you're like why don't my muscles work anymore i just and sometimes all i need is just one day one recovery day and then i'm literally back to it but i just back to back was tough yeah the bat those back-to-back races this was this was the last race series before world championships this season and i was like on a low just drained but but I was having a good time I loved racing like I won the first run of the second race and I was in so I was went last on the second run I was in the lead the whole way down and I lost the lead in the last part of the course and I I lost the race by seven hundredths of a second or something like that to um one of it met Lena Dura a competitor who was 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 and I didn't have any questions about that but for sure people were thinking this could have been 86 like this would have been the record matching performance and you could have done it here at the scene of your very first world cup race when you were 15 years old like it would have been fateful the whole thing it was all of this the puzzle piece it was all fitting together and then it didn't happen right and i i was like people were asking this it was like i am so excited for lena i mean i get it it's not 86 okay what did like whatever but i'm so happy for her and i'm so excited about my race yesterday and I'm actually really happy about how I skied most of it today and I'm looking forward to work like I started to use this this kind of positive reframing the questions about how I really felt and the it was like wild how the the mood around me shifted from being like walking on eggshells is she disappointed what's gonna happen you know is she gonna cry is you gonna throw a fit I'm like um I'm good right and everybody was like oh okay we can celebrate the second place too that's cool 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 I can help them like I can help them feel okay 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 but sometimes it's not on them sometimes it's just like the factors don't come together in the right way and the other athletes skied better and like it took a long time for me to realize that it wasn't it's not just me disappointing them it's also they're afraid of disappointing me and it goes the like the coaches want to do their best they want to see me win because they care some people want to see me lose because they're sick of seeing me win. And that's like, there's this whole dynamic, this whole like culture in there. And you have to really, you have to kind of figure out how to separate those things, I guess. Wow. Speaking of coaching, where would you be without great coaching in your career and in your life? Nowhere. I mean, not yet. No, my whole life is like, I've been really lucky with my coaches, starting off with my parents my first coaches in my life they both taught me how to ski and like I said my mom she's been my coach since I was since I learned how to ski but she traveled with me my first year in the world cup she still travels with me now and she is like people have a bit of a misunderstanding because they think it's like a frustrating thing for her and for me people go up her and be like, when are you going to stop following Michaela around? Like, what do you do all day when she's skiing? Like, she's on the hill. She's setting, she's helping set the courses. She set some of the courses herself. She videos, she's like pulling fence, setting fence. She does, she's literally just, she's a ski coach. She's just employed by me, not the U.S. ski team. So people like have a hard time wrapping their heads around it. And some of her friends even will be like, come on, like, come hang out with me more. Michaela'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 like I'm fairly familiar with most of Europe we are up now but you're still not home right you know right right and that's something like trying to like inception people's minds so they get it So they stop asking her those questions because she's like, oh, there's nothing like everyone around you making you feel like you're completely inconsequential. And someone is 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, wow. Anyway, so. Sure. So she's a very important coach. So what's the biggest lesson your mom has taught you? Okay, there's a lot. And this might not be the actually most important lesson, but pretty early on, she and my dad kind of set this philosophy that, like, things are worth doing. I don't know how to put this. It's more fun to do things if you can do them well. And there's a way to do them well so that it's fun. and it's comes with like a methodical approach and studying and learning and this could be with school it could be like math is more fun when you understand it and it takes a little work to understand it but then it's then it's like doing a puzzle that's actually fun or 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 got the books and some dvds and we would study like different drills and soccer 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 and it was a step-by-step like fundamentals and we would we worked on that in the summer and then we'd go back to our team in the fall 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 he grew a foot and a half wow and he literally he like lost the ability to run and my mom brought him back she taught him how to run again she got him like coordination she like bought him a unicycle to practice balance and all of these different things like ways because his whole his whole goal was to get back on the team with his buddies and he came back and he ended up being the fastest runner on the team and his ball handling skills were like light years improved from what they were and his coach Like, this isn't this is unbelievable. I have never seen something like this happen when a kid grows a foot and a half and it takes longer to get your coordination back than that. My mom's like, yeah, well, that's what happens when you like work at it. Sure. But it was all fun stuff, too. Like all summer long, Taylor and I would just play soccer together. And and with skiing, it's the same. I mean, it's all like. you learn the different skills and the fundamentals and tennis too. 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. So that's kind of our, that's like a little bit of a family philosophy. And my mom just happens to be like the greatest teacher that I know. She just knows how to break down movements and explain it in a way that makes sense that people can learn. 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. She'll see them struggling, can't make it down a trail, and she'll go over to them and help them. And it's like the five-minute crash course in how to become a World Cup skier. 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. I mean, like this is literally the difference between people doing the sport and not doing the sport because it's brutal if you can't make it down the hill. And it is so fun if you know how to like carve some turns and you can get down. And that's like the motto of life. What did she teach you during those seasons or seasons of high pressure with the media or not winning as fast or losing every once in a while? What did she teach you about managing stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and that psychological pressure? Well, she actually encouraged me to start talking to a sports psychologist. and she set me up with somebody that we knew actually a family friend but also a psychologist and 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 and I'm winning and I'm strong and I just I've never felt pressure I 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. And... You were just having fun. I was just having fun. Even at the Olympics and the Sochi Olympics and standing at the start for the gold medal run, I was not nervous. 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 Really Yeah And then I got into a phase where I got really nervous I didn't know how to handle it. And my mom, she'd help me focus on things that were in my control. Like she'd help me focus on skiing, the technical aspects and just things that I could control. As opposed to media or conversations. or other athletes or or just like the the random blips and thoughts that you get in your head throughout a race day you know race day is it's wild actually in ski racing especially it's it's a nine to ten 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 and during that period of time you have two minute long intervals that are actually important. And the rest of it in 10 hours, the rest of it is sort of inconsequential, but also very important. But those two minutes you need to be on and good. And it's like, sometimes you're like, how do I manage this? And your mind goes everywhere. How do you prepare for those? How do you prepare for it? How do you get through it? You literally, your brain is like, the thoughts that run through my head on a race day it's like I don't know how to ski this I don't I don't know the combination in a sloncourt like this flush or I in a downhill oh my gosh downhill is crazy my mind goes totally wild because you're you're going like something between 60 to 80 um at any given moment and then you're going off these jumps and some of them carry pretty far like 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 and helmet flies off. Like my limbs are flinging around. And that is in a downhill without fail. 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. I'm solid in the air, but I have to like breathe and like focus myself. And I'll literally be in the course, racing it, skiing up to the jump, imagining myself messing it up until the moment Then I go off and I'm like, no, now or never. I think you better do it right. Yeah. 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 and also be at peace knowing you've mastered skills to be prepared for this ball. Yeah. Well, now I've worked with since since that first that first season where I started working with a sports psychologist. I've now worked with several different psychologists, a couple of different sports psychologists and now actually just like a clinical overall psychologist. And how helpful has that been? It's been really it's been huge. and a lot of it was like learning things about myself that almost maybe got hidden over the years maybe I started to shift my focus from the things that were important to me to the things that seemed important to everyone else and just finding a balance because both actually I feel like both things are important a lot of times we talk this day and age about self-care self-love and like just just placing emphasis on what's important to you but if there's people around you that you love it's okay if their opinions matter to you as well 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 it's just like take it all with a grain of salt do your own personal weighing situation and come out with like come to your conclusion based off what you think is most important but I didn't like I didn't necessarily have the balance at that time so with my first sports psychologist we we worked on finding a balance of what's like important to me versus what's important to the media or how 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 it's not just like it's not just puking it's it's feeling like you're choking that's what it is it like triggers again 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. Yeah. And. And you were trying to figure out what's causing that choking. I'm like, why do I feel like something's closing in on my throat right now? Because there's literally like, if you see me in the start, it still happens sometimes, but it doesn't scare me anymore. Like if I pull down my race suit, sometimes it feels like it's right there in my throat and I'll take my fingers and I'll just pull down my race suit like this. And that's normally like, that's normally a sign that I'm feeling nervous, but I don't mind it. I'm not, it doesn't necessarily trigger like me to go off on the side and like puke or whatever. It just, I'm just like, oh, I need a little space in my throat. And it's, I'm comfortable in that space now, but it took me like multiple psychologists to get to the level, like the last one I worked with actually heading into the most recent Olympics, we were talking a lot about being comfortable or getting comfortable being uncomfortable. And you are likely to be uncomfortable when you don't know what the outcome of something is going to be. Right. You're not in control. You're not in control and you want to be in control. And that was a really, like, that's how I always used to, I didn't care what the outcome was I really cared how I got there and then we'll figure it out like when I cross the finish line then we'll see if I if it was good enough to win or not and why do you care more now then than you did then uh I wouldn't I actually think I'm I've sort of come full circle a little bit now I almost it's almost like when I was first starting out um and some of that probably has to do with this season and the record kind of because like basically i this season i was like i don't actually i never felt like i should have been any the person who was close to resetting this record i didn't it wasn't a goal it wasn't on my radar actually ever like i watched like lindsey do that get there. And I was like, that's happening for her. And I never, ever, I had never, ever thought that I would be that one. Um, so even getting that close this season, I was almost like, didn't want it to happen. I almost wanted Ingmar to stay the record holder for all of eternity. Why? Why did you not want to break the record? I just like, uh, why did you want to diminish your own greatness? Well, I don't know. I guess I just felt like if it happened, then, well, if it happened, everybody would start calling me the greatest of all time. And I don't see myself that way. 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. So I'm like, I'm just here. How do you label yourself? I don't even know I don't Mikhail Shifrin like I got a name I don't know I just the goat term is just like weird to me and I feel I feel like there's more than one and the the the term itself it implies that there's only one but there are more than one like people will debate LeBron James Michael Jordan like any of the others for the rest of eternity and I think that's good I think that's a beautiful thing about sports and and skiing i hope that people debate you know i'm part of the conversation like that in and of itself is enough of a win for me but i hope you will debate it for the rest of all time 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 like that's really cool that's really cool for american ski racing for our for our sport for lifting the sport up in the u.s and I don't want to take that title like I want it to be the conversation because the conversation means people are talking about it and interested and and I like I just don't see myself taking that over and I want Ingmar like I want him to be the legend that that never like his name never ever disappears from the sport because he he set the sport on the trajectory trajectory trajectory it is so there's all these reasons why like was sort of conflicted about that but in the end of the day i just felt like well i'm not retiring i'm doing well at this right now if i keep skiing if i keep skiing this way i probably will break the record realistically break probably reset i don't like the break term either reset the record not in skiing you know when i said break in skiing um so realistically it was going to happen so it was like whatever it'll happen when it happens and just like letting that go and just not caring about it it was like the beginning of my career when i sort of was just interested in finding out what my potential was right less pressure and seeing what you're capable of every race. How old are you now? 28? Is that a 20? 28. 28. No spring chicken. 20. Dude, man. I just turned 40, so I'm trying to get back into college shape right now. I'm training like a machine. I think you're doing okay. You know? I appreciate it. 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? I don't really have, right now I can't really think of a fear I have in my career. Maybe the only thing might be like injury, which has just always been, that's always there. I definitely, like I'm afraid, I do get afraid when I'm skiing. A lot of, a lot of racers will say they don't have any fear and I definitely do. I think it's fine. crashing at 60 miles an hour is not fun it's not fun you got a helmet on it's not fun not fun and some would argue you have to you can't have fear because you have to be willing to do that and i'm like well i'm still afraid of doing that but i'm gonna do this anyway yeah so i think there's all different ways you can approach that you don't have the fear hold your back and yeah but i definitely have it and i think it's i do think it's important to admit when to admit when you have fear to yourself because it's kind of like it's like a relationship and you're like I gotta I gotta let you know that I'm feeling this right now and and then you still like you still go for it yeah absolutely but anyway that's a different side of things um 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 those things pop up that I right now I don't feel it I maybe feel a little bit on top of the world this past season was amazing I have nothing else that I expect to do but I'm still like I'm still training I still feel 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 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 if i were to not win any medals again how would people react again but i actually asked somebody kind of an advisor and one of uh one of my sponsors recently and he I just was like this is this is a real thing like I'm afraid to hype myself up going into this next Olympics or allow anybody else to hype me up because I like what if it happens again and Beijing was a very like a standalone event there it was very unique with conditions there were a lot of things there like COVID there were just a lot of things that built up prior to the games and during the games that 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 I don't know the cards could stack up that way again and I could do my best and it still might it still might not work out and I'm not afraid to try but I have a little bit of a like what are people gonna say then because now people still say you know like record schmecker you don't have any gold medals I'm like I actually we talked about this before. I feel the need to defend it. I'm like, I actually do. I have Olympic gold medals and I have many world championship gold medals. So like, you don't know what you're talking about, but that's like... So you have a fear of, when is the next Olympics? 2026. So what are we, three years away? Three years away. Roughly three years away? Your fear is, in three years... In three years. what happens what might happen if i don't win a medal or if i'm not a gold medalist again yeah uh what will people say about me yeah that's a little maybe a little bit how is that serving and supporting you in your life right now just kind of exists it's like it doesn't have any impact on how i feel for this coming season and this past season helped me a lot because I did get, I did win world chance medals. And it was sort of like, is it a big event thing? Is it a karma thing? Is it like, what is it about this? And there was a lot of, there was a lot of kind of drama surrounding this past world championships. So it was just like. Can she do it? Yeah. And you did it. Yeah. And it was like boiled down to how I skied. but I almost like the the first race I did the the combined event like I was skiing great and I skied off the course I DNF'd again um three gates from the finish 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 I had a great run and then I just all I needed to do was make it past the last two gates it's just but you were leading i was leading 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 was that a mental error in the moment was it a it was actually well it was a little bit of a mental error but it was actually there was a there was a section of the course that it was literally the last two gates of the course that would prepare differently because of the way the sunlight struck the hill but also because they moved the finish line down from the earlier run. So it was like soft snow for the last two gates of the course. And I saw that and I didn't mentally, I didn't adjust to it. So it was a little bit, it was a little bit mental. 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. I want to ask you a few final questions. This is, I could do this conversation for hours with Michaela. this is inspiring. For me, I love talking to athletes who excel at the highest level. So it's really cool to hear your perspective and your thought process on performing, training, coaching, failure, success, all these things. How do you visualize for success? I know you mentioned early on that you don't really think about winning, you think about the next turn, and really the whole course and the process of the course and getting through it. But do you dream and visualize about success the day before, the night before, months before, a big event? How does that process work for you? Yeah. It's kind of like a little bit multifaceted. Like I will visualize myself winning a race and like standing on the podium in the festivities after. 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 want to like I need one more set. and I'm like, this is killing me. And that's kind of like... You think of that. Yeah, that kind of helps me a little bit in those situations. But then there's a visualization, like actual technical imagery of my skiing. And that I do almost every day. I think about skiing. I dream about skiing. 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. and when I'm actually like right now is sort of the off season it's a lot more training in the gym so I'm I haven't been on snow since end of the end of May 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 whoever won those races and see what they might have done better and see what I can focus on for these upcoming camps as we get closer to the season. Where's there snow in July? I'm quite a man there. I was like, there's snow there now? Yeah, there is snow there. Holy cow. There's snow there now. I was like, end of July, there's snow somewhere. I know. Well, it's just mostly... I got to get up there. It's mostly because the West Coast got so much snow this winter. Normally it wouldn't be good at this time, but I think it's really good. But then otherwise, we'll go to Chile in September. Oh, that'd be cool. That'd be a good time. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of my interview. It's called the three truths. So you're 28, but let's imagine you get to live as long as you want to live in this world. Oh, gosh. You get to extend your life as long as you want to live. and you get to accomplish and experience all the things you want to experience in life from skiing to whatever activities you do after skiing to life to family whatever any dreams you have you get to have them come true but for whatever reason you can't leave anything behind no one can watch the races you've done or any content you've made you've got a youtube channel which is really great i want people to watch that behind the scenes but all the things you've created this interview is gone. Hypothetically, it's all gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons you would leave with the world from your life experience. Three things that you know to be true that feel good to you. What would be those three truths or lessons you would share with people? I think that it's some, I'm not sure who said this, but failure isn't final. that would be one thing and that it can actually be a lesson to help you succeed two would be everybody needs to compromise sometime compromise is part of life and love and relationships um i feel like never forget where you're from is just like your roots and your upbringing and the life that brought you to where you are because there's there's lessons in there and hidden lessons that you'll be learning for the rest of time 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 Those are beautiful. How can we be of support and service to you? Oh, goodness. You've got a massive following on social media and I see on Instagram, I see you on the threads lately. Threads, yeah. Threads and fun. I'm a... Cherries out on threads. You got your YouTube channel, which is showing really vlogs behind the scenes of your life in between the slopes, which I think is really cool. Yeah. 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? Oh my goodness. You're up for a couple ESPYs. Up for a couple ESPYs. This will come out after the ESPYs, so we're putting the intention out of good things to happen for you. I mean, it's maybe less just for me, but ski racing is something I'm clearly passionate about. It's an incredible sport, but skiing in general. And there's so much about snow sports that's so beautiful, incredible, the community, the family, the friendships you make along the way. 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. And I'm like, just say it, tell people, spread the word. Because it is maybe a little bit selfish that I want people to do it because I wanted to have a future. And there's a lot more to it than that. There's a lot more we didn't get into about climate and everything. But if it's a necessity for humans, we'll find a way to make it environmentally forward-thinking, progressive, and friendly. And I want it to be something that people care about. And I feel like that comes with a spark from people talking about it. So mostly what you've already done, bringing me on the show and talking, that's actually support enough. Of course, for me personally, but for skiing. Go ski and snowboard. Just try it. I'm a big snowboarder. I haven't done it in the last couple of years, but hearing about going to mammoth makes me want to go now this morning. So if you ever do like a weekend camp, you know, I know we should do it. Let me know and invite me and my girlfriend will come up and that would be so fun. Spread the message of skiing to the world. I need to think about that. Yeah. You should put on your own kind of like weekend adventure for people. So that would be great. That's a great. Yeah. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Michaela, for 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, 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. 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. 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. And so you've embodied that for really the last, I guess, 10, 12 years since you've been on the scene of skiing and really putting yourself out there. So I acknowledge you for your courage and your confidence, which you're very confident to me. Thank you. I acknowledge you for that, Mikayla. My final question is, what is your definition of greatness? I think greatness is 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. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.