Embrace Your Greatness | Mindset Coach to Michael Jordan & Kobe - George Mumford

George Mumford (0:00)

But I would say, my formula is you got to know yourself, to be yourself, to express yourself, to share yourself.

Michael Gervais (0:15)

Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. And I am so excited to sit down with George Mumford for this week's conversation. George is a legend amongst, well, more legends, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, countless of other NBA stars, and a never-ending list of Olympian CEOs and artists.

They've all worked personally with George to embrace their greatness, to unlock their greatness, to unlock their potential within. And the art of what we might call being human is strategy, mindfulness.

As a teacher, coach and speaker, George has channeled his life's work into two books, The Mindful Athlete, Secrets to Pure Performance, and Unlocked, Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success.

In these, he uses both instructional wisdom as well as stories of personal pain. And he struggled with addiction and he walks beautifully through that process to be able to celebrate the challenge of being comfortable with being uncomfortable. George and I dig into the dynamics of highly successful teams, mindfulness of course, what it means to unlock your masterpiece within, and how sometimes our darkest moments lead to our greatest revelations. Whether you're someone in hot pursuit of a specific goal or someone who just wants to know yourself more fully, I'm pretty sure this is all of us to some degree, this is definitely for you. And if you're enjoying this podcast and haven't already, just a quick reminder to hit the subscribe or follow button and to drop us a review wherever you're listening. It is the easiest and zero cost way to support the show.

So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with George Mumford. I have a legend, George Mumford is in the studio today. It's been so fun to see your work and to know your work. And your book, Unlocked, is awesome. So you came from a different place than your first book. And this book, like, I'm just so happy for you that you were able to get what you got down in writing for so many of us to benefit from. So I'm stoked to have this conversation with you. And thank you for sharing Unlocked with us.

George Mumford (2:44)

You're welcome. And I'm happy to be here doing this with you. I feel like we go back a ways. And I've been admiring your work. So obviously your work and the work of so many others has influenced my work. I don't know how you can do this without being able to piggyback or step on the shoulders of the giants to come before us.

Michael Gervais (3:05)

Man, that sense, so Juan, thank you very much. And ditto, because you were a trailblazer early on introducing this thing to elite sport, you know? And when most people weren't ready for it.

And so I do want to have a conversation about trailblazing and like how some of the headwinds and how you navigate those spaces because we're in a world right now that there's lots of headwinds. And I think people can benefit from your insights on how to deal with challenges.

George Mumford (3:38)

Yes, so I would say, you mentioned that this, I'm coming from a different place here. I think the experience of writing The Mindful Athlete, but also being in this space and understanding that there's a process to unlocking, you know, just going through our challenges and the challenges have a lot to do with getting to the other side. So for me is, I didn't see myself as a trailblazer. I just, after getting into recovery and dealing with chronic pain, I was just doing what was in front of me. I had no intention of being a trailblazer or anything, but I knew two things. I knew that if I wanted to really learn about this stuff, I had to teach it.

And the second thing I knew is if I wanted to keep it, I had to give it away.

So the best thing I could do is share my experience, strength and hope, and just keep serving. And so that's what happened. People would come to me and say, hey, can you do this? And I would do it. And eventually I was in the corporate space and eventually I left the corporate space to do this thing, do this process, to share my journey. And so to me, it was me getting to that place where I was unlocking, coming from the hell realms. And then to go from being in a shooting gallery or a crack house and being behind the bench of an NBA championship team, I mean, that's unlocking.