Making the Best of Any Situation | Travis Pastrana

Travis Pastrana (0:00)

I enjoyed the process of challenging myself.

I enjoyed the process of figuring out if I had what it took, to process of trying to be the best that I could be.

And I never had that put on me, that it had to be the best of anyone else. I never expected to make it. I just wanted to know. I loved waking up in the morning and saying, how can I be better at? And that's why, for me, it's changed. How can I be better at, for a while I was racing motorcycles. How can I be better at doing freestyle? How can I be better at driving a car? How can I be a better husband and father? Is kind of where the process is now, where you wake up and you're like, okay, this is a challenge, you know, and it's not easy.

Michael Gervais (0:52)

Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by Trade in Training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. This podcast, Finding Mastery, the whole design is to learn from people who have spent so much time understanding how to get better that they are on the path of mastery. They understand the nuances of what it takes to become their very best.

And what we're trying to learn is what are they searching for and what are the mechanisms that have revealed and how have they uncovered their purpose. We want to also understand what are the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft. We also want to understand how do they make sense of events in their lives.

Now this week's conversation is with Travis Pastrana. So if you're a fan of action sports, you know his name. He is a flat out legend. And I mean, from a very early age, age four, he was already riding one speed motorcycles. So he literally grew up in motor sports. And by the age of 14, he won the world freestyle championship. So I set the tone of that because he's been in his craft for years. And his legacy is ridiculous in the world of sport and action sport. But if you're not familiar with his work, I want to set the narrative right because people in action sports are very skilled at risk taking. They're very purposeful about how to get better because when they make mistakes, the consequences are real. So this conversation is really about the arc of becoming, about navigating risk, and really how one fundamentally organizes their life towards specific aims. So Travis in his early career, he was collecting supercross and motocross podiums. And he also won the motocross national championship title. And then back in 2001, he was awarded motocross rider of the year by ESPN action sports and music awards. So he's familiar with winning as well.

And since then, he's accumulated 17 X game medals, including 11 gold medals, plus five gold medals from gravity games, as well as more wins at other events like the Drew tour and Red Bull X fighters. So he understands becoming, he's on the frontier setting tone. And there's this saying sometimes, when you lead, you bleed. He understands what that means too. And then as we keep going with his accomplishments in 2006 at the X games, he redefined what is possible in freestyle motocross with, I mean, it's an amazing, it was a groundbreaking double backflip on a motorcycle. Incredible.

And then he becomes one of the founders of Nitro Circus.

And if you're not familiar with it, I want you to look Nitro Circus up, Nitro Circus.

And it's his commitment to push the progression of action sports as a whole. And he's also got his sights set on redefining the sport of rallycross with the evolution of Nitro Rallycross. But go check out Nitro Circus and see what he's done from a business model, but also what he's done to infuse his passion in the progression of his craft and the craft of obviously many others.

So like I said at the top, Travis is highly skilled at risk and I think he'll be fascinated to learn why he's comfortable in high pressured, high stress, high consequence environments.

I wanna take a minute here to announce a really exciting event that we have coming up. As you continue to navigate the challenges and opportunities of 2024, I wanna pose a question. What are you doing right now to be great with stress? How are you working with stress on your pursuit towards your most important ambitions and goals? And I just wanna get right to the heart of the key elements, one in particular, for what it takes to excel in today's high heat, high stakes world. Because stress is not the problem that we think it is. Stress is a synonym for change and our ability to be agile with change, that is the real opportunity at hand. So if you're wanting to unlock extraordinary results and sustainable performance in your life, it's not about avoiding or reducing stress. And as simple as that sounds, it's very tricky to do, but it is about fundamentally changing your relationship with it. And that's why I'm so thrilled to invite you to a special event, it's a free virtual event that we're offering and it's called The Power of Embracing Stress. It's on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. So to sign up, just head over to findingmastery.com/training. Whether it's advancing in your career or improving your health or cultivating stronger relationships, I think a new approach to stress can be one of the most powerful unlocks for you in your life. So join us for this free virtual training, The Power of Embracing Stress, on Wednesday, March 6th at 2 p.m. Pacific. Go to findingmastery.com/training to sign up once again. That's findingmastery.com/training. And I'm really excited to see you there.