Start the New Year With Purpose and Intention | Olympic Medalists, Nicole Davis & Caroline Burckle

Michael Gervais (0:00)

Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training a high performance psychologist. First of all, I want to wish you a very happy and healthy new year. The start of a new year is such an exciting time, and it's a natural opportunity to reset, to ground ourselves and to even realign with who we are and who we're working on becoming. In the spirit of the new year, we have a very special episode for you today. Many of you who listen to Finding Mastery might not be aware that we have an entire other exciting side to our business, where with the help of our very own performance strategist, Olympians and mindset coaches, we get the opportunity to work with some of the world's most influential organizations like Microsoft, Maersk, Salesforce, and many others to help them solve some of the world's most dynamic human performance challenges. In this episode, I'm joined by two of our incredible Olympians, and Finding Mastery mindset coaches, Dr. Nicole Davis, a two-time Olympic silver medalist in indoor volleyball from the Beijing and London Games, and Caroline Burckle, an Olympic bronze medalist swimmer from the Beijing Games. Together, we're here to help you shape and bring to life a powerful intention to set the stage for this coming year. Olympians have so much to teach us about intentions and how to bring them to life, because their entire journey has depended on a very clear vision, and then a disciplined, deliberate, and even methodical approach to achieving their ambitions. Whether you're clarifying personal or professional aspirations, or just looking to make 2025 your best year ever, Nicole and Caroline have so many gems to offer. So with that, let's dive right into this special conversation with Nicole Davis and Caroline Burckle.

Nicole, Caroline, welcome to The Mastery Lab. It is so much fun to have you guys here. The Mastery Lab is a place for us to explore, to share some insights. And so it's great to see you guys in here.

Nicole Davis (2:10)

It's good to be here.

Caroline Burckle (2:11)

Yeah, we've been trying to do this for a while.

Michael Gervais (2:13)

I know, it's gonna be great. So I just wanna come out, kind of firing here on this idea about resolutions. This phase of the year is really important for a lot of people. And you guys both know my take on resolutions, but maybe the listener doesn't. I'm not a fan. I don't think that this is something that is all that useful for people. But there is this moment in time right now where if we do anchor ourselves in research, Dr. Katie Milkman from UPenn has some really good research around the opportunity of fresh starts. So I would like to start our conversation grounded in science and give people some tools, your experiences and some insights so that they can be just a little bit better this year. So let's just start with a clip from Katie Milkman and then we'll respond to that.

Katie Milkman (3:06)

The research we've done on the fresh start effect shows that at these fresh start moments, we really feel like a better version of ourselves because we can set aside, you know, that was the old me. All of those failures were of a different person. We take on this new identity. It comes with, you know, this is the 2020s me or this is the, you know, Philadelphia me because I've moved to a new city or, you know, if you've moved to a new job, you feel like it's the different role. And with it comes a better you because we're so optimistic. We're always expecting more of ourselves in the future, which I think, you know, it has some downsides, but it's a pretty wonderful feature of human beings.

Michael Gervais (3:47)

OK, so when you hear Dr. Milkman say that, I want to offer some context and then get your take on it. The context of why the three of us are having this conversation is we've been involved in high level sport in the Olympics for a long time. And as athletes, you start a new season every year. So right now, people are thinking about the resolution for the new year. And actually, what we want to have a conversation about is how to start a new season to give yourself a best chance to be the best version of you. So when you hear her, how do you open up the idea about versions? And then how do you think about new seasons?

Caroline Burckle (4:27)

I like the concept of that transcending and including piece of what is it that you can leave and what is it that you can take with you. And I've noticed that if I think back to my career in swimming specifically, if each season started the exact same way every single time, how am I growing?