Dr. Michael Gervais
About Dr. Michael Gervais
Speech topics
Finding Mastery
The path of mastery captures deep understanding and insight — it’s not a path that is laying a bet now, by investing in a craft, for payment or recognition at some later time. The spoils of victory might just happen, but the orientation of the intent is paramount.
Today we are becoming overwhelmed with the need for instant reward, immediate verification that we are significant — as a misguided attempt to satiate our thirst for meaning and belonging — rather, we are propelling ourselves toward an emptiness that can only be filled by temporary pleasures.
Our need to belong, to understand, to explore, to connect to others and the world around us, to know safety and to know risk, to express and create are foundational to the human experience.
Mastery is a journey — It’s a curious and wonderful trail — that has few, if any, guides. It’s much more than the pursuit of expert performance. It’s far deeper than high performance and the achievement of success.
If Mastery is a path, let’s learn from as many voices as we can. The best in the world, from worlds who happen to have cameras pointed at them — AND — from the worlds in which no camera is present — either by design — or because culturally we might have forgotten to be curious about their path and insights.
Simple Joys.
Speaking videos
Books by Dr. Michael Gervais
“The First Rule of Mastery: Stop Worrying about What People Think of You” (2023)
High-performance psychologist Michael Gervais presents a groundbreaking guide for overcoming what may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential: our fear of people's opinions (FOPO). FOPO shows up almost everywhere in our lives--and the consequences are great. When we let FOPO take control, we play it safe and small because we're afraid of what will happen on the other side of critique. When challenged, we surrender our viewpoint. We trade in authenticity for approval. We please rather than provoke. We chase the dreams of others rather than our own. But it doesn't have to be this way. In The First Rule of Mastery, Michael Gervais shows us that the key to leading a high-performance life is to redirect our attention from the world outside us to the world inside us. He reveals the mental skills and practices we need to overcome FOPO--the same skills he's taught to the top performers in the world, including sports MVPs, world-renowned artists and musicians, and Fortune 100 leaders and teams. Filled with fascinating stories from the worlds of sports and business, leading-edge science, and insights from the frontier of human performance, The First Rule of Mastery is a much-needed wake-up call that when we give more value to other people's opinions than we do our own, we live life on their terms, not ours.
At a glanceDr. Michael Gervais
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