Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

Tamsen Fadal was 47 and anchoring the evening news when the first hot flash hit.
She got off the set and lay down on the bathroom floor. No one had prepared her well for any of this. The answer, when it finally came, was a short note from her doctor in her patient portal with four words: "In menopause, any questions?"
Tamsen Fadal is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, executive producer of the PBS documentary The M Factor and The M Factor 2, and New York Times bestselling author of How to Menopause. She spent thirty years in television news before turning to the thing nobody had explained to her.
Tamsen and Mike get into what menopause actually is, how its symptoms can resemble anxiety or depression, and what changed after the 2002 hormone study.
This is a conversation for men as much as for women. Every man is a partner, colleague, son, or father to someone moving through this. Tamsen’s line is that men don’t have to go through it, but they do have to understand it.
Tamsen calls what comes after menopause “the next 30.” Her point is to decide what you want those years to look like, and start building toward them now.
Enjoy the conversation.
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Links & Resources:
Tamsen Fadal’s Website: tamsenfadal.com
Tamsen Fadal’s Books: How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before, The New Single, Why Hasn’t He Proposed?, Why Hasn’t He Called?
Tamsen Fadal’s Documentaries: The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause and The (M) Factor 2: Before the Pause, both on PBS
Tamsen Fadal’s Podcast: The Tamsen Show
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What are the things we can do today to help minimize our chances of developing dementia as we age?
Dr. Tommy Wood is a physician and neuroscientist, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the University of Washington, and author of The Stimulated Mind.
The book takes on a belief many of us still hold, that the adult brain becomes fixed at an early age and then declines from there. Tommy traces that idea back to 1906 and to the words of a Nobel laureate. Then he unpacks what the latest research and data say, and it’s not what you might think.
This is a conversation about a tough subject, mental decline and dementia. Many of us have been touched by this in our own families, and what Tommy has to say gives all of us hope that we have more agency than we think when it comes to this part of our health.
Tommy and Mike get into the 14 modifiable risk factors named by the Lancet Commission, why midlife is when risk starts to diverge, and the three buckets Tommy sorts everything into: stimulus, supply, and support. Mike talks about his grandfather, who had vascular dementia and covered for it so well that the family did not see it for years.
Tommy tells us that “At 70 years old now, you are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than any other time in history.” The trajectory is not fixed, but there’s a lot more work to be done.
Enjoy the conversation.
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Links & Resources
Dr. Tommy Wood’s Website: drtommywood.com
Dr. Tommy Wood’s Book: The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age
BetterBrain, where Tommy is Chief Science Officer: betterbrain.com
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This is a conversation about habits, the ones you want to build and the ones you want to get rid of.
Jon Gordon has written more than 30 books on leadership, habits and mindset, including numerous bestsellers.
Jon's most recent book is titled The Power of Positive Habits, and it tackles a critical issue so many of us face: how do I break the habits that no longer serve me, and how do I build ones that will help me flourish?
Jon and Mike discuss the inward reflections that have helped them break the patterns that have held them back. Jon talks about how he needed to heal wounds from his childhood before he could really break his most challenging habits. The path he describes is not easy, but one well worth considering.
This is a conversation about self-awareness, self-challenge, and how to build practical habits, like gratitude, visualization, and something Jon calls the habit before the habit.
"You are your habits," Jon says, and the best part is you can choose new ones.
Enjoy the conversation.
Links & Resources
Learn more about Jon here: https://jongordon.com/
Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery
Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!
Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/
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Jon Gordon’s Books: The Power of Positive Habits, The Energy Bus, The Power of Positive Leadership, The Power of a Positive Team, The One Truth, The Coffee Bean, and The Hard Hat

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What is the change you seek to make?
On today's episode we go back to the Finding Mastery Vault for a conversation with Seth Godin, author, entrepreneur, teacher, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time on leadership, creativity, and making meaningful change. Seth has written more than twenty international bestsellers, including The Dip, Purple Cow, and The Song of Significance, alongside one of the longest-running daily blogs in the world. His claim is that naming the change you're actually trying to make is more than a branding exercise. It's what helps make every downstream decision clearer… what to commit to, what to quit, whose opinion to take seriously, and who you will have to become to pull it off.
We first released this one a few years ago, and since then the world has only gotten noisier, faster and more demanding of change, which is exactly why we felt it was worth bringing back.
In this episode, you'll learn:
What Seth means by the change you seek to make, and why it clarifies everything downstream
Leadership as a voluntary act, and why enrollment and inspiration come before authority
Why consistency is what makes you trustworthy enough to lead change at all
How to tell a dead end from the dip when you're deciding whether to quit
Whose judgment has actually earned the right to shape your work
Who to go to for reassurance, and who to go to for insight

If you have ever felt your choices quietly bending toward the approval of people who have not earned it, this conversation offers you a perspective you need to hear.
Links & Resources
Seth Godin Photo Credit: Brian Bloom
For More on Seth, go to https://www.sethgodin.com/
Seth Godin’s Books: The Dip, Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, This Is Marketing, The Practice, and The Song of Significance. His newest book, The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, is set to be released in September 2026.
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Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors!
Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/
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Download Dr. Mike’s Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset
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What questions are tugging at you right now, and how might exploring the answers to those questions help unlock your potential?
For this 30th installment of our popular Ask Me Anything series, Dr. Michael Gervais is joined by co-host Victoria Garrick Browne, a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, former Division I volleyball player at USC, mental health advocate, creator, and speaker. Victoria turned her own private struggle with performance anxiety and depression into a gift for millions, and she founded The Hidden Opponent, a nonprofit that brings mental health education and support to student-athletes on campuses around the country. She's the ideal person to sit alongside Mike for this AMA and help answer these questions with care.
The questions our community submitted are honest and vulnerable, and they keep circling the same root: identity. What happens when who you are gets fused to what you do? Mike and Victoria explore why the culture around us so easily hands young people a performance-based identity, what it looks like to move toward a purpose-based one instead, and why the way a parent talks about their child at the dinner table quietly shapes how that child sees themselves.
This is a practical and useful conversation for anyone who competes, coaches, parents, or is simply trying to figure out who they are.
In this conversation, we explore:
How to help young people build an identity rooted in who they are, not only in how they perform
Why the way you talk about your child, even at Thanksgiving, is shaping their identity
How to tell the difference between healthy competitiveness and unhealthy pressure
The warning signs of burnout in a young athlete, and why competing too early can backfire
How to share a mental health story in recruiting without it becoming a liability
Whether real confidence can exist without external validation
The difference between formal instruction and guided discovery in coaching and parenting
A simple, honest way to work with imposter syndrome

If your sense of who you are has ever felt a little too tied to what you do, this one is well-worth your time.
Links & Resources
To learn more about Victoria, please visit: https://victoriagarrickbrowne.com/
To learn more about The Hidden Opponent, the non-profit Victoria started, please visit: https://www.thehiddenopponent.org/
Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery
Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/
Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter
Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: findingmastery.com/morningmindset
Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X
Learn more about The Hidden Opponent: thehiddenopponent.org
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.