The Mind Mastered: Secrets of Excellence with Dawn Grant Podcast
Season 1 Episode 24
In this conversation, Dawn Grant interviews Dylan Moscovitch, an Olympic figure skater who shares his journey from competitive skating to personal growth and coaching. They discuss the mental aspects of performance, the role of fear, and the importance of mindfulness and self-discovery in achieving excellence. Dylan reflects on his experiences in skating, the challenges he faced, and how he now helps others navigate their own journeys through coaching and holistic practices.
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Podcast Transcript:
Dawn Grant (01:14)
Hello folks, welcome to another episode of the Mind Mastered Secrets of Excellence. This is Dawn Grant. I appreciate you following and your insights and your comments related to the different interviews and the folks that I have on here. I love interviewing folks that have had great success in their life in one form or fashion. There are obviously lots of different ways that people can be successful, but especially tuning into
secrets of their excellence because there's always skills and tidbits that we can learn from people who have faced challenges and have learned ways to overcome them and you know the greater the success the more the challenges so I have Dylan Moskovich with me today and I'm very excited because you have dabbled in and dabble currently dabble ing
and ⁓ several really fascinating things, but also ⁓ have been a figure skater and medalist and Olympian and all sorts of cool things. So Dylan, thank you for being here with me.
Dylan Moscovitch (02:24)
Thank you for having me, Don. It's a real pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation and diving into the ins and outs of mastering the mind. It's a topic that has fascinated me.
Dawn Grant (02:38)
Nice, nice. Give us or give the audience some highlights. What are some success highlights from your life?
Dylan Moscovitch (02:48)
Hmm. Well, as you alluded to, success can look very different in many different ways. I would say some of the more obvious low hanging fruit ones ⁓ came from my figure skating career. was Canadian champion, multiple international medalist, Olympic silver medalist in 2014. ⁓
Yeah, I mean those those are kind of my main my main figure skating in a nutshell highlights of some of my successes I went on to do some acting some broadcasting I had a small role in a Netflix series a small role in an Amazon Prime series very small, but I'll name them And then I did some broadcasting for figure skating. I did commentary for the World Championships I co-hosted a
Dawn Grant (03:31)
Mm-hmm.
Dylan Moscovitch (03:41)
a show for the CBC sports and also hosted the 2022 Olympics through it. ⁓ yeah, did quite a bit of work in that world as well as coaching figure skating and hockey. ⁓ And then I moved on to what is now my life, which is being of service to people in their evolution and their healing and their growth and their thriving.
And so I've completely shifted and taken a lot of the tools from my life as an athlete and a martial artist as well and brought it into the inward journey and have really found a lot of internal success, a lot of ⁓ satisfaction and yeah, like self-generated validation through.
really looking at all the aspects that are hard to look at. And I would say sitting with my truth and looking in the mirror has been one of the most challenging and one of the most rewarding journeys that I've been on in my life.
Dawn Grant (04:44)
Yeah.
For sure, that's definitely understandable and highly relatable. ⁓ Let's go back, I like to follow a little bit of a timeline and really get to know you. Where did you grow up?
Dylan Moscovitch (05:02)
Yeah, I was born and raised in Toronto in Canada. I grew up in kind of the west downtown area called Parkdale and moved around the city and then was skating. kind of hopped around different places within Ontario, but Toronto was always my base, my home.
Dawn Grant (05:22)
What got you into the skating?
Dylan Moscovitch (05:24)
Well, when I was 13 months old, my parents took me skating. Well, they went skating. My mom's from South Africa originally. And so my dad took her skating on an outdoor rink. was 13 months old. I wasn't allowed on the ice unless I had skates on, even if they were carrying me. So they had to rent those like Bob skates, the double bladers. And ⁓ they put them on me. I just started walking and they put me down and I started walking around the ice.
fell in love and so eventually after a couple years of me crying because I was cold and then them taking me inside and me crying because I wanted to go back out there, someone at the outdoor rink shared that there was ⁓ an indoor community center nearby. And I went and I was about almost three and ⁓ a coach came over and said, he's pretty good. Can I give him a lesson? And the rest is history.
Dawn Grant (06:02)
hahaha
That was really young! First of all, do you remember those? Do you have memories specifically of those times?
Dylan Moscovitch (06:27)
I do have some memories. I have some memories of skating around the side rank on the public session before entering into the Learn to Skate program, the CanSkate program, and eventually the Figure Skating program. I played hockey, I played baseball, I played soccer. I was very involved in other sports, but there was something about figure skating that I just felt this deep resonance with and this internal calling.
Dawn Grant (06:55)
That's really fascinating, ⁓ especially at such a young age and that you remember it too. I have horrible memories from even small things later in life, but most of my childhood, I probably have like three memories. I'm not even joking. It's very interesting to me because I like my husband, his memory is incredible. He can remember so many different things. but 13, 13,
months old, I was going to say 13 years, 13 months old is what you said, right? Months, not years. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And that you recognize that there was some kind of pull for you there is pretty fascinating to me also. To me that sounds more spiritual, more kind of like a life purpose, something going on there unconsciously that was grabbing you. What's your thoughts on that?
Dylan Moscovitch (07:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, I completely agree. mean, I don't think I would have had the language for it during my career or that kind of language. Just felt like a yeah, calling a purpose. My mom said when I was five, she asked me if I wanted to go to the Olympics. I said, no, I want to win the Olympics. Like, yeah, I don't know. It is very interesting. It is very interesting. I you know, in hindsight, I think figure skating has such a beautiful.
Dawn Grant (08:06)
No, F5, interesting.
Dylan Moscovitch (08:19)
balance of artistry and sport, of analysis and technicality and freedom and expression. both those things are ⁓ very pronounced in my way. so whether it's skating brought them out or skating was the place that they had a place to go, I'm not really sure if it's the chicken or the egg, but there was something that ⁓ felt true in there in a deep way beyond my understanding.
Dawn Grant (08:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Love that. So you did start getting instruction at that young age. And I imagine what that just kept continuing. Like, did you ever take a break or this just was like a snowball? Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (08:52)
Yeah.
It's
a snowball, 30 years straight.
Dawn Grant (09:01)
Wow, wow, ⁓ so you get in the instruction. At what point do decide that you're gonna do more like the pairing, the pair skating?
Dylan Moscovitch (09:12)
Yeah, I I I like dabbled in all of it when I was young. It's pretty normal, but I was dead set on being a single skater. And then I was about 18 and my sister and I were training with at a school that had a lot of pairs and ⁓ she's nine years younger than me and she was eight at the time, nine at the time. And we thought it'd be really funny to like skate around the ice together.
Dawn Grant (09:20)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (09:39)
because I was 18 years old and she was so young. And our coach was like, hmm, that looks pretty good, do it again. And we're like, ⁓ okay. And then he was like, okay, you start tomorrow. We're like, And my sister and I started skating together and we skated together for six years.
Dawn Grant (09:42)
Yeah.
my gosh, okay, all right. Were you whipping her up in the air and everything?
Dylan Moscovitch (09:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Dawn Grant (10:04)
This, we literally just were on a cruise and the show, well several of the shows, but it was more of the acrobatics, right? And a man lifting a lady in the air, you know, with one foot and putting her leg out and so many similarities to the pair skating, right? And I am always in awe of that. First of all, the man, well they're both so strong. Both of their strength, it's very obvious on the man, the man's strength, because his muscles are bulging everywhere.
I had said to my husband, they have to be similar strength because she might be in a one arm handstand or something, Interesting, it's probably goofy, but to me, I find it interesting how different the bodies look to be in prime condition. Like his muscles are bulging and she looks ⁓ fit, but not like bulging, right? ⁓ But so fascinated.
For me as a mental trainer, especially working with athletes and other sports, I've never worked with skaters, ⁓ looking at a lot of times I'm addressing fear-based thinking. And that can be worry, doubt, insecurity, second guessing, regret, worry, like all of these different things have fear-based thinking. So I help them to eliminate that and then to have a more positive mindset, but not fluffy. Like it needs to be
You have to believe it, right? So one of the things that comes to my mind when I see skaters or these more acrobatic people, acrobats, not more acrobatic.
is the level of fear, if there was any fear, that would not be, whatever they're doing would not be successful. To me, it's one of the ultimate sports where you have to be present and ⁓ trust and have faith and not only in general, but in your partner. And there's so many layers of that that I think it's pretty incredible. So tell me.
Tell me about that with you and the pair skating. How do you have that level of faith and trust and lack of fear?
Dylan Moscovitch (12:20)
Hmm. There's many, there are many layers to that question. I mean, on one hand, one thing that's super interesting about figure skating is we train, you know, 90 % of our year is training. have like six major competitions a year. So everything's in the preparation and then you're out on the ice and you know, the short programs, like two and a half minutes, a little bit more than two and a half minutes. The free programs around four minutes. And within that time,
you know, all of your years work and if it's the Olympics, the last four years, potentially your whole life's work come down to these little finite moments where you can catch an edge or get stuck in a hole or ⁓ lose your focus for a moment. ⁓ within that, we also are being graded on our ability to not look like we're thinking about that because we're performing and we're in character and
Dawn Grant (13:15)
Yes.
Dylan Moscovitch (13:18)
creating a moment, creating a feeling for the audience and the judges. And so there's this really interesting aspect about the mind within figure skating where, you know, the level of rehearsal and preparation is so essential. And also it is very physically demanding. The heart rate gets up into, you know, sometimes into the 190s during the free program. And so there's a lot going on and it can feel like
Dawn Grant (13:40)
Right.
Dylan Moscovitch (13:45)
chaos with the burning legs and all the different things and being able to maintain a level of calm and focus on the minutiae, the finite details, and at the same time being able to let it all go to just enjoy the performance. I think that for me, preparation and...
Dawn Grant (13:58)
right.
Dylan Moscovitch (14:11)
fitness was a huge aspect of my mental strength and also training my mind like a muscle, training my brain like a muscle. I worked a lot ⁓ in martial arts. had a ⁓ sports psychologist I worked with that we did biofeedback. We did a lot of brain training, which helped a lot. And I had a very rigorous preparation ⁓ routine leading up to competition and daily as well.
Dawn Grant (14:22)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (14:39)
that really helped and you know to kind of segue that into the pair side of things. It's really interesting you know looking back on it being married and working with my wife and we hold a certain level of responsibility in our work together. There's a lot of there are a lot of similarities and there are a lot of reflections I'm getting on what that part of my life brought me and
There is this, like the we is more important than the I. And you know, our coaches would say, if one of you falls on a jump, psychologically, both of you have fallen on a jump, right? Like there's this unifying force that's super important. And sometimes we do well with it and sometimes we don't. And I've gone through phases of my career where I feel like,
Dawn Grant (15:16)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (15:29)
the way I showed up as a partner was my strength. And there are other partnerships where I really struggled with patience and I really struggled with trust because I didn't feel, I was so focused on results and I was so focused on my fear of those results not coming into play because of the pressure I put on myself and not feeling like the standards I had set for my partner were being met and therefore.
starting a routine and competition, I would be like, you know, which version of this partner is going to show up today? How will I navigate this? ⁓ So it's really fascinating. I mean, kind of equivalent to like a tennis player hitting a ball, but like each game they have a different racket, you know, and the ball or the court changes or whatever it might be. That's kind of what my experience felt like toward the end of my career.
Dawn Grant (16:05)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, so powerful what you're saying there. A lot of people may or may not know this, some may. That flow state, that zone state, the term zone or flow is an umbrella term used for this peak performance state of athletes. Everything disappears around them.
time seems to fly by. It doesn't feel like it's them. It's almost like it's outside, like something's working through them or ⁓ it's easy. There's no analytical conscious thinking about it. There are all of these elements that occur. And so that's another thing that I trained folks in and is being in the flow or the zone state. But what I've learned through all that is it's a peak performance state period. That's like
end of sentence that doesn't only apply to athletes and that's one of the things that you were talking about. Being in that peak performance state applies to everything whether it's martial arts, an actual sport, relationships, life, work, everything.
that practice, because in the sport that you were involved in, it was absolutely imperative that you stayed in the flow state. Like you said, if your mind wandered for a moment. The other example of that, ⁓ I was watching an ⁓ interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and this was years ago, but he had been involved in an accident, you know, after, you know,
running around the NASCAR, get whatever, 200 miles an hour, whatever they do. And he totally took, in the interview he said, it was my fault, it was 100 % my fault that that accident happened. I let my mind wander for one second and I was like, yes, I love that because so many athletes I work with, it's not as obvious. Like you know as a skater and especially,
in your pair skating, if your mind wanders for even a half a second, you're done. You're dropping her or something's going on. There will be an immediate consequence to that. In NASCAR, there was an immediate consequence to that as well, but in other sports, it's not as obvious. So ⁓ I think it's really interesting when I have an athlete where it's that obvious, right? And you've lived that.
and you've had to live it. So you had to learn how to be in the flow and the zone state, peak performance as a human, which then is applicable to all these other things in your life as well. ⁓ you know, and I could tell by your energy and your presence how that is with you now, you've internalized it. But have you seen, can you give me examples of times where your mind did wander?
Dylan Moscovitch (19:18)
Hmm.
Dawn Grant (19:35)
or that your challenge is because you were still thinking about an argument or you were thinking about dinner or you were thinking about that other, your partner's ⁓ mood or something, did it take you out of the flow and then there was an immediate consequence.
Dylan Moscovitch (19:51)
Yeah, I, what I found really fascinating to kind of touch on the flow state is at least from my mind. ⁓ I have a very fast hyper analytical mind. And when pressure would arrive, it would almost like test me and start to play games. And as I got further into my career and, you know, acquired more experience and more intimacy with
with my own mind and how to navigate it. What I realized is like my flow state very rarely was purely flow and stayed there. What I had to do was a constant tending. was like those bumpers in the gutters of bowling. was like just gently moving myself back into that center line. And when something would arrive, I had either the choice to indulge in the temptation
of exploring that thought or to just acknowledge it as white noise in the background. so, you know, I would say more those moments that pulled me out were when I indulged and by indulging, it's either exploring that thought or trying to fight against that thought. Right. It's like giving giving it power, giving it energy instead of being like, no gracias. I'm busy right now. You know.
Dawn Grant (20:48)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (21:17)
⁓
And ⁓ so I find that really interesting because it's super prevalent in life. know, in the midst of a trigger or an argument, there's these moments where one can choose to remember the way through. Like, my intentional way of being is I'm being offered an opportunity to practice it here.
Dawn Grant (21:26)
Mm-hmm.
Dylan Moscovitch (21:46)
or I can indulge in the story that wants to pull me back into that pattern, back into that way of being a victim or whatever is present. ⁓ And when I'm aware of that, it feels exactly like skating. It's that muscle is like, yeah, hello old friend.
Dawn Grant (21:46)
Right.
Right.
Nice.
Nice, I like that. You're reminding me, and this was a while ago, I've been helping people with mental mindset for like 30 something years. it was a while ago that Buddhist monks, for a long time, nobody was ever able to interview them. They were doing their thing. It was assumed as an outsider, they're meditating 10 hours a day and hands off.
It's probably eight or ten years ago now, and maybe longer. They finally let some folks in to interview them and do like EKGs and assessments of their mind and their brain, especially when they're meditating. And I'll never forget it because this one particular monk that they were interviewing, he kind of broke the misconception that they're silencing their mind totally. Like it was...
believed that they could quiet their mind 100%. That's the peak level of great meditation is you mastered eight hours of quiet mind. so in the interview he said, no, I have thoughts. We have this conscious mind, we have thoughts. That's what it's meant to do. It's meant to analyze and dissect and whatever. But he said,
Dylan Moscovitch (23:12)
You
Dawn Grant (23:28)
I imagine them like clouds and when I'm meditating things come in and I imagine them like clouds and I will either emotionally attach to it or not. And even that's okay, right? I might attach for a moment or not, but he's like, and then I just let it pass. And he gave an example. He said, looking out the window, if he sees a beautiful woman and a child, his mind can definitely have the thought.
of what would my life had been like, you know, if I hadn't become a monk and I could have had a wife and I could have had a child and he was like, so I just allow my mind to go there if I choose and he said, I don't get sad, I don't become sad or angry or frustrated or resentful, like that's the involvement you're talking about, right? It's that emotional like attaching to it and then allowing it to affect you versus just letting it
Dylan Moscovitch (24:22)
Mm-hmm.
Dawn Grant (24:27)
experience it as a passing cloud.
Dylan Moscovitch (24:30)
Yeah, I mean, the Buddhists say that the root of all suffering is attachment. No, so like that gripping on to wanting things to be a different way than they are that wrestling and that fluidity. And I think there's something interesting there because there is the flip side of of complete unattachment, which is kind of like a bypassing. No, there's that middle line of recognizing what is important and worth our effort and worth our care.
Dawn Grant (24:35)
Yes.
Dylan Moscovitch (24:58)
and at the same time not getting swept up and taken, like keeping those roots anchored into the ground. And I think that's, it's a very powerful lifelong practice.
Dawn Grant (25:09)
for sure, for sure. But somebody like you thrown into that skating had some really good practice up front. Yeah, so. ⁓
What are your thoughts around fear? Again, using the skating as your practice field for this, but also recognizing how this is a challenge for all humans in life. Did you notice that if you were afraid, I'm afraid I'm gonna drop her, I'm afraid we're gonna mess this up in competition because we screwed it up a few times in practice, like something like that. Did you notice that if fear was
you weren't as good.
Dylan Moscovitch (25:53)
Yeah, it causes tension. It causes tension. It causes a lack of sensitivity and awareness and clarity. And what I've noticed is that fear, we end up having to tend to the fear and we have less capacity to tend to what's happening. And so the bandwidth shifts and then the body gets into this, like it wants to get into this fight or flight and clenching can start to happen. And for me,
Dawn Grant (25:55)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (26:23)
my relationship with fear was very much like the clouds. You know, I would see it, I would feel it. There were always moments before I stepped out on the ice for competition, like, why am I doing this to myself? You know, and then I would choose consciously when I got out there to say to myself, I live for this. You know, I live, I live for embracing my fear and overcoming it because I'm learning myself. I'm remembering the like root of who I am.
Dawn Grant (26:27)
Yes.
Mmm, nice one.
Dylan Moscovitch (26:53)
when I meet my fear and break through it. And so I think fear, for me, fear, like there's a lot of fear involved in sports, right? There's the fear of our safety. There's a fear of failure. There's the fear methodology that a lot of coaches use, which can be effective, but it has a lot of pollution. It's got a lot of collateral, right? And so when we work with beer as our gasoline, we're going to cause a lot of pollution.
Dawn Grant (27:10)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dylan Moscovitch (27:21)
I feel like fear is a part of us that's just, it's just care. It's just love trying to keep us safe. It's a survival mechanism that's a hundred percent necessary. I think there can be more, there can be more guidance in our world on how to relate to fear and navigate it. There's a lot of fear of fear itself. And so when fear arrives, there's this like resistance and this clenching as opposed to like, hello, fear. Welcome to the conversation.
Dawn Grant (27:42)
Mm.
Dylan Moscovitch (27:50)
I know you're here to try and keep me safe from embarrassing myself or whatever it is. I've got this, thank you. I appreciate your effort. This way of dialoguing with different parts of the self has helped me.
Dawn Grant (28:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, and you're touching on something I've observed because I work mostly with men as athletes and a lot of them say, I don't have, I'm not afraid. I don't have fear. And I'm like, wait, I'm afraid I'm going to miss? That's fear. I'm afraid that this miss will affect the rest of my performance. ⁓ I'm afraid that I won't be able to win at this tournament because I'd never win at this particular competition or whatever.
That's all fear and so I've observed what you're saying. There's some people that don't even want to acknowledge it. They don't even want to label it or have a conversation about it or with it. But once I break it down into a sentence, I am afraid of, it's like, a little light bulb goes off and it's okay. Let's look at it because fear is a separator, right?
Dylan Moscovitch (28:47)
Mm-hmm.
Dawn Grant (28:58)
It causes the fear response, the fight or flight response, which is definitely all the wrong muscles and all the wrong mechanisms. They're meant to help you to either fight or flee, not do your performance of whatever it is that you're looking to do really well at. And ⁓ that's another thing that I've really studied and taken a look at and have come to understand because it is so prevalent.
Fear is behind doubt, it's behind worry, it's behind regret, it's behind ⁓ second guessing, it's behind all of these emotions that keep us from being our best selves, that put us into high blood pressure and sleep problems and anxiety issues and depression and whatever else. Our peak, in my opinion,
my peak human performance self is when I'm tapped into my higher self. And I know you touched on that a little bit too in a different way, but you said, you know, I live for this. This is who I am. Like this, to me, just like ego separates, the fear pulls us out from who we really are. And we're loved based beings, know, that we can experience peace and we can experience acceptance and
joy and gratitude and all these great love based type thoughts and feelings and when we function from that place that's the same as the flow state and the zone state. So again for me thinking it's super cool that you've spent you know what was it 20 or 30 years or something living connected
through experiences, especially skating, but connected to your higher self and knowing how to tap in and plug into that.
Did you ever feel like it wasn't you? Like, I know there's muscle memory and obviously that's what practice and training is meant to do. But did it ever feel like an out of body experience kind of?
Dylan Moscovitch (31:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. There are definitely moments where I was a passenger. It was a full, what I would call a spiritual experience, like ⁓ becoming a vessel or some form of energy expressing itself through me. And those are few and very special moments where, you know, the autopilot fully turned on and I...
Dawn Grant (31:27)
Yeah.
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (31:38)
You know, like even remembering all of it is hard. It's like, it's just, it's an experience that lives within like my somatic being, not just like my conscious cerebral being. There's this aspect of, I live that and it lives in my whole body. It's not just something I can remember as pictures or videos, you know, in my mind. Very different energy. you know, to touch on something you were sharing about with fear, I feel like,
Dawn Grant (31:57)
Yeah, energy. Yeah. Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (32:08)
There's an aspect of liberation that happens when we acknowledge our fear. It's like vulnerability, authenticity, right? The most pure expression of who we are, our highest being, our higher being, our soul, however you want to call it. When we can meet our fear of expressing that authenticity, that vulnerability, then we get to know our courage, right? We can't know our courage without our fear.
Dawn Grant (32:15)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (32:37)
Fear is like a beautiful teacher in our lives because it reflects to us not only what are we scared of, but it also reflects to us how we are in relationship with it. And so to reach these moments of, yeah, flow state, I feel there's something about giving ourselves permission to completely let go, to liberate ourselves of that fear. It's...
Dawn Grant (32:58)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (33:02)
You some people I've heard some people say like well, what do you mean? You don't care about the result. It's like it's not that you don't care It's that you let it go. There's this I'm not in control and That is really freeing when you when one can like really let go and be like I'm not in control This is amazing. I can just live this and what a gift to take, you know six months of arduous work and effort and discipline and devotion
Dawn Grant (33:11)
S
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (33:31)
and just live those moments, those four minute moments of purity, ⁓ the results will come how they're meant to. But that kind of experience is something that I think is the most imprinted in my memory of my skating life.
Dawn Grant (33:48)
What a great memory. The way that shows up with my clients is teaching them to care without caring. It's this gray area. We're also used to going black and white, right? You either care or you don't care, you know, but there's this gray area and we don't know how to live in the gray. And, you know, we like to either, we either agree with it or we disagree. I like it or I don't like it. It's good or it's bad, you know, and it's like, how can I learn to be more neutral?
Dylan Moscovitch (33:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dawn Grant (34:18)
Another thing that you touched on that made me think of ⁓ some of my clients is, gosh, there it just went. ⁓ let's see if it comes back. ⁓
sports are competing in particular is my greatest strengths and my greatest weaknesses under a microscope. Like they show up when something really matters. So for me, working with athletes versus other clients, because I have all different other kinds of clients too, but working with an athlete, they're committed and they're devoted to
you know, becoming better at that thing, whatever it is. And more so than other clients, like I said, I've worked with weight loss and wellness and people with fear of flying and fear of heights, you know, all that because of hypnosis, sleep issues, confidence issues. But the athletes, like they're on a mission, right? They're like, they've got this vision of where they want to go. And I tell them,
Dylan Moscovitch (35:14)
Mm-hmm.
Dawn Grant (35:21)
Because a lot of times there are other mental trainers out there, sports psychologists that will tell them, if you miss, just move on. Just move, forget about it buddy, and they kind of pat him on the back and don't dwell on it, don't think about it, emotionally attach to it, right? It makes sense on the surface. But everything you want down that road, you're gonna get there more efficiently and sooner if you.
take a look and pause and look at what your fears are. What's getting stirred up when you miss or when you have the challenge? Because it is different for everybody. Some people are worriers, right? And some are regretters and some are over-thinkers and over-analytical or some doubt and some, you know, there's all these different things. But I tell them,
If you can imagine this big manly God, know, and he's putting his hands out, he's like, everything you want down there, you have to look at this first. And I'm showing it to you with a neon flashing sign. Like, don't ignore it. Don't pretend it didn't happen. Don't just have a temper tantrum about it.
Dylan Moscovitch (36:22)
Mm-hmm.
And it
and in fact, this is your fuel to get there right this is this is your material for Alchemization, right? This is this is eventually when you can make sense of it going to be the thing that Burns the engine so the car can go down the road ⁓ It's I I Personally, I love to look at this through this lens of the student mind. I I want to understand and
Dawn Grant (36:32)
Yes!
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (36:56)
And the deeper I go into it, the more I see that life is speaking to us always. In metaphor and symbolism, there is always something coming through. It's not whether or not it's there, it's whether or not we're paying attention. Or I like to say giving attention. I don't want to say we're paying attention, we're offering our attention. ⁓ And that presence is the same presence required for competition, the same presence required for training.
Dawn Grant (37:15)
Right.
Dylan Moscovitch (37:25)
that like fine-tuned connection to what is here and what is now and what am I feeling in my body? What am I feeling in my mind and my heart? And that, you know, like the word discipline comes from the word disciple, which means one who learns. It's like a commitment to the student mind. And so, yeah, we can just say, it go. And there's definitely value in that. And there's also what's at the root of that?
Dawn Grant (37:43)
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (37:55)
Right? Like if I really want to understand my mechanisms, what's at the root of that? As I'm going into this jump and I get a little tense and try a little too hard too early, what's at the root of it? How, you know, like a tree can only grow as tall as its roots are deep. Actually, its roots are even deeper. So if we're to understand how to elevate ourselves, need to, we need to tend to what happens beneath the surface first.
Dawn Grant (38:12)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (38:20)
And that's kind of my approach, or at least my philosophy on these things, the holistic view of cleaning all of this up and getting intimate with who we are so that we can drive this vehicle with more awareness of how it works.
Dawn Grant (38:37)
Right, nice. Well, so let's go back again a little bit. ⁓ you know, you're, you've got a coach, you're full speed ahead with the figure skating. ⁓ What happens? Why do you decide to stop doing that?
Dylan Moscovitch (38:54)
Well, that was about three decades later. a lot, a lot happened. I very, I'm very fortunate that my skating career lasted into my thirties. I retired at 33. I stuck around for one more Olympics. I skated with a different partner. She had moved from Russia to skate with me. And then at the end of my career, like right before that, that second Olympics, three weeks before nationals, 200 pound mirror fell on my face.
Dawn Grant (38:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (39:23)
in a Pilate studio. Yeah. Like a door. Like the storage room door, this big metal door with a mirror on it. And I was about to start meditating and I received a phone call at the time and I answered it with headphones and this woman came to put something in the storage room and the door fell off its hinge and fell on to me and
Dawn Grant (39:26)
Was it, was it on the ceiling?
Wow.
Dylan Moscovitch (39:51)
The only reason I survived was because I wasn't meditating yet. I heard something and I went like this and my hand broke enough of the fall that it didn't kill me. But I was unconscious and there was like shards of glass all over my body, my neck, my face. And yeah, and so it was super intense and I was concussed. We competed at Nationals three weeks later on like
Dawn Grant (40:02)
Holy...
my gosh.
Dylan Moscovitch (40:18)
three days of training, was still concussed and stitches in my hand, and we missed the Olympic team by a spot. And that was it. And I knew that that was going to be it. And I felt very bitter. And I ran from the sport. I started doing some coaching, but every time I'd go in the rink, I would have PTSD. It was really, really intense for quite a while. ⁓
Dawn Grant (40:27)
Wow.
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (40:48)
Yeah, I'm very grateful in many ways. mean, you know, the metaphor of a mirror landing on my face. How many, how many messages did life send me before I, you know, like paid attention? ⁓ Crazy. But it gave me, it gave me the impetus to find something else in my life. And I feel like I'm living, I'm living my mission. I'm living my purpose. And I don't know how long it would have taken me to break free of skating.
Dawn Grant (40:58)
Right? Wow. Yeah. Slooky.
Dylan Moscovitch (41:17)
Not that there's anything wrong with skating, it it literally shattered my identity and set me on this path of starting to look inward gradually at first and then all in.
Dawn Grant (41:17)
Yeah.
That's a crazy transition, but ⁓ I agree with you and it did force your hand, didn't it? So tell me then what starts unfolding for you at that point in your life. Because I know you have several ventures and things that you're doing. So what did you start doing first?
Dylan Moscovitch (41:48)
Yeah, acting, screenwriting, broadcasting, I was still very much in the mentality of needing to be seen and celebrated somehow. ⁓
Acting ended up being like the first stage of my healing journey, accessing all my emotions and honoring them and becoming more vulnerable. then, yeah, eventually I had an experience with a psychedelic medicine that like shattered me open and really, really took me into the depth of my existential crisis after retiring.
And that's when a mentor came into my life. I started studying some Buddhism and yoga and felt this deep calling to go down to the jungle and meet these indigenous ways of healing and remembering ourselves. And so I eventually did that and ⁓ felt I started feeling this calling to be of service to helping other athletes with their transition. The message I got at first was
all that will come but you first. And so I embarked on my own healing journey quite profoundly. And then within a year, I left my life in Toronto and moved down to Costa Rica. I met my wife a few months later and this path of study and healing and ⁓ exploration just kind of opened full blast. I've been water skiing behind it ever since, like blindfolded, you know. Just, here we go.
Dawn Grant (43:24)
Nice! ⁓
Dylan Moscovitch (43:28)
⁓ And so yeah, that's been a really fascinating dance for me of the athlete mind and all that that has brought me and then these ancient ways of returning home to the self, of seeing the world as alive and receiving, becoming a student, really opening up the ear and eyes to listen and see and receive.
And now I blend those two together, helping, you know, whether it's athletes with their mindset, I've worked with some professional pianists, but really bringing in this way of this philosophy of like, you can give of yourself, you don't have to give away yourself to a dream, to a journey, and it can be like a very spiritual and self-fulfilling path.
Dawn Grant (43:58)
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (44:24)
if we can approach it with this way of my relationship with myself comes first. And that place of wholeness is the thing that will be the fountain that drives the continued growth of an evolution of success and excellence and, you know, not needing it to be that like, I'm only worthy once I achieve this. And the results are my definition as a human, but flipping it on its head and
Dawn Grant (44:47)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (44:53)
and having it be this beautiful path of self-discovery through this passion.
Dawn Grant (44:58)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That is one of the challenges I definitely see with athlete clients is just the way they define themselves by how good or so-called bad they've done with their competition that day. And it really can haunt them and affect their day-to-day life. ⁓ before I wrote my first book, I was
i thought i'm gonna read you know this other person's book he's working with golfers also is a sports psychologist and you know he's one of them top-known guys and i'm i'm scared see what he has to write in so ⁓ i didn't get past the first chapter because i was like i can't believe he's saying that's that he was basically saying by the way you know you work your ass off to get on the pj to our and
and your next goal is to win on tour, I'm just gonna let you know once you win, you're gonna be depressed afterwards and it's gonna be, ⁓ that's just part of it, it's just part of it. It's not gonna fulfill you the way that you thought it would and all that. And I was like, why is he, it's not okay. No, it doesn't have to be part of it, but it's part of it if that's your only goal and your whole life revolves around that one thing instead of enjoying the journey.
You know, that's the journey versus the destination. It's my focus only on the destination. I'm not enjoying the journey, but if you come back and you enjoy and evolve and see how sports reflects your strengths and weaknesses in your life and how you can keep becoming a healthier and stronger and more empowered person, that happens to just show up in your scores.
just happens to show up then as an outcome in your score, but it shows up in outcomes everywhere in life. I couldn't finish reading that book because I thought, no, that's not at all what I wanna help people. It can happen, but only if you don't understand your mind and how to enjoy that process and not live and breathe just the sport. And as you pointed out, the recognition and the spotlight.
and defining yourself by that, right? There's more to it. Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (47:17)
And I did that. And
I definitely crashed. And it was super painful. And really, really, you know, the depth of it was like the darkest night of the soul. And you're right, it doesn't have to be that way. We can remind ⁓ each other that, you know, the hype, the promised land of arriving at success, it's a mirage.
Dawn Grant (47:31)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (47:46)
It's beautiful, but if we understand it for what it is, and like you said, the journey, not the destination, if we can see that the path of growing in a sport or a pursuit like ballet or music or anything that requires our full devotion, if we can see that as the thing, the process-based goals and the like, how am I evolving? How am I learning?
Dawn Grant (48:09)
Yeah.
Dylan Moscovitch (48:15)
growing. No matter what, you're going to move into the next phase of your life and going to keep flourishing. And it's not that that's not accessible if you go about it the other way. But there will be some there will be some painful moments of like pulling out some weeds and some rotten roots and some psychological patterns and beliefs that are really can be toxic. And I live that I live that and it's very strong, very strong.
Dawn Grant (48:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, I think it would be odd for you not to have lived it. You're such, at such a young age. You everything's kind of got its light and its shadow side, right? I mean, you were at such a young age that performance, how well you did was, you know, whether you got praise or, you know, let's go back at it and work harder because it's not good enough, right? And that was your message from such a young age.
You know, there's just pros and cons to that, right? ⁓
Dylan Moscovitch (49:14)
For sure, for sure. It's like life under
a ⁓ magnifying glass, right? It's all condensed into small moments. And I think that's one reason athletes mature in certain ways, mature very quickly is because they experience like the magnitude of life in a moment. You know, like it feels like life or death.
Dawn Grant (49:22)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's all it's just it's really interesting. I one of my employees that works for me now because I own a shotgun club. She's, ⁓ you know, one of the employees there but she had a good I don't know maybe 10 or 12 years where she was being coached and as a skater and rush the Russian coaches, you know, and she she's talked to me about how like
Absolutely nothing was good enough except for perfect in her world in her own her experience with that and it just I can see it in her now, you know the the fear of Letting somebody down not being good enough not having done the right thing, you know in other areas She's not skating now, but it just became a part of her personality that you know of all these different things she's in her late 20s now
But, you know, wanting to get the approval, wanting to ⁓ make sure that she goes above and beyond and can therefore then be recognized for what she's done. I she has great intentions and I love her to death, but I could see how that's played into the person that she's become or magnified those aspects. And so, you know, seeing them now more in her life.
because she hasn't really necessarily addressed them or done some soul searching around them. ⁓
Dylan Moscovitch (51:05)
Yeah,
and in my experience, they keep speaking to us in different ways. I mean, the mirror was like, okay, like, he's not getting the point. You know, we're gonna turn up the volume a little bit, like the mind and the body will speak louder and louder and in different ways to try and get our attention to start, yeah, like listening.
Dawn Grant (51:26)
Yeah, yeah. The one I think that's most obvious to people is when you get sick, right? And you can't do, you're working too much, doing too much, not taking good care of yourself. And then you're down and out for a week or two weeks or something. And it's like forced rest. Yeah. So tell me some of these businesses or organizations and such that you've created.
Dylan Moscovitch (51:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, so ⁓ my wife and I have an organization called Tierra Viviente, which is Earth Living. And it's a collective ⁓ for the evolution ⁓ of the human being, of the soul, of the mind, of the heart ⁓ in this collective way. And so we run different retreats. We work with an Indigenous family in Peru and the Amazon. We bring groups there. We bring them out as well.
⁓ We do some online courses and we're doing our first relationship retreat next week for couples called Wings of Love. ⁓ Yeah, that's gonna happen here in Costa Rica. Yeah, we're really excited about that one. ⁓ I have a men's work collective that I co-founded with a dear brother of mine called Mankind Collective. The name might be changing.
Dawn Grant (52:38)
love that.
Dylan Moscovitch (52:53)
So I'll say that. ⁓ But yeah, that's another body of work I'm super passionate about. This idea of creating safe spaces for men to really talk about their feelings and truth and normalize it and explore what does it mean to be, know, the masculinity is thrown around a lot today, the toxic masculinity, balanced masculinity, divine masculine, what do all these things mean to each of us?
Dawn Grant (52:56)
Yeah.
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (53:22)
how do we explore how to show up in the world ⁓ in a grounded and focused way and bring about harmony both internally and externally. So that's another project. And the liminal way is kind of my own personal work. And it's a methodology that I've created or received, depending on how you want to look at it. ⁓ That helps. ⁓ It was inspired by athlete.
Dawn Grant (53:36)
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (53:52)
minds and transition as the liminal space, that space between that threshold of transformation. And so the idea behind it is taking all of the mindset tools of an Olympic athlete or a high level athlete and applying them to being able to be present within these moments of massive transformation where it feels like
everything's crumbling and identity is dissolving, loved one is dying and our reality is shifting. And as opposed to just surviving it, there are so many ways that we can work with it to collaborate and plant seeds for the future because it is like ripe soil is being offered to us, you know, to create a new way forward. And so that that mentality is kind of how I approach coaching.
Dawn Grant (54:26)
Mm-hmm, nice.
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (54:49)
for athletes, for non athletes and just approaching the mindset work is through this idea that we are always able to be in this transformative state if we allow ourselves into a deep state of reflection. And I work with that ⁓ surrounding plant medicine work as well, ⁓ know, as preparation and integration, ⁓ that is a huge part of my path and study. ⁓
Dawn Grant (55:05)
Beautiful.
Dylan Moscovitch (55:16)
but it is not exclusive to that. also work outside of that and bring it into speeches. I have a Ted talk coming up next month on that topic and pending podcasts and just exploring ways that my creativity wants to move through me.
Dawn Grant (55:29)
Nice.
Dylan Moscovitch (55:36)
continually grow and then offer it back to the world.
Dawn Grant (55:39)
Nice, nice. Those are all really fascinating things that you're doing and what great ways to contribute to. And ⁓ this has been a really fascinating conversation. I knew it would be because of the my fascination with the mind and how you had to be on point for so much of what you were doing for so long in your life. ⁓ I do want to tell listeners that they can get some free goodies. ⁓
Dylan Moscovitch (55:50)
Thank you, likewise.
Dawn Grant (56:08)
any of my three businesses if they go to dongrant.com forward slash free. I do have online courses and ⁓ do speaking engagements and such as well. And definitely follow me on social media. I provide lots of free tips and information whether it's Don Grant ⁓ or Amelia Shotgun Sports or Mind Mastered. And ⁓ Dylan, please share your contact info so people can reach out to you.
Dylan Moscovitch (56:37)
Yeah, contact dot liminal way at gmail.com is a good way to reach me through email. You can find me on Instagram, Dylan dot Moskovich. and yeah, also we live and work at a beautiful retreat center here in Costa Rica called Yakumama. you can find it at www.yakumama.love. have many different retreats and residency, ⁓ opportunities happening here for people who want to come and live on the land.
It's very, very, very magical and beautiful. So that's another thing I'd love to bring forth. And also, I just want to say thank you to you, for your commitment to this work for so many years, helping athletes and helping individuals, know, be in charge of their mind, be in charge of their lives through that and your continued devotion to this path. really appreciate it.
uplift all the work you do and continue to do.
Dawn Grant (57:37)
Thank you very much Dylan and hey if you're ever looking for someone that's a mental trainer hypnotist to come down and be a part of your retreats I'd love to you know come in and do that at any time too so let me know if there's a spot for that and thank you and what a great conversation and I'd say enjoy the winter but you don't really have the winter down there in Costa Rica do you?
Dylan Moscovitch (57:50)
Thank you.
we're entering into the drier summer season. So if you need to escape, you know where to come.
Dawn Grant (58:07)
Okay, all right. ⁓
Nice, nice. Well, perfect. And happy holidays to you guys and happy new year and all that great stuff. Perfect. Thank you.
Dylan Moscovitch (58:17)
Likewise.
