From Panic Attack to Survivor 50 Winner: How Aubry Bracco Learned to Trust Herself Again
Episode Notes
What if the greatest risk isn't failing?
What if it's losing yourself while trying to succeed?
In this episode, Dr. Alison sits down with Survivor 50 winner Aubry Bracco for a conversation about resilience, identity, and what it means to stay grounded in yourself through both success and disappointment.
Aubry shares the deeply personal journey behind her years on Survivor—from experiencing a panic attack on national television and falling just short of winning, to stepping away from the game entirely after realizing she'd become disconnected from herself. Years later, she returned with a different mindset—not to prove herself, but to trust herself. That shift changed everything.
Whether you're facing a setback, navigating a major life transition, or learning to quiet the pressure to achieve, this conversation is a reminder that true confidence isn't found in controlling the outcome—it's found in staying connected to who you are.
You'll learn:
- Why resilience is built by staying present, not chasing perfection
- How setbacks can become invitations to deeper healing
- The difference between adapting and abandoning yourself
- Why taking risks doesn't require certainty—it requires trust
- How to distinguish your own inner wisdom from others' expectations
- What it looks like to pursue success without losing your sense of self
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do isn't guaranteeing the outcome. It's trusting yourself enough to take the next step anyway.
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
i'm watching survivor but i'm in survivor wild i'm in the tv this is really confusing and i had a
full-on panic attack i like blacked out i don't remember it yeah that was a wild experience
because then i was on the bottom of the pecking order on that tribe very quickly i just was like
all right aubrey you have to focus you have to win this next challenge and if you can put one foot
in front of the other now tomorrow could go a different way and that's what Survivor is all about.
So I modified my game so much and it got me close but not far so I modified myself again but I was
so far away from myself that I realized I was untethered and no longer knew which Aubrey I was
listening to. If it doesn't bring you joy it's okay to stop and pause and figure out why that is.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of The Best of You. I am so
thrilled you're here with me. We are more than halfway through the summer, and we are also right in
the heart of the launch for my new book, The Secure Soul. It comes out August 18th.
You've been hearing about it and everything I do. And before we dive in today, I just want to take
a minute to tell you about something I'm so excited about. It's coming up next week.
So many of you. You joined me for the five toxic traits webinar that we had last week.
It was such a powerful gathering. I've heard so much great feedback from you all.
And next Wednesday, July 29th, at seven o'clock PM Eastern, we are continuing that experience this
time with a live round table. It will be with my friends and fellow therapists, Jenna Reemserma and
Tammy Sollenberger. You may recognize their names, Jenna and Tammy. two of the most popular,
most downloaded guests we've ever had. They're amazing women with amazing stories.
They're therapists, but they're also fellow travelers with us on this journey, just like me and
just like you. They don't simply teach this work from a distance. They understand what it means to
live it and together. The three of us are going to talk about how the wounds we've carried from
childhood have followed us into adulthood, into our adult relationships, and what it looks like to
begin to heal. We're going to share personally, and we're going to share some of our insights from
our work. And we're also going to guide you through some live work, real time. You won't be on the
camera, don't worry, but you'll be right there in the room with us, beginning this practice and
some of the work that's at the heart of this. secure soul. It is such powerful work when we begin
to turn our attention inwardly and give the younger parts of ourselves the attunement and the
presence and the love some parts of us have never gotten. So I can't wait for this roundtable.
The price of admission is just one pre-order of the secure soul.
Okay, so you may have noticed I'm talking about pre-ordering quite a bit right now. And I want to
tell you why, because there's a reason I'm doing that. There's so many great books out in the world
that just never get widely read. publishing market pays attention to what happens early in a book's
release. Pre-orders signal to booksellers and distributors and online platforms and algorithms
that a book is worth noticing. And that helps the book reach more people. It's going to help the
book reach more people like you and me who need this work. And so a lot of you will write in to me
and say, how can we support you? We're so grateful. And this is one of those moments where I will
say the best way you could support me in this work we're doing together is to pre-order it. copy
of The Secure Soul. And part of what I'm trying to do, because it's kind of weird to...
order a book that you won't get for another six weeks. I'm trying to create these moments,
these opportunities like next week's roundtable so that when you pre-order, you're already getting
something. You're getting to start the work now. You'll also get the first three chapters so you
can start reading immediately, then attend the roundtable. We'll have a few more things going on.
There are other bonus items, but that's my way of saying, hey, I would be so grateful if you would
go ahead and if you're planning to buy the book, buy it now. Join in some of these gatherings. It's
been a great excuse for me to create some of these gatherings. I love doing it. It's been such a
great journey so far. I would love for you to join us next week. Jenna and Tammy are amazing.
This is going to be a beautiful time. It's going to be intimate. You'll be in the room with us.
We'll take your questions. Like I said, well, you'll have a chance to do some of the work
internally to kind of see what that's like to be with yourself in this way that I teach.
All you have to do to join is order. one copy of The Secure Soul, anywhere books are sold.
You can go to Amazon or Christian Books or... anywhere at any independent bookstore,
go to your local bookstore and order it. It also helps get the word out to independent bookstores.
Just order a paperback copy of the book is preferred. One copy,
then go to the secure soul book.com and submit your order confirmation. You just need to put in
the numbers. It takes less than a minute and you will then receive immediately at your email
address, the first three chapters of the book, along with all the other bonus items and your
personal link to Register for the live roundtable. That's next week. It's next Wednesday,
the 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern, but you will also get access to the replay if you can't join us live.
If you can't find the link, if you have any questions, email us at info at drallisoncook.com.
This is going to be such a personal and special. gathering. So speaking of,
today's episode is a really special one. It's also really personal. To me,
it's a little different from some of the conversations we typically have on the podcast, but it
highlights one of the six marks of a secure soul that I write about in the book.
And that's this, a secure soul learns how to take a risk. Taking a risk can be challenging if
you've felt stuck in fear or self-sabotage or if you felt invisible and you're unsure how to put
yourself out there. And here's the thing, taking a risk doesn't mean you know you'll have instant
success. That's what's hard about it. It doesn't mean you won't fail. It doesn't mean you won't be
misunderstood or it doesn't mean you won't fall flat on your face. Sometimes we take a risk and we
do stumble and we do fall, but it It does mean you become secure enough that you can put yourself
out there, that you can take the risk and that you're resilient enough and you trust yourself
enough that you can get back up when things don't go the way you planned.
And today's guest has taught me personally something powerful about what that looks like.
So a couple of weeks ago, I posted on my Instagram story that I just met one of my heroes from
reality television.
love of reality television. You'll learn more about that in the book. But this one, Survivor,
is my favorite all-time reality show. I started watching it the very first season.
It aired more than 25 years ago, back when you had to watch one episode at a time,
right? You'd get one episode, and then the next week, the second episode would come out. And the
first season of Survivor came out near the end of my doctoral program. And this was during a
chapter in my own life I write about. the book where my soul was completely divided.
I was trapped inside the controller part of me. I was trapped inside my own mind. I was hiding from
real life in an effort to stay safe. I didn't realize I was doing this, right? This was one of the
ways a part of me had learned to stay safe. I was deeply lonely on the inside,
but I wasn't building the kind of relationship. or living the full wholehearted life that I wanted.
And Survivor became a strange kind of companion to me. During this year,
I would watch the people put themselves in an extreme environment. They were out in nature.
They were forming relationships. They were taking risks. They were sometimes making errors,
but they were putting themselves out there into an experience. And there was a part of me that
longed to become that alive in my own life. Well,
years later, during the pandemic, my family, my two kids, they were in high school and early
college. We're all stuck at home. We began to watch season after season of Survivor together,
and they fell in love with it just like I did. And this is when I first encountered today's guest,
Aubrey Brocco. The first time we met Aubrey, she was experiencing a panic attack on national
television. She recovered. She stayed in the game somehow. She formed relationships and made it all
the way to the end of that first season, only to experience a devastating loss where her teammates
didn't vote for her to win. It was crushing to watch. And then she returned to play again,
continued to face setbacks, and eventually realized that she had moved so far away from her own
self that she needed to step away from the survivor world altogether. And you'll hear her talk
about that story on today's episode. She went to therapy. She became a mother. She began to reclaim
her own life. She began to loosen her grip on an achievement-oriented part of her to reconnect
with herself. And then she decided to take another risk. She returned for the show's historic 50th
season. And spoiler alert, if you haven't yet seen it, she won the whole thing.
And what inspires me most isn't simply that Aubrey eventually won Survivor.
It's who she became along the way. She didn't return with a guarantee that this time everything
would work. She returned more grounded in herself. She played differently.
She played more in tune with herself by remaining present, listening to her inner wisdom and
trusting herself to adapt and trusting herself that if she did fail again, she would be.
Okay. And this to me is a powerful evidence of a secure soul.
A secure soul isn't someone who never fails. It's someone who can risk failure without abandoning
yourself. You can be overlooked, disappointed, or misunderstood and still find your way back to who
you are. You can step away. When something is costing you too much and you can discern when it's
time to set back in a secure soul as a strong inner base.
I love how Aubrey shows us that through her story, the story that played out nationally on
television. One other really fun connection, I found out that Aubrey attended the very high school
where my sister taught English for years. And so Aubrey was one of my sister's students. That's how
I made this connection. I was able to reach out and Aubrey graciously agreed to join us and share
the mental health journey, the journey of resilience behind what we watched unfold on television.
I love her story, and even if you're not a fan of Survivor, I know this has something for every one
of us who has ever felt overlooked, lost our bearings, or wondered whether we have the courage to
try again. Please enjoy my conversation with the winner of Survivor 50,
Aubrey Brocco.
I'm so thrilled you're here with us today. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for
having me. I've never had a cooler podcast guest in my kids' eyes and also in my own eyes.
Thank you.
You know, I was thinking about my journey with Survivor. I actually watched the very first season
when it came out on television. I was living in Denver and I was getting my PhD. I have a new book
coming out and I was writing about how it was very lonely. I was very much in my head during this
season. So I vividly remember. that very first season. So I have a long history with Survivor.
Wow. So you're saying you were in your head that first season of Survivor. So you remember watching
it? Yes, it was like my buddy. It was like my companion that year. Back in the day, you know, when
it came out, you know, every Thursday night or whatever.
When did you first get interested in Survivor, let alone think about, you know,
applying to be on it? It's just I'm blown away by the parallel when I heard you talk about how you
kind of remember that time. of watching Survivor. So I watched from season one.
I had just graduated from the eighth grade and my best friend and I were all excited.
The show was so exciting. And I vividly remember watching it. And I would watch with my family and
be like pizza night every Thursday night. It was on Thursdays at that point. Yes, yes. And I
watched, I'd say when I went to college, I kind of fell out of it a bit. Yeah. But then I remember
after college. let me see, it was probably like 2011,
2012, 2013, I think it was. I was working a corporate job. I had wanted to be a newspaper
journalist. I graduated in 2008, kind of a rough year to graduate in general and find a job.
But I also wanted to write for newspapers, which was also kind of a hard thing to do. So I pivoted
into marketing and I found myself in a corporate job. It was a good job, but I felt stifled. I
didn't feel like myself. And I actually was in my head and I wasn't feeling myself. That's why it
really struck me. And I fell upon Survivor. 28, I think it was,
Cagayan, which was the first brain brawn beauty. And that was a season with huge characters like
Tony Vlachos. Yes, great season. Wonderful season. And I was like, oh my gosh,
these people are so alive. Cagayan was incredible. I mean, Tony, Trish, Spencer,
Raymond Bledsoe, Sarah Lucina. And I was like, this is incredible. It is my buddy,
like you said. And my family had always said, like, you're a newspaper journalist. You do
marketing. You should put in a tape. I said to myself, finally, my family had always told me,
but I was kind of not loving where I was in life. I was like, Aubrey, put in a tape. So I did.
I put in a tape in July 2014. Yes, it was 2014. And then I got called in October 2014.
And it all started there.
That
is fascinating because it is. It's funny because the other. So so back then it was just there's
something about it that captures both the the just being it's like man against nature.
It's just you and not in your head. So same for me. I was just living so much in my head and there
was something about it. I never had the guts to put in for it. But then also the relational stuff.
And then my family in covid, my kids in high school.
started watching. And we literally watched every season. So it kept us company through that amazing
year or two years. We watched all of your seasons. And you've just always been someone.
And I, I talk about this a lot on the podcast. And you've I've heard you use this word, but you've
always captured my attention from the first time I saw you on co wrong is kind of someone who's
underestimated in the game. And I
Before we get there, there's so many places I want to go. I want to start with when you get cast,
you get on.
You have this sort of corporate background. You have this incredibly well-educated,
incredibly, I imagine, can get lost in your mind. And suddenly you're on this island with all of
these people. What was that like for you initially? I believe, is that the season where you did
have? the panic attacks on air. Yes. So talk to us a little bit about that journey from when you
got there through some of recognizing whether you knew it or not, that there was a lot of anxiety
involved for you. Sure. Yes. So when I applied, I knew it was interesting because I knew the role,
the archetype I would be. Lived in Cambridge near Harvard. I went to Brown.
I went to Phillips Exeter. I had the glasses. So I went in, I'm like, I'm the nerd. And I ended up
being on Brain Brown Beauty 2 on the Brains Tribe. And I remember going in,
I'm really analytical. And before you go and you play, you sit in quiet in pregame in Ponderosa,
which means that the game hasn't started, but you're doing interviews, you're doing med checks,
you're doing swim tests, very in your head. all of a sudden jeff says gather everything you can off
this boat go so all of a sudden i'm in this experience i get to camp with my new tribe and i
remember dr allison having this moment where i was just fully out of body i'm like i'm watching
survivor but i'm in survivor wild I'm in the TV. This is really confusing.
And I remember it was like 118 degrees. It was really hot. I was afraid of drinking the water
because we hadn't had fire yet. I wanted to make sure we boiled it. And I had a full on panic
attack. I like blacked out. I don't remember it. I didn't think it was a panic attack then. I
thought it was just like dehydration. It was like on day two. And yeah,
that was a wild experience because then I was on the bottom of the. of the pecking order on that
tribe very quickly. So I want to get to that because that's fascinating to me.
I think that's hard enough in life, let alone on national television. Yes. Did you have a history
with anxiety or panic before going in or was that did that totally surprise you out of the blue?
So I. I know now after kind of introspection after and finding out I had mild generalized anxiety
disorder after that I've always had a little bit of like kind of an OCD tendency.
I would call it perfection or high level of achievement or always being on guard or always
anticipating the emotional texture of the room. And what do I have to do next? Yeah. But I also
think that you can tend to be on the anxiety scale when you have that.
And I have a very acute intuition. Yes. And I think sometimes anxiety comes with that.
I just didn't call it that. I come from the kind of more neurotic ilk.
My parents are from Brooklyn. It's a very fast paced. And I think I was anxious my whole life and
didn't even know what to call it. And it probably worked for you on some level with high achieving,
high performance, but suddenly you're completely out of your element, which happens. I mean, yours
is a little heightened on national television, but you're right around the age. How old were you
when you first started? 29. Right. So in our 20s is kind of at the age when suddenly it's like,
oh, wait a minute. This isn't, you know, and you have this heightened experience. It really makes
sense. that that happened how did you cope so so couple that with socially finding yourself at the
bottom i mean finding yourself that's talk about resilience how did you what did you muster up from
either inside yourself or or from you know memories of you know loved ones to kind of help you stay
in the game you stayed in the game all the way to the end that first season Yeah, well, I would say
now I see through my whole life I've been like that. I can get really in my head, really. And I
knew that I use that language on the show. I'm like, I get really in my head and then I like kind
of freak out and then I'm fine. I will tell you, after freaking out like that, everyone had seen me
kind of crash out on my tribe. I really just went back to my kind of ability to make one on one
connections. And I really bonded with the two older members of my tribe. And I was able to kind of
hold space for people for who they were. It was a bit of a season where we had kind of misfits and
then kind of the popular kids. I mean, it's a stereotype, but it was brain brown beauty.
And we were divided that way. And I knew how to like kind of take my ragtag group of people. I've
always loved talking to different people, kind of like collected different kinds of people. I
always was a floater between different groups. So, I mean, after you have a panic attack like that,
you know, it's on TV. You really don't have anything to lose. So I just was like,
all right, Aubrey, you have to focus. You have to win this next challenge. And if you can put one
foot in front of the other now. tomorrow could go a different way. And that's what Survivor is all
about. So when something seems good on Survivor, it can kind of be bad, meaning like you can feel
like you have a great alliance and then something unexpected happens. Or when something seems bad,
like I'm on the outs, can actually be good because then it can only go up from there. powerful.
But that's a lesson in life too. Right? The minute you feel at the bottom, the minute you feel at
the outs, if you can mentally adjust, and I love what you said, and look for the other people who
are also maybe on the outs, look for the other people, there's power in that,
that you know, that's a very sophisticated mindset shift that I think we don't always feel.
like when it feels like everybody everybody around us yes has more than we have and you're proof in
the pudding for how far you got in the game but i do think it's also true in life do you do you see
that you know same skill set helping you in in life yes and i will say so many things happened
after that first season where i think kind of my exploration of How do you deal with setbacks?
How do you come back? I've become like I never realized that Survivor would give me the gift of
like breaking the entire system of achievement that I was raised with and help me look at failure a
completely different way. Like I do believe now that I have a good friend. I always call him out.
His name is Chris Savage. He's a CEO that I work with. And he says that luck,
the recipe for luck is persistence and the mindset that good things can happen. And I really
believe that now, like I celebrate failure because I know that I can learn more quickly and then
pivot more quickly. So that's something like all these little lessons about how to turn things
around. I wouldn't say I came to terms with them like right after that panic attack. That's been
like 10 years of work after it. But those are things that very much had their beginnings in that
first season when it all fell away. Yeah, because, again, I think this is why I'm so drawn to you.
So many of us are so drawn to your story is we see ourselves in you. Right.
So it's not just the panic attack. It's not just clawing your way up from kind of this where you
were in the game. But then in that first season, you have that heartbreaking loss where you get.
Right. So close. So I just it's you know, it's like we all watch you and kind of feel like,
oh, I know what that feels like. And also this is a magnified version of this.
When you. got back into your life. I've heard you talk about,
did you go, did you start therapy right away? Was that, where did you kind of begin to unpack that?
And how did you begin to unpack that? And how did that,
tell us a little bit more about how that began to dismantle some of that achievement mindset and
who you were before going into the game? Great question. So the show has a therapist who's always
very helpful um and wonderful but i decided to go on my own to seek a therapist locally and it was
really interesting because i thought i was going to a therapist to kind of unpack the anxiety the
panic attack or just like the fact that I'd lost. And it very quickly turned into something so much
more than that. It was this whole system of achievement that I'd been raised with. That if you work
really hard, you will arrive and you will achieve the thing.
But I learned that I'd worked as hard as I could. I did everything I could to get to the final
three of Survivor 32. That's co-wrong. And I was controlling things.
it did not work. So it really dismantled my entire inner system and scaffolding.
I call it scaffolding as it pertained to achievement. This idea that one plus one will always equal
two in life. Yes.
I work hard and I try to get to the top. It'll work out,
but it turns out it's not as... simple as that it's not as linear well and there's a there's a real
um reckoning with that that can either i believe break us yes or as we see in your story make us in
that sense of a kind of i'm kind of you know i'm curious about the words for you but like just sort
of there if you can make peace with that it's almost like nothing can break you then In a way,
because it's like, well, I've experienced something so hard and I know that I have what it takes.
And so it gives you a paradoxical kind of confidence if you can work through it. But not everybody
does. Yeah, there was another layer to it that's actually interesting. So I played Survivor 32 and
I realized, whoa, the achievement. There was far more to the story. And I also realized that like
my perspective of achievement wasn't necessarily other people's perspective. So I was in this world
where I had broken away from my perception of achievement and I had lost because a jury had to.
perceive my achievement, whether it was worthy a certain way. So I'm dealing with my feelings of
achievement getting broken down. I'm dealing with a jury having a completely different perspective
of reality than me. And then I'm dealing with this like parasocial aspect of other people watching
me, feeling really close to me, feeling like they understand me. And then I go, I lose on national
TV over a year. We have the longest wait in the history of the show. Oh, that's right. I lose. I
knew I was going to lose. But then I went back nine days. later and played again and I came in
fifth place. So I modified my game completely. But that that then I had to sit with that.
But the real part of what you were talking about, like the lessons I learned after the first time
really didn't kind of peak until I played a third time. And I didn't listen to my inner voice.
So I almost modified myself after losing achievement doesn't work. So I modified my game so much
and it got me close, but not far. So I modified myself again, but I was so far away from myself
that I didn't even listen to my own intuition. And that's where I like really broke down because I
could no longer trust my gut. So then I had to like take myself away from the experience completely
because it wasn't just achievement was broken. It's that I completely realized I was untethered and
no longer. knew which Aubrey I was listening to interesting yeah yeah gosh gosh real life playing
out and that happens that that to me makes sense where I'm even thinking of the listener if you've
been in a in a relationship that didn't work and so you modify yourself you make changes it doesn't
automatically mean that suddenly you know the next relationship you still might you might lose your
bearings that's that's normal because growth requires a process of yes a little bit of trial and
error a little of okay i'm going to try to let this go but there's another part of me i i do a lot
of parts work in therapy but that was maybe the strongest muscle that i had and i these other
muscles these other resources maybe whatever they are are underdeveloped still and i don't know
exactly and so we can almost feel worse and that that's kind of what i hear you saying it was
almost worse before it was better and that could be really demoralizing if you're not aware that of
what's happening yes and i'd also say like i've learned through survivor that you can i
intellectualize everything i learned that i would intellectualize my own emotions and just be like
get over it or like you know that you you need to think about achieving a different way but just
because I know something intellectually doesn't mean that I feel it in my heart,
but then there's like also fully digesting it so that it's a part of me and I've taken the parts
that work for me and I've made sure to kind of deprecate the parts that don't work for me.
It's just a lot. It's that you can intellectualize. Have you internalized it? Like, do you take the
external feedback? But how much? What advice do you take? What do you not? What do you listen to in
yourself? What is yourself protecting your ego? What is yourself actually being honest with
yourself? So it was it was very hard. And I didn't feel like I could fully digest everything until
I did intuitive healing after I did. third experience and it was really about understanding what
was mine what was other people's so probably working through some like codependent stuff um And
really trusting my own intuition. I don't want to say conventional therapist,
but my first therapist was amazing. She wasn't an intuitive healer, but she would always say,
you're putting your hand on your heart when you speak. She identified that I really would feel
emotions in certain places. So once I learned how I took in emotion and where I felt it and
listened to myself, that's when it started to click a bit more. somewhere in there you became a
mom. Is that right? Yes. I became a mom. How did that help?
Or how did that impact this journey? Because you took, well, let me get the timeline right first.
You took time away after that third. Did you take, was it 10 years? Seven.
Seven years before you went back for 50. And in that seven years, you're doing a lot of this
healing work. You also become a mom. Is that right? Yep. I did healing work. I moved to Oregon from
LA in the pandemic. I met my partner. My dad had a heart transplant. We moved home.
And then I had a son and I just think I had so much more life experience. How did it help?
I'd say just like that perspective of like. There are so many other things in life I'm capable of,
like the human bodies and capable of amazing things with my dad and the heart transplant. And then
just like having a baby, it just really made like achievement feel lower and lower kind of on that
list. And in that time, I also became an entrepreneur. I have my own marketing consultancy, and I
really got to learn what it's like to do fun for yourself and celebrate failure and pivot quickly.
And as a parent, you have to be an entrepreneur. You fail every day. hey, you don't know what
you're doing. So that just helped me become more comfortable with very much rolling with the
punches.
I just learned that your skin can absorb more chlorine in a 10-minute shower than from drinking
eight glasses of tap water. And I love a long shower, which made me think differently about what I
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Yeah, I mean, I just, I think about that seven years of doing all the inner work and all of that.
What's so interesting to me is as you're becoming more integrated,
more able to... your emotions, listen to your own inner voice,
be grounded in something outside of other people's perceptions. You're saying it so well, Aubrey,
like we do want to take in other people's perceptions on some level.
We don't live in a vacuum, but we don't want to be completely. And again, your experience is so
heightened, you know, because it's millions of people, not just my local community, but it's true
for all of us. Like, how do I learn to take in? enough because i want to understand how i'm being
perceived in the world but not so much that i'm changing who i am for other people it's so nuanced
and there's not a lot of good you know tick tock memes about that that is a journey it is and so
i'm hearing that you did a lot of that work a lot of stuff going on in your personal life and
somewhere then some part of you is like, let's try it again. So how does that decision show up?
I was shocked. I mean, I never thought, I mean, Survivor season 50, which is like the celebration
of 25 years, Survivor players were talking about it for a long time. Dr. Allison,
it was like the talk about town. And I had stopped watching Survivor for a bit. And I was on a
podcast with Rob Sesternino, who's like kind of the... We love a celebrity in the Survivor
podcasting world. Rob's amazing. And I was on his show talking with T-Bird. T-Bird played season
three Africa. And they asked me if I got called for 50, would I play? I thought to myself,
what are you talking about? And in that moment, it kind of was like, oh, maybe that was July 2024.
And then I got called in November 2024. And I really thought about it because I remember when I got
called the third time. My inner voice is saying, you're going to lose your mind if you play this
again. Interesting. I really listened to my inner voice this time. Like, will this have an impact
negatively on my family? And I realized I think I can do it. So I got, I went into casting.
I got cut from the cast in March, 2026. And then I got re-added to the cast in April,
2026. And I went on to play in June, 2026. That is wild.
It was wild. And then you win. Spoiler alert. And then I won. It was a wild game.
I won. I played completely differently than my first time. I would not say it was the game that I
would ever go in and plan to play, but it was the game I needed to play to win with a cast of very
big personalities. I really have learned that in Survivor,
when you play with returning players especially, that you have to hold the space for these big
characters who have... of them have lost most of them are trying to rewrite their story and i
learned the power of holding space and letting other people's stories take center stage until the
right moment and so i played a very much an observational game a social game and then i came in at
the end and pulled out a win when i had to and I had studied the jury for so very long because
that's where I lost the first time. How do you crush other people's dreams and then do it in a way
that they want to vote for you to win $2 million in my case? And I realize they really have to be
in service to the jury. And being in service to them means validating their experiences.
I'm not going to vote for someone to win if they invalidate my experience. So I really it was just
this nuanced lessons from along the way. Were you aware in internally as you were playing season 50
of the shifts inside of you? Because you just you said something so interesting. You said it was a
very different game than I would have planned to play. So that achievement, you know,
there's still that part of you that could have mapped out the perfect. And that went by the
wayside. Were you aware of that agility, of that ability to be in the moment, of that ability to
stay grounded in that observational? Tell me about what that experience was like inside of you.
Yeah, it's interesting because I remember in 50, there were times when I just kind of completely
let go. To the point where, and I'm like a narrator on that show usually. I didn't always have the
words. I just knew what I had to do. Interesting. I was like, I knew how to move.
I was feeling my way through. I was just being myself. I remember having chats with some of the
producers being like, I'm just being myself. Like, I just know that this is what I have to do right
now. This is what this person needs. I have to. practice restraint here. A lot of it was what you
don't say and what you don't say in the quiet moments and leaving space for that. And I, I was very
aware that it was a different Aubrey. I very much had my foot off the gas more than I would.
I like to take charge and go, but it's survivors not, you know,
it's fun to watch survivor where someone gets a big resume and they're Tony Vlachos and they take
everybody out, but great TV. Doesn't always win the game. And I went to win.
So a couple of things I want to highlight here, because I think it's really powerful.
One, I learned a long time ago that being the stake in life is better than being the sizzle.
And there's a lot of sizzle. And by that, right, there's a lot of sizzle in our world.
The biggest personalities, the biggest houses. the biggest, flashiest,
you know, cars. And if you get smart and you start looking beneath the surface, sometimes there's
steak beneath the surface, but often there is not. There's not a lot of substance. And if you can
learn, but when you're someone, maybe more deeply feeling, maybe sometimes in our heads,
maybe someone who's underestimated, you can feel like... you know,
less than or everyone else has. And what I hear in you is just a grounded, just stay with myself.
Yes. Stay with myself. And I think that's powerful. It's nuanced.
It's not what we see, you know, necessarily getting the buzz. But if I can stay with myself.
And I heard, Aubrey, different interviews. And I don't want to get into the I do want to get into
the weeds of Survivor. But for the purpose of this podcast, I did hear some interviews.
I think I heard Rizzo. I heard a couple other people talk about moments where you would be really
kind to them. You would offer where there was a genuineness where you would and maybe part of that
was tactical. Right. To because you knew. Yeah. Talk to me about that. But I heard in that just you
being very present. very available, very genuine.
And all of that is what got you those votes in the end.
Yeah, I think, well, that's great to hear. I guess I haven't really heard that.
I think that's just, I mean, I think there is a humanity involved in Survivor. We're all living out
there together. I do try to understand other people's perspectives. Like I do value.
um other people's perspectives there's a really great um a guy who studies the game who says our
different frames our local frame Everyone has a different local frame. They're looking at the world
through their eyes. And I think a key to life and survivor is really like understanding and
validating that somebody else has a different frame that they're looking at the world from.
And I do think that's one of the things that I'm meant to do in life. Like one of my strengths is
my ability to fully step into someone else's frame and try to see the world through their eyes. And
so I did try to be present with people. I do genuinely care about them. I've come to really care
about the survivor players. through this experience four times because i've been through it like i
have a genuine care i feel it in my heart and my power space when i when i say that to you because
i know what it's like yeah and it can be hard and you can do things in a somewhat humane way in a
show that's about cutting people and crushing their dreams yeah there's a way yeah the other thing
that i think is So interesting listening to your story and this this theme of sort of one plus one
equaling two. And if I do all the right moves and if I follow the right course and achievement
versus the kind of surrender that isn't doing nothing,
but it's staying with oneself, being in the moment, being very present.
What's so fascinating to me is you could see when Jonathan lost. almost I could almost see or hear
that but I did everything right almost that same am I am I missing that it felt like almost the
same thing you're describing you felt after your first season of yes but I did everything right and
I just wanted to say oh you're so you know and he's young you know it's like oh my goodness do you
I know that is not how life works it's you know and that's a painful loss but did am I reading you
know I just I felt like that You could just see his, he hadn't learned that lesson yet in life,
you know? Yeah. And I, I don't want to speak for Jonathan's experience,
but I do relate to him. We've had those conversations. We're friends. He comes similarly from a
background where it's like achieve and like one plus one equals two. And if you do this,
but something I've learned about achievement and like playing survivor for a resume or doing the
same in life is that when you are acting to win, And via action,
you leave a wake sometimes that might be bigger than you think. Yeah. But when you play in the
moment, trying to understand the people, I'd say the other thing that I did in 50 is I am more
grounded than ever, but I'm able to like healthfully disassociate and look at the bigger picture of
how it's going to affect people and look at like, am I leaving a wake if I make this move?
Yeah. By looking at it with the people first versus the action first, I was able to get where I
needed to go. And in Jonathan's case, I think I very much see how we had kind of a similar
experience and trajectory. Him in 50 and me in 32.
We've had those conversations. It's really pretty wild. You don't know the full survivor.
And I'm not saying this like in an arrogant way, but like. oh, to be second place,
that really will make you do some inner work and like undo everything you learn. Because you're so
close. So close. And yet it's an amazing feat in and of itself.
That's the paradox with that. It's so fascinating,
Aubrey, again, full circle with all the growth. And again, this is such a lesson in life that as
you differentiate from other people's perceptions and you're more grounded in yourself your true
self you just said it so well but paradoxically that gives you a maturity and a perspective to be
able to understand other people's perspectives which actually at the end is what allows for a more
um wholehearted you know ironically the goal stops being i need people to like me you know and i
need to be myself and co you know paradoxically that's actually what allows us to actually earn the
trust and favor of other people it's it's such a weird um it's bizarre it's it's such a bizarre you
know when you stop trying to manage everybody's perceptions actually that's kind of when people
begin to
You know, you begin to find the people who get you and see you and and and at the very least have a
respect and an honor. And it's a journey. It's a journey. It's been quite the journey.
And it's funny, I left even socializing with most survivors for seven years. It's like the only way
to win the game is to completely leave and not. I mean,
I was able to gain perspective on it. It's a whole other world beyond survivor. And by leaving
Survivor, I mean, very much when you love it and you're a super fan, you're like, you almost have
like preconceived notions of how something is, how it should be received. And it's funny when I
listen to a lot of people who are like, you know, picking apart every move in the game.
For me now, I always, and I respect that. And I love that. That's the fun of watching it. But like
after making time to like go live for seven years, I'm like, oh, but it's still people.
Like, are you looking at survivor? I said this to someone last week. Are you looking at survivor as
if you're looking down at a chessboard and you're talking about making the moves? Or are you able
to stand in the chessboard and realize that the other pieces are people? And I think that comes
from living life. I love that. There's a lot of wisdom in that.
You can love something, but we have to have that perspective on it or we will get whatever it is.
I mean, something like Survivor, whatever it is, but that healthy differentiation. And again,
which is what allowed you to, again, reenter it and then look at you now.
Well, do you have any sense of your relationship with the game going forward? Do you do you feel
like you're kind of finished? Do you do you have a sense of or even how you'll begin to continue
to. Yeah.
I'm just excited to watch other people play. I know there's a new era. There's going to Jeff ropes
is amazing. He's a Scorpio. He loves to evolve. He's always pushing the boundary. So I'm just
excited to see where the show goes from here and see other people. yeah play this game that i love
and make something of it and continue to push it in different directions so it should be incredible
well i just have such tremendous respect for the process as someone who um you know sits and
watches and and i'm just so aware that everything you're learning in this very public way is really
they're really life lessons that are hard to learn in front of a lot of people and the fact that
that just that crowning achievement um I think uh you know I think we all you know those of us who
loved love survivor loved one Christian said it's there's a narrative warfare right there's a
narrative and you your narrative it wasn't just words there was a such a genuineness to the story
arc of your journey and it really um just i think made all of us go right this is this is this is
what it's about and it's so it is hard to put words around it's it's and there's nothing you know
there are lots of different ways to play the game a lot of people played a good game But there are
a lot of variables, and it's true in life, too. You've got to stay in it. I guess what words of
wisdom for someone listening in their own life who has felt overlooked, who has felt like they have
to leave something, even something they love, because it's taking too much from them, maybe who's
felt misread or misunderstood, what words of encouragement or wisdom would you offer?
I think it would be to kind of hold the space for yourself to kind of pause and to kind of consider
everything that's gone on and why you might feel a certain way. Someone who's resonated with me is
the woman who won the gold medal in figure skating. It was Alyssa Liu. Yes,
I think that's right. Where she quit because it didn't bring her joy anymore. And I think that's
okay. If it doesn't bring you joy, it's okay to stop and pause and figure out.
if why that is and to be curious and ask questions and it's okay if it's not all figured out and I
really think it's about giving yourself the patience some things really do just require you hold
the right space and give it some time and so much can transform if you give your soul a little bit
of time to breathe that's beautiful that's a great word. I love it.
Thank you for joining us today. So thrilled for you and for the Survivor family.
Thank you for having me, Dr. Allison. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best
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