Bonus Interview: Jessica Stephens

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Experience

After watching Jessica handle a rough quarterfinal game with incredible grace and poise, I had to find out her secret. I reached out to her on Twitter and she agreed to answer a few questions.

First, I asked about her internal monologue during this game and whether she had any techniques for staying calm. Jessica recalled a frustrating trivia game at teen church camp where she was beaten by her “youth group rival.” She remembers not only crying in frustration afterwards, but also physically disengaging during the competition by sitting back in her chair and visibly giving up. She noted:

I still think about this incident when I need to perform for any reason. It tells me a lot about what people see when they look at me and what I value in my own performances. First of all, the way I carry myself reveals a lot about what's going on in my mind. I want to be able to look back at a Jeopardy! game I played without seeing myself give up. Getting on that stage requires a deep appreciation for knowledge and a lot of luck, which means I don't want to take a second in the game for granted…I'm proud to be able to watch any game I've been a part of and not to see myself stop trying to ring in.

I read this answer before watching tonight’s game on TV, so I paid careful attention to Jessica’s gameplay at the end of the game. And you know what? She truly never gave up and that is absolutely something to be proud of. She continued with these insights on validation:

Another thing I've learned from the camp incident is to identify whose validation I'm looking for. I've asked myself when prepping for and playing my Jeopardy! episodes: First, what am I broadcasting about myself on that stage? and second, whose approval do I value? As a teenager, the answers were toxic perfectionism and adults who might not define success the way I do. As an adult, I think I demonstrated an unwillingness to give up on myself. For me that shows a lot of personal growth over the past 20 years. The best part is that I appreciate this growth and could not care less whether others do as well.

I knew Jessica had been taking improv classes since her initial Jeopardy! appearance, and it seemed like that could be a big factor in her ability to handle pressure on stage. I loved what she said when I asked about how improv helped her performance:

The best way that improv prepared me for the Jeopardy! stage was giving me the opportunity to practice being vulnerable. It's easy to feel exposed when you are performing a scene, but scenes are so collaborative that being self-conscious will lead you to ignore the people around you and lead to a boring viewing experience. There are a lot of details to learn to get good at improv, but nothing is more helpful than practicing paying attention to how you and the people around you feel… Learning improv for the past year has been a lovely opportunity for me to practice getting out of my head... I encourage people who like the idea of practicing getting out of their head to consider any skill they're interested in learning. Focusing more on what you're gaining from an experience than from what you look like to others is a great way to distract from self-doubt.

Can I just repeat that line? It’s so good: “Focusing more on what you're gaining from an experience than from what you look like to others is a great way to distract from self-doubt.” Jeopardy! is such a unique and valuable experience, but how do you continue to honor that when faced with defeat? Jessica continued:

Another thought that helps me put my final episode into focus is a fantastic "CV of failures" that a Princeton professor published in 2016. His explanation for writing his CV is that successes are visible but failures are not, which may lead outside observers to believe a "successful" person doesn't have many "failures" behind and ahead of them. I'd taken the Jeopardy! anytime test as often as I could for almost a decade before getting booked on the show… [T]here are no success stories that don't also have plenty of failures accompanying them. Whoever wins the Tournament of Champions this year will also certainly have a CV of failures they could share, but the reason they're a winner is they didn't let those failures take them out of the game.

What a fantastic reminder that success is not avoiding failure, but continuing in spite of it. Failure is the ultimate opportunity to say, “Yes, and…” to the universe and keep telling your story. As for Jessica, she now has a permanent reminder of the experience:

My motivation for getting a Jeopardy! tattoo a few weeks ago was that I figured if I could experience the highs and lows I did at Second Chance and Tournament of Champions and still love the show, that I wouldn't regret that tattoo years from now.