It’s nice to have a friend like Breezy Johnson — just ask Mikaela Shiffrin!

In the days leading up to her gold medal-winning slalom run on Feb. 10 at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Shiffrin spent much of her time training. And during that process, her teammate Johnson knew just how to keep her spirits up.

“[Breezy] had this incredibly helpful comment. She kept randomly texting me throughout the week and saying, ‘Don’t forget you’re amazing!’ ” the skier, 30, tells PEOPLE.

Still, there was one text from Johnson that really helped her put things into perspective for Shiffrin, who is a member of Team Visa’s athlete program.

“She told me, ‘Remember that if you’re not happy without a medal, you won’t be happy with a medal… because happiness comes from cats,’ ” Shiffrin recalls. “And it was just like, this perfect, uplifting… But the message is real. That this medal is not going to bring you happiness. So kind of figure your life out before that.”

Mikaela Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson hug on Feb. 10, 2026 at the Winter Olympics in Italy.Julian Finney/Getty

The most decorated skier of all time says that once she started thinking in that lens, she was able to realize just how full her life is, regardless of whether she found herself on a podium at the end of it all or not.

“When I thought introspectively, I realized there is so much in my life that makes me happy outside of this medal, and I can honestly say I’m prepared to go through this Games and not earn a medal, but I’m not prepared to go through this Games and not put out the best slalom skiing that I can,” she says. “So we went, we trained, we got the tools in our belt for that one scenario out of 100 that could happen, and in the end, the slalom day was perfect and beautiful and it was a dream come true.”

Johnson and Shiffrin were the favorites to win gold in the women’s team combined event on Feb. 10, and though Johnson had put the pair in first, Shiffrin struggled to find her speed during her run, and the two wound up in fourth place.

Then five days later, Shiffrin missed the podium again, placing 11th in giant slalom. But all was redeemed for the star on Feb. 18, when she won gold in slalom — the same event where she took first in Sochi in 2014.

Johnson previously opened up to PEOPLE about her messages to Shiffrin, saying she sent video of her cats (Johnson is a proud pet owner of a dog named Shadow and several cats, including Nugget and Wolf).

Mikaela Shiffrin and her gold medal on Feb. 18 at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.Daniel Kopatsch/VOIGT/Getty

“I’ll send her some more videos of my cats, ‘cause they’re pretty great,” she said.

Shiffrin tells PEOPLE that having the support of teammates like Johnson is a huge help, as the Olympics are “crazy.”

“I feel like the Olympic experience just slammed me over the face in the best way. I was so, so inspired and we did the champagne toast for Breezy and we were all just so excited and ready to go for team combined,” she says of Johnson’s downhill win.

Shiffrin continues: “And on the team combined day… It was a very, very big learning experience. There were several things about the conditions in the course that really threw me off, that we have not seen all season long and that I just felt like I had tools in my tool belt for 99 out of 100 scenarios, and the one scenario that I was not really prepared for was the way that day culminated in all the different variables that came together. And so we went back out and trained.”