Figuring Out: w/ Michael Phelps on Champion Mindset (Transcript)

I still remember where I was sitting in the class.

And I think at that point, for me, I used it as motivation. The fact that a teacher, number one, would say they’re doubting a student and not knowing how to deal with them, I think is saddening. It’s upsetting. But for me, I was like, “Watch this. I’m going to prove you.”

Turning ADHD Into a Superpower

And I think at the time, that was pretty much when I had stopped taking Ritalin, which was for my ADHD. So my ADHD, I literally was all over the place. I was leaning back in the chair, on the back legs, leaving dents on the floor in the classroom, always getting sent to the principal’s office. And honestly, I just had a really hard time sitting still.

And at that point, my mom was… I was playing baseball, I was playing lacrosse, I was playing soccer, and I was swimming. I was playing all these different sports just to try to get the energy out of me. My mom was just like, “I don’t know what to do with them.”

And it’s crazy. Fast forward now to where I’m 40 and I have four kids. It’s the same way. Their kids are nonstop. But I think going back to that point, I think swimming really gave me something to focus on.

Yeah, I was that… Well, I still am that kind of ADD, kind of all over the place, jittery, kind of always moving around. That’s just who I am. That’s my personality.

So, you know, I think over time, I naturally took something that somebody labeled me with having or being a less than of a kid. I took that into almost really making it a superpower because it gave me the ability to focus on things that I was really passionate about.

RAJ SHAMANI: So your teacher said… she must have noticed, and the rest of the world just noticed how you were as a kid who was restless, not able to sit anywhere. What do you think that teacher didn’t get or the world didn’t get about that kid who was not able to sit properly? Because you definitely had something in you.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I just thought she didn’t know how to… Whether it’s a lack of better way of saying it, I don’t think she wanted to deal with me or knew how to deal with me or knew how to handle me or knew how to teach me, right? She just didn’t know.

And, you know, for me, my mother has been in education for 50 years. That’s her passion. Her passion is being in the classroom, to try to make an impact for a student, to try to help them take whatever they’re learning in that year or that classroom and catapult it, to help them into the rest of their life, to help transform them into what they want to be. And all of those steps need to happen.

But when a teacher instantly shuts down on a kid, it just doesn’t look good for the teacher. But, I mean, I think I got a C in her class. So I was kind of like, “Just get me out of here.” That was my least favorite class that I went to every single day.

RAJ SHAMANI: Which class was it?

MICHAEL PHELPS: English. I hated English. And maybe it was how she was teaching it to me, because I had teachers that were great. I had teachers throughout my elementary, middle, and high school, where they were awesome.

And they helped me understand when I had problems learning what everybody else was learning faster than what I was learning, or if I was learning things faster than everybody else, then he or she gave me stuff to help me stay focused. Right?

I think it’s just everybody has a different mind, and everybody is able to handle or control as much as they can, and she just didn’t know what to do. It was sad. And I’m sure there still are teachers out there in the world that are like that. And it is unfortunate. It is sad.

But to the kids out there who do have an experience like that, know that there are other outcomes that can happen in life. I mean, people doubted me in the swimming pool, too. And honestly, for me, again, it was just a form of motivation. That was it.

If somebody wants to doubt me… I’ve been on this kick lately where I’ve just been firing off quotes on Instagram, just on my story, just ripping quotes off that just hit me in the morning. And I’m a big quotes person. And throughout my career, my coach would always put quotes on the top of the workout. Motivating quotes or just quotes that people need to hear, that I need to hear for whatever you’re going through in life.

The Power of Actions Over Words

RAJ SHAMANI: Which one’s your favorite quote now?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, my favorite quote is “Actions speak louder than words.” That’s one of my all-time favorite hands down quotes because it’s true. You can say whatever you want, but if your actions don’t back up those words, then all it is is just a bold-faced lie.

So, you know, for me, throughout my career, I wanted to break this world record, win this gold medal, whatever it was. And I knew that there had to be a process on how to get there, right? I can’t just say it and snap my fingers.

There had to be, every single day, little baby things that were stacked on top of each other and little baby steps that were heading towards that goal. And if I was taking steps backwards, then I’m just cheating myself.

Water as Sanctuary

RAJ SHAMANI: What do you think? You said water became your escape and you were just always in the pool taking out your anger and everything. It became a coping mechanism in some sort. And you were always in the pool. What do you think? What did water give you emotionally, which nothing else could?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, my kids call me Aquaman now, so I guess it’s kind of fitting. I don’t know, I think thinking back to it and kind of being able to dive through my career a little bit inside the pool, I was super sensitive to every little part of the water in my body, right?

So when I would swim, I’m feeling the water in the palm of my hands. That’s where I’m feeling all the pressure. So if my shoulder, my arm or my body is not a certain way, then I’m not able to feel that. So it’s all trial and error and trying to get in the right position.

And naturally I think for me just being submerged in water, I just felt at home. I don’t know, for lack of better terms, even now, if I go into a big depression state or I’m just in a grouchy mood for a couple of days and workout hasn’t helped. And my normal routine hasn’t helped. Whether it’s the cold tub or the sauna, I’ll just get… My wife will just kick me out of the house and say, “Go jump in the swimming pool.”

Because it’s kind of the only place where I don’t have anybody talking to me. I don’t have to think about stroke, I don’t have to think about what I’m having for dinner or what I’m making for dinner or what I’m doing tomorrow or this or that. I’m just there in the moment, right? I can just be.

And I can swim 500, which is minimal compared to what I used to swim, or I could swim 2,000. It doesn’t matter. Just being able to be back in the water, being back into that environment, I think is kind of one of my reset switches. That kind of just levels me out.

RAJ SHAMANI: Do you think you were running away from something or you were swimming away from something or swimming towards something?

The Discovery of Swimming and Early Competitive Drive

MICHAEL PHELPS: I think I found swimming as an outlet. But I think the reason why I found swimming is my two older sisters swam as well. So for me, kind of seeing what they were doing, and my middle sister, Whitney, was traveling all over the world, and she was on world championship teams. I was like, wow, that seems pretty cool. She was trying to go to the Olympic Games, and I was like, yeah, I want to go to the Olympic Games. Like, hell, yeah. Who doesn’t want to go to the Olympic Games?

And I just kind of followed. And, you know, naturally, as a kid, if you learn that you get good or you start getting faster, you kind of think, how fast can I get? And that’s kind of what I did, you know, like, from the start until the end of my career, I was kind of like, all right, how much faster can I get? Can I drop a second? Can I drop a half a second? Can I drop two tenths? Like, what is the maximum potential that I have inside of me? And how can I challenge myself in different ways?

Swimming for me, like, again, I would scream underwater. You can’t hear me. Like, I would call my coach every single f*ing name on the planet. Like, I literally would, because there were times where I was so frustrated and so angry, and there was nothing else I could do. Whether it was like, my body was in pain, I mentally couldn’t do it, or I felt like I couldn’t do it, I would just scream.

And then naturally, I would still get through it, and it would go well. But it’s like, in that moment, like, for me, screaming was one of those things. I would just let everything out, and it’s something like, you know, we’ve taught our kids. Again, we have four boys, and the emotions get high. So, you know, we taught them this thing called a “lion breath,” where you take a deep breath and you roar like a lion and you scream as loud as you can.

And again with—I mean, the younger one doesn’t scream that much, but, like, the three older ones, it’s a lot of noise. But it’s again, like, we find once they’re able to do that, their shoulders drop a little bit and they’re able to have that conversation of what big feelings, emotions they’re going through inside instead of carrying them along through life.

RAJ SHAMANI: Can you show me what is it? Like, what’s a lion breath?

MICHAEL PHELPS: You don’t want me to scream in here?

RAJ SHAMANI: It’s okay. You can just show, like, a little bit. Small version of it.

The Lion Breath Technique

MICHAEL PHELPS: Obviously, you can scream as loud as you want, but it’s literally just take a big, big, big, deep breath in and just scream as loud as you possibly can. And naturally, like, naturally, when you do that, your shoulders do drop a little bit, right? You are able to kind of come back to earth, right? Be your normal self.

Like, I always joke, there was the candy, the Snickers commercial. It’s always—they always show them here. But it’s a commercial where it’s like, you take a bite of the Snickers and you just feel like you’re a normal self. Like, I feel like that’s what—that’s what it is. Like, what Snickers is saying. Like, when you have a sugar low, you eat some sugar, and naturally you feel better.

But here, it’s like if you’re stressed or you’re frustrated and you take that deep breath, you’re able to be like, ah, okay, so why am I going through that? What feelings and emotions am I going through? And you’re able just to get it all out. Like, for me, it’s—you know, there are a bunch of different things that I do. I don’t do lion breaths that often, but when I’m in the pool, it’s very easy to do it. But, yeah, I mean, there’s a checklist that I have for my own mental health.

RAJ SHAMANI: So you would—you used to scream inside the pool a lot.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Like, underwater.

RAJ SHAMANI: Like, underwater, right?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Like, when I was going and taking, like, when I was doing my streamlines off the wall and I was kicking underwater, I would—there were a lot of F-bombs that were said. Yeah, that was one of my favorite words to scream underwater. And people could hear it. Honestly, like, when you’re in a set, like, person next to me be like, “Did you just scream?” And you’re like, mm, I did, I did. They’re like, “All right, we have one more.” And you’re like, yep, we got one more repeat, let’s go.

But it’s just—it’s kind of like in the moment. Like, I feel like I needed—I needed to do that just to get through. And everybody, I think, probably has something different. Right. But that was just me. It was screaming underwater. It’s same thing like when I’m in the weight room now. Like, I was just traveling overseas and I was lifting in, I think it was Mumbai, and I was in the weight room and I was like grunting. It was like—and I, like, everybody in the gym, like, looked at me and I was like, oh, shit. I’m looking into a mirror and everybody’s face is staring right at you.

But it’s just kind of something that I do. I mean, I used to do it right when I get up onto the block, you know, right after I did my arm slap. It was something that I would always do, just clear my throat.

The Obsession with Winning

RAJ SHAMANI: So is it you were screaming a lot because you were obsessed with trying to win, or was it a lot of different things?

MICHAEL PHELPS: It was probably, yeah. I wanted to win. I wanted to push through whatever I was going through, or I was emotionally just ready to snap. And screaming was something that would help me.

RAJ SHAMANI: Where did this obsession of winning come from?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Hating to lose. I hate to lose more than I enjoy winning.

RAJ SHAMANI: Even when you were like 9, 10, 11. How did this come up?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t know. It was just something I always had. Like, I always felt from when I was a little kid, like there was no second place. That wasn’t an option. It was just something that I always—I mean, like, I remember winning home run derby at 10 or 11 years old. Like, I was the biggest kid. Playing lacrosse, playing long stick, midi, just slashing people at the stick. Yeah. I mean, winning was everything. Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: Do you think it has anything to do with not getting your father’s approval when you were a kid, the absence of—

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t think so because, I mean, I would say a lot of it probably came from him because he was kind of more of the athlete from my parents’ relationship. He was a baseball player, a football player, track and field stud. I think he was the first person to get cut from the Washington Redskins back in the day when they were the Redskins.

So winning or trying to be the best is something that, in sports was something that he was very good at, like competition in sports. That was something that he excelled in, I would say. My sister Whitney and I are uberly competitive. More competitive than my older sister Hillary. Especially in sports. There’s—there’s just—yeah, I mean, for us, again, there was just—there is no second place, you know.

For me, it ended up becoming preparation. Right. Like preparation is everything. If you’re not prepared, then you’re going to get second or you’re going to get third or you’re going to get last. Right. Because there’s always somebody that is overly prepared or more prepared than you are, no matter what.

So for me, I just became that person. There wasn’t a planet, there wasn’t a single person on this planet during those 20 years. Pretty much in my career, you know, I had a couple losses that I can name for through my Olympic career, but there wasn’t another person on this planet that was more prepared than me. Not period. There wasn’t. That’s why I got the results that I got. It’s not rocket science. It’s not. I put in the work. I got the results. That’s it.

Meeting Coach Bob Bowman

RAJ SHAMANI: Let’s go to your preparation time. And like when you first started with your coach.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: And first, when your coach spotted you in the same year, he went to your mother and said that you’re going to win an Olympics or you’re going to be in the Olympics. Right. What was that story? Tell me about it.

MICHAEL PHELPS: My coach came to North Baltimore Aquatic Club, where I was swimming, where my sister swam. Long tradition of excellence with that club in Baltimore. From 1984 until 2016, there was at least one person on every single Olympic team. Wow.

So my coach came in ’96, right before ’96, maybe ’95. And he was helping my sister’s group a little bit, my middle sister’s group a little bit, prepare for Olympic trials and the Olympic Games in ’96. And then the group kind of split and he took over a different group. I think, I think I’m explaining this right way.

And then I remember seeing him while I was that kid playing at the pool. You know, I was only swimming like three days a week. Like, I really wasn’t training that much back then. And I would always play, play, play. And I would see him go up and down the pool, walk, run, arms up in the air, screaming, whistling. And I was like, like I remember being like, you know, like, if it was me back then, what I was thinking, I would be like, there’s no f*ing chance I’m swimming for that man. Like, he is an absolute lunatic.

Fast forward a year. I spent 20 plus years of my life with that man and he is my only coach. But it’s kind of crazy because seeing it, I think at that age, I was like, man, truly, this guy’s nuts. But what I learned, it was just the passion that he has, that he had back then that he still has today.

RAJ SHAMANI: But did he come to you or you went to him?

MICHAEL PHELPS: So I was excelling in the group that I was in, and I needed to be in a higher group. And I was 11 years old at this time, and the kids that were in that group were like 14, 15, 18 years old, like way older, way more mature, but I was faster than them. So I ended up swimming in that group and I got to that group.

But before I got there, my coach sat down with my parents and I and he’s like, “Well, look, like if, if you know your son wants to make the Olympic team in four years, he can make the Olympic team as an 11 year old.” I was 11 years old. But he’s like, he said that to me and he’s like, “But look,” he’s like, “you got to stop playing baseball, lacrosse and soccer.”

But for me, like looking back now, like those playing those four different sports, I think naturally gave me a better body awareness. Like the more I talk to the professional athletes from all sports, all walks of life now, that’s the same thing they did, playing multiple sports. Don’t be super hyper focused on one sport, but at a certain time, there’s then going to be a decision that you have to make. It’s just naturally, I feel like that’s how it is in sports. If you really want to be the best at one sport, you have to make a decision at some point just because of the process of development, this, that and the other.

But back then, yeah, he sat down and said that and I was like, “All right, fine, I’ll stop playing these other sports. I’ll focus on swimming, no problem.” And I just remember back then I was the Energizer Bunny. He basically would wind me up and I would just go. Or he would say jump and I would say, “How high?” Because he gave me that vision of wanting to go to the Olympic Games to then make the dream of winning an Olympic gold medal even bigger. Because, you know, I just thought about going and then I’m like, maybe I could win. Right? Like, that would be pretty cool.

Believing in the Vision

RAJ SHAMANI: When you were 11 and he said that to you for the first time that you could go to Olympics in next four years, did you believe it or did you act like someone who believed it until it actually became true?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I believed it because he showed confidence in me as an 11 year old.

RAJ SHAMANI:

The Birth of a Champion’s Mindset

MICHAEL PHELPS: Something that he saw of me in the pool gave him confidence that he could do that. He had already trained and worked with previous Olympic coaches, Olympic athletes, and he saw something. And honestly, I think back to the question you asked earlier. He then became a father figure in my life, right? Because I literally spent 25 years traveling the world with him. I mean, basically my whole entire life was hand in hand with him. Everything we did, swimming related was together.

And you know, I think once I did make that Olympic team, that really made me trust him because I was like, for me, when I made that Olympic team and I got fifth, I was pissed. But I was hungry, right? Because I didn’t want a piece of paper that somebody said, “Congratulations, you came and competed.” It’s not why I came. I came because I wanted something around my neck. That’s it.

So I remember that day after my Olympic final in Sydney, the workout paper he wrote down, it said “WR” on the top of it. And for people who don’t know, that means world record. And I was like, “What’s this?” He goes, “You’re going to break a world record in six months.” I was like, “Okay, sure, let’s see what happens.” Sure enough, six months later, I break a world record. So like again, that’s where the whole trust really opened up.

Breaking Down to Build Up

But I think from the time I got with him to the time I was 15, he basically just broke my strokes completely apart. Like he started from scratch. I had some good things going on with my body and how I swam and the reach. Obviously I have super long arms, long wingspan, short legs, really strong legs, short but wide. My quads are huge.

So for me, when I got to him at 11 years old, I still remember back in the day, people who don’t understand swimming, a six beat kick is three kicks per one stroke. So it’s 1, 2, 3 with your legs per one stroke. So he was teaching me the importance of a six beat kick. It wasn’t at 11, I forget what age it was, but he said, “Every time you drop your legs in a practice and you don’t do a six beat kick, I’m going to kick you out.”

The first day I got through like 500 of a 6,000 yard workout, kicked me out. Next day 2,000, kicked me out. Next day 2,500, kicked me out. Next day 3,000, kicked me out. Next day 4,000, kicked me out. By the end of the week I got to a full workout and from that day forward, I never dropped my feet for a single stroke of freestyle for the rest of my career.

Did I agree with what he was doing? No, it sucked getting kicked out. It was absolutely miserable sitting there watching my friends train and be in a practice. I learned the importance of the small technical points that you have to have in order to be able to go wherever you want to go, right? It’s almost like a college level class. You can’t take the thousand level class without taking the 1 through 9, right? So there’s a process through it all.

And he taught me that process throughout my career. And we were able just to sharpen up those tools, right? That’s really all it became. Because throughout my career we ended up just trying to shave off hundredths of a second. How do you shave off 5/100 of a second? Is it a turn? Is it a kick? Is it a streamline? What is it? Is it dive angle? How do we do it? So it’s trial and error, but it all started from those years when we first started working together.

Whether it was mindset, whether it was goal setting, whether it was preparation routines, you know, that’s where stretching came into play, all that stuff to just get your body prepared. My warmups were the same at every single meet from the time that I was 13 or 14 to the time I retired. It didn’t change. 8, 6, 4, 2 or 6, 4, 4, 2, every single warmup.

RAJ SHAMANI: Who was more ambitious, you or your coach?

The Evolution of Ambition

MICHAEL PHELPS: You could probably say both of us at different stages of my career. Because I think leading up to 2008, I don’t think there was anybody more ambitious than me. Post 2004 or 2008 to 2012, he was way more ambitious. He wanted, and I just wanted nothing to do with the sport. And then when I came back, I think we both wanted it. When I came back to finish in 2016, we were both equally as hungry and wanting to finish, I guess, what we had started the right way.

Because I mean, I’ve said this and I’ll say it a thousand times more, there’s not a coach on this planet that could have helped me, coached me to be able to do what I was able to do. Not a single person. I was an ahole. I was a little s*head to coach. I know it and he’d say it too. And I’d say the same about him.

But you know, I think again, it’s the passion that we had and we learned a lot about each other through the process, right? It was, you know, he had to adapt, I had to adapt. Because I wasn’t that 11 year old kid that he once started working with when I was 30. Right. So just that change that we had to go through was important for us to have the relationship that we had for as long as we had.

RAJ SHAMANI: Your coach also said people around you, everybody to not say the word Olympic. When was that? What was that story?

Beyond Just Making the Team

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, my mom, when I made the Olympic team in 2000, she fully decorated the front yard with all these American flags and this, that and the other. And my coaches, Bob goes, “This is the last time you’re ever going to do this. Never again.”

And I think, because it’s like, I mean, I think looking back at it now, I would say because the goal wasn’t just to make the Olympic team. That wasn’t the goal. The goal was to win an Olympic gold medal. Not just be a part of the Olympic Games, but win the Olympic Games, be a champion at the Olympic Games.

So I think once you get caught up in just making the Olympic team, then sometimes you might slip and not pay attention to the small details that are going to help you be your best self at the Olympic Games. Right. I mean, I see it and I see it with athletes that have been on Olympic teams with me. Right. They have this dream of making an Olympic team. It’s making, that’s it. Just getting there. It’s not actually doing my best time at the Olympic Games and potentially coming home with hardware. That was my goal from day one when I had my first Olympic race.

RAJ SHAMANI: You got to go.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yes. But it’s, how do I get faster than my trial swim? Right. For me, I wanted to drop. So in the US we have Olympic trials and top two people in each individual event get to go. There’s over 2,000 swimmers at that Olympic trials and a maximum of 52 people will be on an Olympic team. 52 out of 2,000 plus.

RAJ SHAMANI: And those 2,000 will also come from?

MICHAEL PHELPS: All over the place. Yeah. So for me, when I made my first Olympic team in 2000, it was about dropping a second from Olympic trials to the Olympic Games. Drop one second. If I can do that, then I’m in the realm of winning an Olympic medal. Right. So I dropped 98/100 of a second and I missed a medal by less than 3/10. And I had to wait another four years to have another chance.

RAJ SHAMANI: How did you feel? You were 15 when you entered Olympics. You were the youngest in the world to do that.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Youngest since 1932.

RAJ SHAMANI: And then you end up coming fifth. How did you feel? First time, 15 year old, youngest person, fifth.

The Fire of Fifth Place

MICHAEL PHELPS: Pissed. Upset. They gave me a piece of paper like you have in front of you that says, “Good job, you competed, you got fifth.” I don’t want to get fifth. I’m not there to get fifth. I’m there to hear my national anthem play. That’s it.

I mean, obviously that was a stretch for me at that time, but I think having that opportunity of getting fifth and representing my country and being at the biggest stage at such a young age, I think just only prepared me naturally for what was going to come.

RAJ SHAMANI: But you messed up in your first Olympics game, right? I think you forgot your paper.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Oh, yeah, I forgot my credential. Well, I didn’t forget my credential. I took my roommate’s credential. I was roommates with another one of the younger guys on the team and we had our credentials just on the handle of a door and I just ended up grabbing his instead of mine. We looked nothing alike.

So I ended up going to the pool and they wouldn’t let me in the pool. I didn’t have my credentials and I tried to go back to the village and I couldn’t get on the bus or get back in the village because I didn’t have a photo of me on my credential. So that kind of delayed my warm up and my process of getting ready the slightest bit.

And I mean, I don’t think that threw me off. I mean, because still I didn’t even tie my suit before the race. My strings of my suit were just tucked into the top of my suit, which is, I mean, they’re not going to fall off. The suits are so tight and so small, they are not going to fall off. No shot. But I mean, I just wasn’t prepared, you know?

I think the biggest thing I learned from that moment is just understanding what needs to take place at the most pressured moment. Right. You know, for me, yeah, I’ve gone to the Olympic trials, but I never experienced what an Olympic Games was, what a swim meet on different soil feels like. And especially in Australia, where swimming is the number one sport. Right.

I mean, the floor was shaking. I remember it vividly. The floor was shaking. Because there was an Australian in my heat next to me who ended up getting third. I mean, literally, it was vibrating. There was 18,000 people on one side, and then all the media and the dignitaries are on the left. And, yeah, I mean, everything just threw me off.

RAJ SHAMANI: What was going on in your mind?

Deer in the Headlights

MICHAEL PHELPS: I was a deer in headlights, just scared, not really knowing what the hell to do. But I knew that I had to just get up on the block and race. And that was something that still, to this day, I miss. I loved competing. I loved racing more than anything on the planet. A chance for me to get up versus the rest of the world or versus my teammates, my competitors in the US and have a chance to show who is the best. Yes. Every single time.

Because naturally, I’ll always go to that next level because I don’t like to lose. So, yeah, getting fifth, it was terrible. It sucked. But again, I truly believe, had I got a medal, 2004 might have been different. Right. You know, me falling short of a goal there probably gave me more motivation to rip into that next four years to make sure I don’t have that feeling again. I don’t have that sadness or that disappointment again.

Yeah, it took me a lot to just make the Olympic team, but still, getting there again, you got to wait four years. I don’t want to wait another four years. So, again, I want everything to be perfect when I have that chance. And I think having 2000, I think, gave me the chance to do my trial run in 2004 to prepare for what was to come in 2008.

RAJ SHAMANI: So when you came fifth with the paper, you came home, and now you’re like…

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t even know where that paper is.

RAJ SHAMANI: Whatever that thing.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Honestly, it’s just like a participation. Yeah. And she’s like, “Here.” And I’m like, “I don’t want…”

RAJ SHAMANI: And then you came home, and you’re thinking, 2004 is going to be my year. I’m going to come back home with gold medal. If I could place a camera in your head, what was going on in your head, first day when you just came back from…

The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I knew, back to that story of getting back into training the day after. That’s something that naturally athletes don’t do coming off an Olympic Games. You kind of take that four weeks, two to four, four to six weeks, four to eight weeks, kind of just to recover, to get back into that cycle to prepare for an Olympic Games.

But for me it was right back into it. Because in the sport of swimming, when you miss one day, it takes you two days to get back to where you were. So if you miss two months, it’s going to take you four months to get back to where you were.

So for me, from 2000 into 2001, I didn’t miss a step. I was right back into training. I mean, I would say I probably did a 5k over 5k. I think I did like eight two hundreds or ten two hundreds backstroke long course in lane one in the Sydney warm up pool the day after the 200 fly in 2000.

And on the top of the paper it said “WR in six months at Nationals.” And I went to Nationals six months later, which were world championship trials for that following summer in Japan. And the last 50 I came back on the existing world record holder at the time, Tom Malchow. And I ran him down 10, 15 meters to go and I broke the world record 1:54.92.

And that kind of catapulted me into that next summer. I won my first World Championship at 16 and re-broke the world record. And then from that point forward, re-broke it in 2002, re-broke it in 2003, re-broke it in 2004 when I won the gold medal.

It was just—did I—no, I didn’t break it. I didn’t break it in 2000, not winning the gold medal, but I did break it in that year. In that calendar year I just went on a tear. And I think once I got that taste of success, that was, for me it was, what else can I do? How much faster can I go?

And I think that’s when we started expanding and swimming different events. I was swimming the 200 IM, I started swimming the 400 IM, the 100 fly, the 200 free, the 200 back. In 2008, I was the American record holder in the 100 freestyle. I just became super versatile.

And that was something that we started back early when I was working with Bob because we had a goal back then of trying to be top 10 in the world in every single stroke: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

RAJ SHAMANI: But you took four days off from 2000 to 2004?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Pretty much, yeah. Because I had wisdom teeth. And I think maybe I wouldn’t even say I got sick. I mean, even if I was sick, I was still in the water. I was still training.

RAJ SHAMANI: Because you’re so obsessed with training and you believe that even one day off is going to take you two days back. Why do you even take four days off then?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I had to. I mean, I had to later in my career for certain surgeries. I had hand surgeries throughout my career. But I think at that point it was, if I’m not taking the opportunity that I have, then somebody else is going to take that opportunity away from me. And I want the opportunity to be mine.

So for me, it was, I think it was all about control. What can you control? I can control not getting sick by taking care of my body. So I think naturally over time, I learned how to take care of my body.

RAJ SHAMANI: And did you feel guilty on the days when you were off? Do you feel bad? It sucks?

No Blueprint for Greatness

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah, I mean, it sucked because I was missing an opportunity and a chance. But once you’re going through surgery, if you have surgery, then it’s kind of like you need to give your body some kind of recovery. I don’t think it really hurt taking those days off because I think then after that it was like I went on a six year stretch where I didn’t miss a single day.

And a lot of people say, “Why?” And I say, “Why not?” There’s no blueprint on how to win eight gold medals. There’s no blueprint on how to break 39 world records. There’s no blueprint on how to win 23 Olympic gold medals. The only thing you can do is trial and error.

For me, yeah, I mean, I would say I became obsessed, but I think it’s that fine line between obsession and passionate that I always started with. And I was overly passionate about trying to be the absolute best.

For me, at such a young age, I had a goal of doing something that no one has ever done in the sport and also changing the sport and taking it to a new level. So there wasn’t going to be anybody that was going to stand in my way of doing that.

I looked up to Michael Jordan and what he did on the court, on the basketball court. And no matter what he was going through physically, mentally, personally, when he was out there performing, he left every single ounce on the basketball court. He had the flu. The flu game still dropped, what, 50, 40, 45? Right. There was just no excuses.

For me, every single day is an opportunity to get better. No matter how yesterday went, if you had a bad day yesterday, today is a different day, period. That’s it. You can’t live in the past and you can’t live in the future. The only thing you can do is live in the present.

RAJ SHAMANI: Walk me through four or five techniques or certain things that you would do in that five, six years of training where you were truly preparing to win gold. Before you actually go there, I’ll tell you. One of the most watched Michael Phelps video is a clip by me, which is funny on the Internet because I was researching for this podcast, and I typed on YouTube “the most watched Michael Phelps.”

And in that clip, I’m explaining where in one interview he said that there was a phase in your life, probably six, seven years, where somebody’s asking you, “What was the reason of your success? Why do you win?” And you say, “Just train every day.”

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: And they say, “Small things.”

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: And then you said, “No, train every day.” No Christmas.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: Nobody, nothing. No flu. Just train every day. And that clip is ruined for some reason. But explain me what happened in those six years.

Treating Your Body Like a Ferrari

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, it’s basically really is, what can you control? What is in your control every single day? And it’s like, you’re eating, you’re sleeping, you’re drinking water, you’re stretching. If you’re sore, you’re lifting, if you’re trying to get stronger, you’re working on your endurance and staying in your endurance level, working on heart rate, if that’s what you’re trying to improve.

There’s so many different little, small things that you can do depending on what your goals are. So for me, it’s how can I be prepared every single day?

If I go back to that point, after the 2000 Olympic Games, it was probably 2002, 2003, where I started doing ice tubs. It’s recovery. How can I recover my body and my mind every single day to make sure that my body, if I’m treating it like a Ferrari and I want it to go that fast, every single day, I have to recover. I have to treat my body with love.

So if I’m not eating, if I’m not stretching, if I’m not drinking water, if I’m not sleeping, if I’m not staying off my feet, if I’m not all of these small things, then I don’t have a chance to be my best during those two to four hours when I’m in the pool every single day.

So it became literally a full time job at the age of 15, 16. Because, I mean, I was professional at 15 or 16 years old. So I treated it like a job. Everything I did was eat, sleep and swim. Sure, I was in school. I was in school through high school, and then I took six months of credits at Michigan and decided that I needed to focus on swimming, and that’s what I did.

RAJ SHAMANI: Your coach was great.

MICHAEL PHELPS: We’d start in the morning with a training session and then I would go and eat a bunch of plates of food for breakfast just to recover from the 7,500 yard workout we just did. Go home, take a nap, wake up, eat something else, go back to the pool, train for two hours, go home, eat, sleep, wake up and do it all over again. It literally became a job at such a young age.

RAJ SHAMANI: Every day for six years.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Every day. Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: So, but your coach also created adversities during the training. What was it like? Why would you train, do it in the dark, do it without water, do it—

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, there were so many different things she tried to do just to physically or just to mentally prepare us, I think, for things that we were going to go through or could potentially go through.

RAJ SHAMANI: Tell me, what was three—

The Power of Over-Preparation

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, he would break my goggles or step on my goggles on purpose to teach me to make sure I had a backup pair. And naturally, in 2008, my goggles fill up with water as soon as I dive in. And I had to revert back to a training habit that I did to help me count strokes to get through that race. And naturally I hit the wall at the right time, but I was able to win and I was able to break the world record too.

So, you know, I think the things that he did, like breaking my goggles or I’ve had my suit rip, right? And during that time, if you’re getting ready for an Olympic final or a world championship final and your suit rips, your emotions are going to change, right? So I was able to then because of what I went through, whether it’s from the breaking the goggles or going 10 workouts a week where I’m going 10,000 meters every single session and going 100k, bang, bang, bang. Just every week.

I think it just gets you relaxed in those super high pressured, tense moments when all of these lights are on and there’s millions of people staring at you. Oh, and by the way, we’re swimmers, so we’re half naked, you know, so it’s like. But I think that’s what it was like. He was just obsessed with being over prepared, you know?

Yeah, it’s probably a little psychotic in ways, but, you know, looking back at it, I understand why he did what he did, why he challenged me mentally when things were uncomfortable. Right? I remember having to swim without goggles. It sucks. Your eyes hurt, right? They burn after swimming for two hours without goggles. Trying to swim a race without goggles, no, it’s not fun.

But after doing that, I learned. And naturally, my cap rips at the Olympic final, as I’m getting ready to get up on the block for the 4 by 200 free relay. I have to naturally calm myself. I asked for a teammate’s cap, and I know that I can’t represent his brand, and I know I can’t represent his name, so I had to flip the cap inside out and just some of the black cap. But in that moment, you’re calm because you prepared for it, right?

The Three-Tape Visualization Method

So, I mean, even visualization. Visualization is something that we did my whole entire career. And it would be three different ways: how you want, or you would play three different tapes, how you want the race to go, how you don’t want the race to go, and what if. Right, and how. And what if this happens in the race? How do you adapt? How do you adjust, right?

So it doesn’t matter what happens. Whenever I get there, I’m prepared. If I lose, if my cap rips, my goggles break, they fill up with water, it doesn’t matter because my emotions will stay in check. And if you can handle your emotions in the most tense, pressured situations, then you’re able to be the best version of you, right?

So, going back to 2008, I think it was, you know, for me, I think it was, lack of better terms, I was in the Matrix. Literally, time slowed down. I was just all right, cool. I’m more prepared. Let’s go. But it’s preparation and it’s, again, yeah. Had I not done those six years, I probably don’t get the exact results that I had.

Deposits in the Bank

You know, this is something that I always hope that people can relate to. But when you’re trying to accomplish a goal, you know, obviously it’s not going to happen overnight. There has to be little short interim goals through that process to reach the big goal.

So through that process, my coach and I would always say, you know, coming to practice, that’s a deposit into the bank, right? And four years from now, I hope our bank account is massive because when we go to the Olympic games, I want to withdraw that whole entire account and just put it on the table and say, “Let’s go.” Right?

So it’s again, it’s just a way of looking at preparation and what you’re doing every single day. Because greatness is really, it’s just a bunch of small things that are done well, stacked on top of each other. That’s it. It’s really not that hard.

RAJ SHAMANI: You said he was almost psychotic. What’s the most psychotic thing he did?

A Married Couple’s Arguments

MICHAEL PHELPS: Him and I have gotten in so many different arguments and, I mean it’s almost like we were a married couple, you know, just fighting over the smallest little things. It’s crazy.

I mean, I remember there was a time, I forget how old I was, but I mean, like I said, I was a little shithead. And we were doing 400’s free long course and I was supposed to be going under 4:25 or around 4:20. And I wasn’t, I was just going slower and just pissing him off on purpose. And he was like, “You’re going to go these times or we’re going to start over.”

And I had 10 or 15 seconds before the timer went off where we were about to do the next repeat. And I looked at the clock and I just didn’t say anything. And right as I was getting ready to push off, I just said no. I went back under the water and naturally when I was training I always had to bilateral breathe. I had to breathe on both sides.

So he was on my left side, I’d have to go three right, three left. So I ended up switching it that day because I went three on my right and then I went to my left and saw him the first time and I was like, f* that, I ain’t going back to that side. I just kept breathing to my right.

Never forget, he came down to the other end, was chasing, throwing his arms up in the air, whistling, whistling crazy. And he threw a bunch of kickboards and pull buoys down on top of me as I was flip turning. I just kept swimming. I just kept swimming. We had a talk shortly after that. We both expressed some frustration, but you know, again I think it was just the passion that we both had and I wouldn’t change it.

Because, you know, I’m sure I did some things that pissed him off and frustrated him throughout our time together. And likewise, there are some things that he did that pissed me off. And, you know, if you asked me if I would change anything that I did or do it differently in any way, shape or form, I wouldn’t. Not at all.

You know, I think it’s kind of allowed me to be the person who I am now and feel comfortable in my own skin. And I was able to learn a lot through again, the craziness that we went through. I mean, I’ve thrown water bottles at him. It’s been bad. I’m really sorry, grandpa. Sorry. I’m bringing this all out. People have seen videos of it, though, because that was on a video that was on a documentary that we did.

Working in Hundredths of a Second

No, it’s just the passion and again, it’s the frustration because for us, we were trying to work in hundredths of a second, right? You know, two of my Olympic medals were one combined by five hundredths of a second, right? I won the 2400 fly by four hundredths and 2800 fly by a hundredth. Right place at the right time. Yeah, for sure.

But it’s also hitting the wall at the right place at the right time with the right amount of force, moment and speed. But it’s also being able to judge when to go all out and when not over swim a race and this, that and the other. So again, it’s everything we did, it was a full blown chess match and we were able to damn near perfect it.

I broke seven world records and won eight gold medals. It should have been eight for eight in 08, but it was eight for seven in 08. But yeah, it was awesome. And I think again, having the opportunities that I had later in life, whether it’s 04, 12 or 16, I don’t talk about 12 because I hate that Olympics because I didn’t swim very well. But it wouldn’t have been possible without those things that I did back in the early 2000s, from 04 or 2000 to 04.

And then that transition from 04 to 08 when we were at University of Michigan and we assembled the training group that we had there that was one of the most iconic training groups, you know, in my opinion, that we’ve had. There was every single day there was a handful of the guys that were just going at each other and by saying at each other, it was just competition after competition after competition. Every single stroke that you took during practice, and it was something that I just thrived from. I love being in that kind of environment.

High Standards

RAJ SHAMANI: You know what I really love about you and your coach? Partnership. The more I read about it, I’ll tell you what I really love about you and your coach. You both kept each other on very high standards. There was an incident I was reading where he didn’t show up because he was sick. And you texted him that, “Why would I have a coach if I have to coach myself?”

MICHAEL PHELPS: So I said, I was ruthless. I was absolutely ruthless. I was such a jerk. But it was any time that I had the chance to come back at him, I took it. And I was, I remember that. I was like, “Why the hell am I swimming for somebody else? You’re my coach. If you’re not here, why the f* am I here?”

I think I literally said that also to the point, because I knew it would piss him off. There would be times where I would just say things on purpose to make him mad, because it was fun and I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed getting under his skin. And I also knew that if I did ever want to get kicked out and I didn’t like the practice, that I could make him pissed off and say something, and he would toss me.

So there weren’t many times like that. But, yeah, I mean, I knew what to say to get a reaction, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted a reaction.

RAJ SHAMANI: And one thing that you just mentioned and your coach, you guys did almost every day, there was a videotape technique. The visualization in your head.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: Walk me through it. If somebody who’s watching this right now, someone like me, who wants to become an absolute champion in whatever they are doing, what is that visualization technique? What would you do? Sit down in your room every day?

The Visualization Process

MICHAEL PHELPS: I would just lay down. It would be, you know, if I’m getting ready to go to practice or, you know, if I just have 30 minutes to lay down on the couch or lay down my bed and just visualize.

RAJ SHAMANI: So what are you thinking? Let’s say just walk me on.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah. So it would be.

RAJ SHAMANI: What’s going on in your head right now?

MICHAEL PHELPS: In a perfect situation, say I’m swimming the 200 butterfly. If I’m swimming the 200 butterfly, what does a perfect race look like? A perfect race looks like a great start. Good entry, 8 to 10 dolphin kicks pop up right before 15 meters. Take 16 to 17 strokes. That first 50. Hit the wall with speed and momentum on a full stroke. Get out into open water. Kind of make the rest of the competitors deal with my wake and my waves and make them fight through that so it’s harder for them and they have to use more energy. Hitting the wall, breaking a world record, how the race doesn’t. Or, you know.

RAJ SHAMANI: Yeah.

The Perfect Scenario and Controlling the Controllables

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, the perfect scenario, like, no matter what it is, are you going in for a work pitch and you’re trying to get your company to, or you’re trying to get another company to sign your company? Then it’s a home run. The perfect video is your vision of it going perfectly how you want it to, how you dream it to be.

How you don’t want it to go is you get touched out by a hundredth of a second because you screwed up a wall, or you misjudged a turn, or you didn’t have the right start, or your preparation wasn’t good, your warm up wasn’t good. All of those things. So it’s trying to almost really make sure your ducks are in a line and every little small piece of that puzzle is fit into the right spot.

And then how the race could go would be, what if I wake up and they don’t have the same food that I’ve been eating every other day? Or what if I wake up 20 minutes late? Or what if my suit rips? Or what if my cap rips? Or what if I get sick? All of these things are already played out. So once I get to the Olympics or once I get to world championships, if it does happen, I’m like, all right, cool. If I get sick, doc, what do I need to do? We got team doctor, what I need to do to make sure I can get out there to compete and be my best.

I mean, again, it’s another form of preparation, because I feel like if you get into a situation that you’re not prepared for or you haven’t thought of, then you’re not able to be your best self. So I guess in a long way of saying it, it’s controlling the controllables.

Controlling the controllables is something that a dear friend of mine, Greg Hardin, taught me back in 2004. And it’s really just such an easy quote and a powerful quote because you can really relate it to so many things in life. If I’m thirsty, you saw my water just explode. So I was trying to break the ice. So I’m going to have a drink of water. If I’m tired, I’m going to go take a nap or I’m going to go to bed earlier tonight than I did last night. It’s literally that simple.

What do you need to get ready for a meeting? X, Y and Z. You have a list. Do those three things. If you don’t do those three things, you’re not fully prepared. You’re going to go to that meeting and you’re going to be like, “Oh, shit, I wish I would have done that.” Well, tough break. Because you didn’t. And if you don’t learn from doing it that way to get ready for the next time, then what are you doing?

So it’s different ways to look at preparation. And for me, again, I became obsessed with it because I wanted to have the opportunity to be great. I didn’t want anybody else to take that opportunity from me. I wanted to earn it. So I prepared and I worked harder than anybody else did, period.

RAJ SHAMANI: But would you play every day in your head that you’re winning the perfect race?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, that’s just for big meets. I’m just visualizing for big meets. I’m not doing it for every day. I’m not laying in bed tonight and being like, “What’s a perfect day tomorrow?”

RAJ SHAMANI: Not tomorrow, tomorrow.

MICHAEL PHELPS: No, it’s more just six months before a race, before a big meet, just kind of getting ready into that mindset. Because when that moment comes again, World Championships, you get a little bit more often than the Olympic Games. But the Olympic Games, you got to wait four years. You know how long four years is to just have a chance to go compete and represent your country at the Olympic stage? It sucks. It’s awful.

But that’s what I’m saying. If you’re not prepared, somebody else is. Especially at that level, because people do obsess. And winning a gold medal, to have the chance, well, to win a gold medal, it’s less than 1% of 1%.

The Broken Goggles Race

RAJ SHAMANI: But for six months, you would play the perfect, perfect hiccups, the failure every day in your head. So there was an incident where you won a gold even when your goggles almost broke. There was water inside your goggles, you couldn’t see, there was blackout, and you still won. How many times did you play that in your head? Or how many times did you practice with broken goggles before even you actually get…

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I think when my coach broke my goggles and I had to swim a race without having a pair of goggles, I think taught me to always have a backup pair. And when that happened, I was just like, “Okay, I guess I got to figure out what I’m going to do.”

And I think for me, at that time, I reverted back to what I did in training, because every single one of my 200s throughout my career, every one of my 200 butterflies throughout my career when I was competing, first, second, third, and fourth 50, all were the same strokes. 16, 17, 18, and then 19 or 20, depending on how many kicks I took off the last one.

So I was like, all right, cool. I’m just going to revert back to what I do, because in training, we do these things called stroke and time 50s. So if you’re trying to go 30 seconds, then you take 20 strokes. 29, 19, 28, 18, 27, 17. So for me, naturally, I just started counting my strokes after the first, well, I guess right when I dove in, because I realized I started counting my strokes as soon as I dove in because I realized that they weren’t going to stop leaking.

And also, I was unable to take my goggles off because when I would swim, I would wear my goggles, one cap, two cap, another cap. So I couldn’t rip all of it off and swim with no cap or goggles. It just wouldn’t be good. So I ended up counting my strokes at the first wall at 16, second wall at 17, third wall at 18, fourth wall is 19 or 20. I don’t remember, but ended up winning a gold medal, breaking a world record. And you can go back and look at that video. I was honestly pissed after I saw the time.

RAJ SHAMANI: Why?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I could have gone faster. I should have gone faster. I think I could have gone at least a half a second faster than that. For sure, 100%. Just because of the goggles. I was firing on all cylinders going into the Olympic Games.

RAJ SHAMANI: But why would you be pissed when you broke a world record? You won the gold.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I wanted to go faster. That’s me. Honestly, I didn’t hit the goal that I wanted. The goal is hitting a certain time. It’s not winning. It’s not winning a gold medal because I know if I get to a certain time, I’m the only one that’s thinking about doing it. I’m the only one that’s doing stuff every single day to get there. So if I hit that time, the rest will take care of itself. Nobody else will win that gold medal if I do that time.

RAJ SHAMANI: And what was going on in your head at that microsecond when you knew that goggles are… Did you go like, “Oh, shit, what do I need to do?”

MICHAEL PHELPS: There was nothing I could do at that point. I couldn’t. That was out of my control. The only thing I could do was what was in my control, and that was try to win the race with what was at hand. I knew I was the most prepared person there. I just had to worry about my stroke. I had to worry about counting my strokes. That’s all I did. 16, 17, 18. And then, bang, 19, 20 ripped off and I was like, 1:51.5. I should have been 1:50 point. Should have won 1:50 for sure.

I thought, honestly, I truly thought I could break 1:50 in the 200 butterfly at some point in my career. I only went 1:51. I think I could have gone a second and a half faster at some point in my career.

RAJ SHAMANI: That’s insane. Even after breaking a world record or winning gold, you would not be happy about it.

MICHAEL PHELPS: But it’s the goals. For me, I just held myself to such a high standard and I put the most pressure on myself. Didn’t matter what everybody else was saying or doing. The one person who put the most amount of pressure on me was me. Because it is in my control. I’m not going to be able to skip two weeks, a month, six weeks, eight weeks, and just wake up one day and break a world record. You have to do the work. If you’re not doing the work, then skip it. Do something else.

The Alien Phase: Beijing 2008

RAJ SHAMANI: Tell me about that phase, which a lot of people call it the alien phase, which is your 2008 Beijing, where you won eight gold medals, you competed in eight races, and you won all of them. There’s never been an athlete in the world till now who has ever gone that far and have won so many medals. What was that phase like, that alien phase where everything you touch, you would turn it into gold?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, during those games and from 2007, 2008, those two years, I truly felt unbeatable in the pool. I really did.

RAJ SHAMANI: What did you feel like, unbeatable?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I literally felt like there wasn’t a single soul on the planet that could touch me, that could beat me. I just felt like I was super prepared. You know, everyone says it’s that 10,000 hour mark. I think 2007 was my 10,000 hour mark. And then it just kept getting better.

I mean, 2007, those World Championships in Melbourne were, I might even say performance wise, were better than what they were in Beijing. I mean, the times that I did, the amount that I was breaking world records by, I mean, they were body lengths behind me.

Again, it’s just the preparation that I had done years prior that were showing. That’s all it was. If you go out and buy a piece of property and you want to build a house, you can’t snap the fingers. You just got to put it up one brick at a time. And that’s what I did one day at a time.

Leading up to that point, you know, 2004 was obviously a learning process for me. It was a great experience winning six gold medals. But I think it truly just prepared me for what was coming in 2008, to make sure that I was overly prepared, obsessively prepared for every small detail because I knew how hard it was going to be to win seven, let alone eight.

RAJ SHAMANI: What was different about that phase?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, coming off of 2004, obviously, you know, this is my first gold medal. So, you know, 18, 19 years of dreaming of winning a gold medal, and it happens. You win a couple of them, you get off of that Olympic Games, and then literally every headline is, “Michael Phelps fails because he doesn’t win seven gold medals.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about? This is a joke.”

Honestly, though, to just have the chance to win one was incredible. But winning six in an Olympics and then winning eight in the next Olympics, I was just prepared. I mean, even going back to the quote that Ian Thorpe said going into 2008, he said, “No one will ever win eight gold medals in an Olympic Games.” That for me is motivation.

Everything I did during that time truly was about trying to be as perfect as I could. And perfect was going 8 for 8. But again, I was competing against somebody who is pretty much fresh every single time. People go to the Olympics and they might swim one or two races.

RAJ SHAMANI: Exactly.

MICHAEL PHELPS: And I’m swimming a total of 17 races, 18 races in eight days.

RAJ SHAMANI: That was insane, right? That’s a training…

MICHAEL PHELPS: It’s a full training week. During that week with all of the warm ups, warm downs, so that’s 2,000 meters for warm up, 2,500 meters for warm up, 2,000 meters for warm down, doing it twice a day, plus all the racing. I mean, I’m swimming, I was swimming 60,000 meters during a competition week.

There are people that don’t even train 60,000, 65,000 yards or meters a week, period. So again, everything I did from 2000 to the first step I got with Bob, from him destroying my strokes and recreating them into what they were throughout my whole entire career got me to that point.

The Routine of a Champion

RAJ SHAMANI: You started competing on the 10th of August, and then 10, 11, 12, 13. There was only one day. I think the 15th of August was off.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I had the morning off. Yeah, I had a morning or an afternoon because the finals were in the morning for that Olympics. More typically they’re in the afternoon or nighttime. I had one. I typically had one session off every major competition. And by that point I needed it. Yeah, I was so tired by the end of those meets, man.

RAJ SHAMANI: Did you sleep the whole day, on the 15th when you got an off between those events?

MICHAEL PHELPS: No. During an off day, I would wake up normal time. I would stay on that schedule, that routine. I would wake up and I would have a morning splash. And I literally would do 800 to 1,000, not much. I was supposed to do more, but I never did.

And I would just go and just kind of feel, just feel how I was feeling, see if I needed to get a little massage or whatever. I needed a stretch or something before the finals. Go have lunch, watch a movie, play some games. I don’t know, we were always playing spades or risk hearts, some kind of game to kill time.

But yeah, I mean, it was a pretty normal day. I wouldn’t really think about much. And by the time the afternoon came, we always have a team meeting before we would go over to the final session. And from the team meeting it was headphones go on. No one talks to me or I don’t talk to anybody. They might talk to me, but I ignore absolutely every noise.

Get to the pool about two hours before my race, stretch for about half hour, dive in the warm up pool 90 minutes before my race, and then do my warmup, get out, dry off, put warm clothes on 30 minutes before my race, get my racing suit on, jump back in the pool for three to 500. Just kind of stroke play, kind of feel my body, make sure everything’s going, get out, walk up for the race 15, 20 minutes beforehand and then bang, that’s it. You get either, I mean, my races were anywhere from 47 seconds to 4 minutes and 3 seconds.

The Power of Goals and Discipline

RAJ SHAMANI: Did you ever feel like taking an off in that alien phase?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Taking off?

RAJ SHAMANI: Yeah, like an off day of training or maybe just you didn’t feel like, today is not the day. I’m sure there must have been at least one day where you must.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, yeah, but I think the goals that I had were too big. They were big enough where I couldn’t take a day off. I couldn’t.

RAJ SHAMANI: What did you tell yourself on the day when you were feeling sick and you didn’t want to get out of bed?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, for me, when I would get out of bed, the first things I see are my goal sheets. Literally first thing I wake up, they’re on my desk, they’re on my bedside table. Because I want to know why I’m waking up. What is the purpose of that day?

Yeah, I might feel like shit, but if I can get 10%, if I can get 20%, if I can get 50% out of that day, then isn’t that better than getting zero? As long as you’re not taking a step backwards. Because if you are, try to flip that car around and go a different direction. Try something different. Because taking steps back just, it crushes you. Absolutely crushes you.

RAJ SHAMANI: So what does a goal sheet of a world champion look like?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, for me, they were broken. All of my times were broken down into 50s. So if I’m swimming a hundred, it’s broken down the first 50 and the second 50 and then it has my total time. They’re down to the hundredths of a second every day.

RAJ SHAMANI: You would have this.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I just see, I see. So I would have short term goals and long term goals. Long term goals are what times do I want to swim at the Olympic Games or World Championships. And then the short term goals are what times do I need to hit this season in order to give me a chance at the end of the season to rip 154 in the 200 IM or 155 in the 200 IM.

And then, yeah, it’s just, I mean, and then I basically, I would write down basically 100, 200 free. He would always make me do the mile at least once a year. I f*ing hated the mile. 100, 200 back, 100, 200 fly, 200, 400 IM. Because I would swim all of those races throughout the year. And I had sometimes from a breaststroke race too.

But yeah, I mean, for me, for the 400 IM, I knew that my strokes had to be at a certain level in order to do the times that I needed to do in the 400 IM to be able to add those times together to make the right splits. And it all came from what I was doing every single day.

If I’m going in for a practice, my coach, Bob, would show me the practice. Be like, “These are, this is what we’re doing today. We’re doing 10, 400 back or 10, 200 back, short course. And the last one, I want you to try to go 140.” I’m like, “All right, cool, let’s go on 40.” And I would start and just descend my way down to that time.

And he would give me goals every single day of what to hit in practice because those goals then were hand in hand with what I was trying to do long term. And if I did that every single day, whether it was freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, IM, it didn’t matter. I was doing those times back to back to back to back to back to back to back every single week. Why? Because nobody else was.

What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I was doing different things over and over again, expecting different results I knew I was going to get because again, there wasn’t another person on the planet that was more prepared than me in those last two decades of my career on this planet. There just wasn’t. That’s why I was able to have the success that I did.

Competing Against the Clock

RAJ SHAMANI: Was it all about competing yourself, the old version of you, or was it about competing with other people who would come as your competition in the Olympics game?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I was competing.

RAJ SHAMANI: Were you competing against yourself or others?

MICHAEL PHELPS: No, I was competing against the clock. That’s it. Against the clock. That’s how my sport was defined by a time. How fast can you go? And again, if the times that I dreamt of, and I believed that I could go, were faster than the world record or faster than what other people believed, if I did those times, guess what would happen? I’m going to win. So for me, it became a numbers game.

RAJ SHAMANI: But it said that you knew your competition better than they knew themselves for sure. Why would you say that? Would you study on them?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, I knew how they would swim their races. It’s easy.

RAJ SHAMANI: Would you study your competitors the way they would do style? What would you study about?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I mean, I always learned things from them. I would go back and, if you talk about Ian Thorpe, I would learn from his freestyle and how he swam and his kick and his underwaters and just how his body moved in the water.

I took a lot of core exercises from different countries that I would see on the pool deck, just because if they’re doing it, then I can do it and I can beef it up. I can alter the exercise and change it and make a hybrid.

But Lochte, I mean, I swam against Lochte for 15 years, 10 or 15 years. So I felt like I knew him almost better than he knew himself, just because of the history that we had. And of course, yeah, I watch a lot of tapes.

I mean, I don’t have any connection to the sport anymore. Now, there are a couple international people that I talk to, a couple international athletes that I talked to, but I have zero connection with anything to do with the sport of swimming anymore.

But yeah, it was just, I don’t know, studying them. Yeah, you just, I mean, because you yourself can only do so much. So if you can’t learn from others or others that have come before you, then you’re just never going to grow. And again, it was always back to that goal of wanting to change a sport and take the sport to a different level.

Proving the Doubters Wrong

RAJ SHAMANI: And talking about Ian Thorpe, he also said it’s very highly unlikely that you will win eight gold. You taped that quote on your locker room. Why would you do that?

MICHAEL PHELPS: It was in the back of my locker in Michigan in 2008. Because it’s kind of like the same story back to my teacher. My teacher telling me I’d never amount to anything and proving her wrong. And if a friend of mine and a competitor of mine is telling reporters that it’s not possible to win eight gold medals, guess what? I’ll have the last laugh.

And Thorpe is a great friend of mine, always has been. But even after that, and then after 2016 in Rio, because he said no one over the age of 30 will win an Olympic gold medal, he sent me a text right after, and I was giving him shit for it. And he was like, “Dude, I know how your mind works. I was just giving you a little extra motivation.”

But no, I always like proving people wrong, especially if they doubt something that I think is possible. I think one thing my coach took out of my vocabulary was the word “can’t.” Because if you say you can’t do something, you can’t, your mind has already made it up for you. You made that choice. Don’t do it. Don’t think about it anymore. Don’t think about whatever that was. Move on from it, because it’s going to be exponentially harder since you told yourself you can’t.

So it’s such a negative word. So we removed it from my vocabulary. And for me, I just believe that whatever I did, whatever I dreamt of, excuse me, let me take a step back. Whatever I dreamt of was possible based off of the actions that I did. It’s back to that quote. Actions speak louder than words. What you do every single day, how you show up, when you show up, it matters. And it’s going to matter at the most important time. So yeah, that’s it.

The Fear of Losing

RAJ SHAMANI: Would you ever imagine yourself losing a race?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah, why not?

RAJ SHAMANI: What if I lost?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah. Because I never want it to happen. So of course. Yeah. To do that. Yeah. And what if I get second by a hundredth of a second instead of winning by 100th of a second? Yeah, I’d be pissed. But the only way I can change that is controlling what I do every day. So maybe I have to prepare better.

RAJ SHAMANI: And was it any.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Well, I think the better answer to that, I remember my losses more than I remember my victories because the feeling of defeat I never wanted to have again. Because it feels like when you lose, it feels like shit. When you fail, it’s not, it doesn’t feel fun.

So for me, I looked at it as if I failed, it was my fault because I didn’t prepare. I didn’t take the time to focus on the small details that are going to help me down the road. So those defeats motivate me even more to never have that happen again.

RAJ SHAMANI: What’s about losing that you hate so much?

The Mindset of a Champion

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t like the feeling of somebody being better than me. No, honestly, I think that’s what it is. I think it’s like, you ask the greats or the goats of all sports or probably all walks of life and I think they’ll say they hate losing more than they enjoy winning. It’s just that feeling of defeat. I just don’t like it. It’s just something I don’t enjoy.

And if there is something in my control, in my power to make sure that I have a chance at least to succeed, then that’s what I’m going to do. And if I fail, and I fail because that person is more prepared than me, then so be it. But I’m not going to show up unprepared. It’s just not who I am.

RAJ SHAMANI: Did you use any psychological warfare sort of tactic against your competitors which you secretly would use and not share it with anyone?

MICHAEL PHELPS: No. I mean, I would say some people probably think me doing my back slap and clearing my throat on the block was a form of trying to get in their head, intimidation. It wasn’t. The clearing of the throat, I don’t know when that came in. I feel like it was maybe post 2008, but my arm slaps, I’ve been doing those since I was 8 years old, 7 years old. I’ve done that my whole life. So it’s just a part of what I needed to do in order to get as prepared as I can be.

And if what I’m doing is messing up them, it’s not my problem, it’s not my fault. I’m taking care of me, I’m taking care of me and I’m focusing on what I need in that moment. I don’t give a shit about my competitors. In that moment I could care. Why? Why would I care about them? I’m trying to beat them. I don’t care what they’re doing, I don’t care anything about them. When I’m on the pool deck, it is a full blown war. I want to absolutely destroy somebody.

No Room for Fear

RAJ SHAMANI: Was there anyone you secretly feared as a competitor?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Feared? No. I beat everybody.

RAJ SHAMANI: Even in your head. You would not be like, maybe this new guy or somebody’s better than me or someone’s going to beat me.

MICHAEL PHELPS: If I was prepared, why would it matter? I didn’t care. I didn’t care who you were. If I smelled blood in the water, I’m going to destroy you. I was like a shark.

The First Gold Medal

RAJ SHAMANI: Tell me, the first time you won the gold medal at the Olympics, how did you feel? 2004, first time ever. Because that’s what you wanted, right?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah. I mean, going back to 2004, 400 IM, I was in the center of the pool. 4:08.26, maybe somewhere in there. I remember turning back around and seeing that I had broken the world record, won the gold medal. First gold medal. We were in an outdoor pool in Athens, Greece. The Olympics had started. I remember looking up and just looking for my mom, my mom and my sisters. I caught them and then I was on the award podium hearing the national anthem play.

We’re actually, the US went 1, 2 in that race. Eric Vendt got second from lane one or eight, I forget which one it was. And he came jumping across the lane line and we hugged and celebrated. It was f*ing awesome. That kid is one of my favorite humans on the planet. I love training with him.

And then once we got our medals, that was day one of the meet. I had the 200 free, I think the next day or a relay the next day or something. And I remember sharing it with my mom through a chain linked fence. I passed it through the fence and we just talked about it and we shared the moment for I think it was a total of like 30 seconds. And I was like, “Mom, I did it,” and that was it.

And from that point I heard my coach whistle. Bob whistled. He had a couple different whistles that meant a couple different things. And he whistled like the one trying to get my attention. And I turned around and he just pointed at the warm down pool. And he was like, “Let’s go, we got to warm down.” I hadn’t warmed down from the race yet, so I needed to clear my lactic acid to get ready for the next day and my next race.

Living in the Moment

So I think that was the first time for me where I learned that I couldn’t get caught up in that one moment. Even though it was special. Yeah, I just won my first gold medal, but I had five or six other races that I had to get ready for. So that gold medal is like, all right, finished. What’s next? Onto the next race.

It’s crazy. Throughout my career, I don’t know, in the actual moment with a gold medal around my neck, I don’t think I really enjoyed it or lived it as much as I did in 2016 because I knew it was my last one period. I knew I wasn’t coming back. And that’s why the tears started coming out during the national anthem when I was on the podium, just because of going back and thinking through every little moment throughout my career.

But in 2004 and 2008 and 2012, I couldn’t use those emotions up in that way because I had so much other stuff going on that week. So it really was trying to manage that physical and emotional energy throughout an 8 to 10 day program. So yeah, I couldn’t enjoy those moments as probably as much as probably people would have thought.

But I think for me, after retiring, I’ve been able to kind of go back and put myself back in those spots. And it’s been really cool just being able to look at each medal and tell you exactly what was going on in my head or who I was swimming against, who I touched out, this, that or the other. Just trying to break it all down. Because I think that at times there’s still that thought. You’re like, is that a dream or did that really happen? So you still got to pinch yourself every now and then.

RAJ SHAMANI: But winning the gold medal, getting it in your hand, you’re standing at the podium and you’re not thinking about that feeling of winning. You’re just thinking about, okay, tomorrow, next race.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yep. I couldn’t because I had to make sure that in that moment, I had to make sure that I was getting the right recovery. If I was finished for the night and I had warmed down already, then I’m like, all right, am I getting back on the massage table and then right into the cold tub to then go back and eat? Am I eating first? What am I doing? Is there food here? Do I have to eat a Power Bar or something like that now? Or Carnation Instant Breakfast just to give me some energy before I get back to the village? Yeah, it was one thing in front of another.

I mean, even in 2012, I swam the 400 IM, which, f*, I still probably shouldn’t have swam it, but whatever, it was a learning experience and I did it where I got fourth. I got fourth and missed the podium. And that was the very, very first day of the Olympics. So at that point it’s like, all right, well that didn’t go as planned. So now how do you redirect yourself and your energy to make sure that doesn’t affect the rest of the meet?

So I just threw it out, just forgot about it. Next day I came back and had an unbelievable split on the relay and then kind of built momentum back from there. But yeah, it’s really living in the moment. And I think it’s, I still haven’t mastered it, but I think throughout my career it was something that I was really good at.

The Power of Now

I think there’s a book that I have probably read a dozen times, “The Power of Now,” Eckhart Tolle. It’s incredible. There’s something really to living in the moment and I think it’s something we can all learn from. You guys have heard me talk about having four kids and those four kids do it perfectly. They live in the moment, every single waking moment of their life right now. And I think there’s just a lot of power to that.

It’s something that I try to do at every moment of my life. It is hard, this complicated world that we live in. But I think if that’s one thing that you can try to do, it’s living in the now. I think it truly allows you to be the best version of you.

RAJ SHAMANI: What about the time when you won all eight gold medals after that? There was nothing to look forward to. At least during that time. Did you not enjoy that as well?

MICHAEL PHELPS: There wasn’t nothing to look forward to because at that point I had just done something that no one else had ever done, that I had literally set my life to do, to try to do.

RAJ SHAMANI: So did you enjoy that feeling a lot?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah, it was awesome. But I was just like, all right, cool. I just need space from the sport. And that’s when I kind of stiff armed the sport a little bit and just wanted to be me. I wanted to be a kid. I learned a lot about myself that way too. Put myself in a couple different situations throughout my life.

But I think, if I can understand a little bit of what you’re asking, for me, the sacrifices that I gave up throughout my career allowed me to have the opportunity that I had in the swimming pool. And I don’t regret giving those things up. Throughout my career, yeah, would it have been cool to go and party with your friends or go on a road trip for the weekend? Yeah, sure. But isn’t it really cool winning 23 Olympic gold medals, too?

So for me, it was almost like I have this opportunity to do something really special, and I’m going to have that same opportunity to do whatever they’re doing right now in 15 years. So it’s just like lock in and just go.

Only Gold Counts

RAJ SHAMANI: You know what’s funny? Because you just said 23 gold medals. I was listening to somebody explaining an interview which you gave, and the interviewer asks you that you have won 28 Olympic medals in your life.

MICHAEL PHELPS: No. Yeah, 23.

RAJ SHAMANI: And you said no, just 23. That counts.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t even know how many silver and bronze I have.

RAJ SHAMANI: Anything which is not gold doesn’t count in your life.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, it’s like I said, I don’t like to lose.

RAJ SHAMANI: So silver is losing.

MICHAEL PHELPS: We are sacrificing second, right? You got second place. We lost. Third place, you lost. Yeah, it’s losing. I don’t talk about the other five. I went 28 for 30. Here’s a better way of saying it. I medaled in 28 out of 30 of my races at the Olympic Games. 23 are only the ones that we need to talk about because, again, I was unprepared in the other ones. Somebody else was more prepared than me.

RAJ SHAMANI: So in 2012, when the bad phase started and you won four gold medals in the Olympics and you were sad.

The Mental Game: Preparation and Presence

MICHAEL PHELPS: About it, yeah, it sucked. I just won. But at that point, I think I was sad because I just wanted to be done with the sport, you know? I think at that point I was just over it. I wanted space. I wanted to be a kid. I wanted to just grow up a little bit and not just literally all be about swimming.

I think for me, that’s when I really kind of stiff arm the sport. Because all I had done was swim, swim, swim, swim, swim. And I think at that point I was like, what else do I need to do? There’s nothing else that I need to accomplish. And I just kind of rebelled a little bit and did my own thing and then realized that I still wanted it and came back in 16.

But yeah, in 2012, the 200 fly, if I don’t have a shitty first, second, third turn or hit the finish with any amount of momentum, I win the race. If I win that race, I probably don’t come back in 16. So it’s like, for me, 2012 was, I think that Olympics was worse than the 2000 Olympics. And I came back with six medals. I hated swimming then. I hated it. I didn’t want to do it. I did it because I had to. I was contractually obligated. I had to. If I didn’t compete, I lost all my sponsors. So I had to swim. I did the best I could with not doing much work. I mean, I literally trained less than two years of that four years from 2008 to 2012.

RAJ SHAMANI: You still ended up with four goals.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I don’t think I was 100% in Beijing.

RAJ SHAMANI: Yeah, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about that. Right.

The Beijing Injury: Overcoming Adversity

MICHAEL PHELPS: I broke my wrist six months before the Olympic Games, in 08, before the Beijing. I spent three days out of the water and had surgery 24 to 36 hours afterwards. Right there. There’s a scar still. And there’s still a pin in there. I have a titanium pin in there. Slipped on a piece of ice.

RAJ SHAMANI: But you gave what you had.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I slipped on a piece of ice, my wrist snapped back, and there was basically looked like a golf ball coming out of my wrist, and I just popped it back in, held it, and had surgery the next day. Yeah, but no, I truly don’t think, six months before the Olympics, six months before trials. Six months before Olympic trials.

RAJ SHAMANI: And you still ended up winning eight. All eight.

MICHAEL PHELPS: But I was probably only at…

RAJ SHAMANI: But here’s what I don’t understand.

MICHAEL PHELPS: 85%, 90%, but…

RAJ SHAMANI: Okay, explain me this, right, 2004, six medals. 2008, eight medals, gold. 2012, four gold medals. And 2016 again. But you say that only 2016, where you’ve given 100%. Yeah, before that, London was not 100.

MICHAEL PHELPS: London definitely wasn’t.

RAJ SHAMANI: Beijing wasn’t 100%.

MICHAEL PHELPS: 04 was, but 08, I don’t think I was fully at 100%. No, that’s what I’m saying. You asked earlier, the 200 butterfly. Yeah, I was pissed. Even though I broke the world record and won the gold medal because I knew I could have gone faster. That’s what I’m saying. I truly coming off of 2007, that was arguably probably better than 2008, even though I only won seven, because I should have won eight. But our morning relay got DQ’d, so disqualified.

Yeah, 2007 was unbelievable. That best year of my career. And then broke my wrist six months before trials. Yeah, that recovery was brutal, but we did whatever we could and, yeah, it ended up working out, but yeah, it could have been better. And I think being better, I say from a times perspective, a times standard, I think the times that I did there would have been faster had I not broken my wrist, but that was my fault. So whatever.

Rio 2016: The Iconic Staredown

RAJ SHAMANI: What was going on in your head in 2016? Because I heard there was a competitor who said Michael Phelps should shut up. And then you were sitting in the…

MICHAEL PHELPS: I think he said, shut up. I don’t remember hearing that.

RAJ SHAMANI: But somebody that was, there was a news about it, right? And then he was shadow boxing in front of you, and you gave him this felt faced look, which is really iconic.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, for me back then, it was kind of crazy. I was on a mission. I didn’t care really what anybody said, what anybody did. If anybody got in my way, I was going to push you out. I was just on an absolute tear. I was feeling the best I had felt in years.

And I remember seeing Chad shadowbox and I was like, what are you doing? I don’t ever remember seeing him do that once prior to that point. And it almost looked like it was on purpose. It looked like it was on purpose right in front of me. And honestly, for me, it just pissed me off. It pissed me off more than anything else.

And I knew there were going to be two cameras, one in each corner. And I looked at both of them and I was like, because I saw the red lights. So if you see the red light on a camera on the bottom, you know that thing’s rolling. So I was like, man, they’re going to have a field day with the reaction and the facial expressions that I had, because I don’t really hide my emotions well, right? If I’m pissed off, you’re going to see it. If I’m happy, you’re going to see it. It’s just how I am.

And yeah, I think the best photo for me coming from those games or one of the best photos was him looking like this during the race, as I’m a half the body length ahead of him, and I end up winning the gold medal. Right. So I think that’s a lesson within itself. Right. Focus on you and what you’re trying to do, not what others are doing. And don’t try to intimidate other people, because it’s only going to waste your time and your energy. That’s it. Right. Focus on what you got to do. Do, period. Cut and dry.

Winning by Hundredths: The Art of the Finish

RAJ SHAMANI: I was watching that video where in the 2016 Rio, you race, and just the moment you touch the wall, you just come up and you do this.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Oh, yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: You knew, you knew that you won. Yeah, 0.01 second, which made you win, just…

MICHAEL PHELPS: It was a close one. That 200 fly. Had it been 201 meters, I probably would have lost the race. But yeah, I just, you just know in those moments.

RAJ SHAMANI: But 0.01 second, how did you know that you won it? It’s just 100th. It was pure instinct to go that extra half stroke.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, yeah. In 2008, when I did take that half stroke. Yeah, you had to, because it was all situational. For me, in that moment, I start judging the wall 10 to 15 meters before the end of the race, before I get to the wall. So unfortunately, I didn’t judge it very well there, but I hit it at the right spot, right.

So I was always taught to hit it with force. You got to hit it with force because if you kind of baby it, it doesn’t stop until you really hit it. So the half stroke that I took won me the race, and the glide stroke that Michael Kavic took lost him. If you look at the video, he’s going like this. He’s finishing like this with his body. His neck and his hands are completely out of body position. So, yeah, 100th of a second.

RAJ SHAMANI: So you were so focused on yourself, you didn’t care about anyone else, but what in your body knew that you won? Because until you look at the board or anything.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Yeah.

RAJ SHAMANI: I mean, you just came out of the water.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, the very first thing that I do when I finish is snap turn and look at the board.

RAJ SHAMANI: Okay.

MICHAEL PHELPS: I know where my lane is. I know where my name is. And if there’s a, if I see this, yeah, that’s it. There are some races where I’ll win by a body length or two body lengths, and you don’t even have to look at the scoreboard.

But some of the races, I mean, I think if you add, it’s like six of my races together, eight of my races, no, it’s probably six. I think six or seven of my races together. The margin of victory, I think six or seven of my Olympic gold medals, the winning margin is less than half a second.

So, yeah, it’s preparation. Yeah, it’s being in the moment, the right place at the right time. But I mean, I practiced those finishes that I did in every single one of my races a thousand times, 2,000 times, 5,000 times, 10,000 times. So when I’m in the race, you don’t think. You just be. That is it.

Pre-Race Mindset: The Shark in the Water

RAJ SHAMANI: And what goes on in your head when you’re on the podium?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Nothing. I’m singing the national anthem. That’s it.

RAJ SHAMANI: No, before even the race starts.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Oh, when I’m on the block.

RAJ SHAMANI: On the block.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Nothing. Zero. I’m not thinking of my start. I’m not thinking of my breakout, my kicks, my streamline. I do my normal stretch my legs on the block, my arm slap. That’s it. I don’t think about anything. There’s nothing I can change in that moment.

RAJ SHAMANI: But right before the race, you’re not thinking about winning, you’re not thinking about beating, competing?

MICHAEL PHELPS: I’m like a dog trying to get out of the cage. Just let me out of the cage. No, I’m like, again, I’m the shark in the water. If I smell the smallest ounce of blood, I’m going to destroy you. And I mean, you can tell people who are nervous being in the ready rooms too.

RAJ SHAMANI: It’s…

MICHAEL PHELPS: It’s obvious. That’s why I always have my headset on. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just want to listen to my beats, listen to the lyrics or whoever I’m listening to at that moment, just to put me in the moment, to put me in the zone.

RAJ SHAMANI: And you would listen to Till I Collapse.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Eminem. I mean, it was everybody. Yeah, I mean, M. Wayne.

RAJ SHAMANI: Tell me top three songs you always listen to or you used to.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Oh, man. Before you would get out, it’s all Lil Wayne stuff. To be honest. A lot of it was, let’s see, Lil Wayne says, well, Till I Collapse is Eminem. Lil Wayne was, I guess, Emily. Those are big ones. Back in Young Jeezy was a big one. I mean, every one of Eminem’s albums, Biggie, there wasn’t really one song that stuck out. It was kind of a hodgepodge of songs that were just going through, I don’t know, kind of whatever would put me in the mood.

And honestly, I think during each competition week, it would really get narrowed to probably just a handful of songs. And I would just repeat. I get off the bus, restart the song, walk out to the pool deck, restart the song, and I always try to get it in a certain spot of the song before I took it off, just to give me one final little motivation before I dive.

The Phelps Protocol

RAJ SHAMANI: I mean, here’s the last question, because I know we’re running out of time. If somebody listening to this and want to build the same kind of mindset that you have, the same kind of things that you have done in your work, they want to do it in their work, and they could just pick up three specific principles or habits or rituals or mindset from you. What would that be? Let’s say we call it the Phelps Protocol. What would that be?

The Philosophy of Dream, Plan, Reach

MICHAEL PHELPS: It’s so hard to narrow it into three different things. I think one of the things that I really live by is dream, plan, reach. Right? Like, we all have a dream of something that we’re trying to accomplish, and if you don’t have a plan that goes along with that dream, then you’re going to be lost. Right? And then, honestly, it’s just reaching for it.

Look, was I afraid to drop all of my other sports and just focus on swimming? Of course. But I also was able to learn that it was the best decision for me. Right? Like, I found something that I love, I enjoy, and that I was pretty good at. So I think it’s really just keeping it as simple as you possibly can. What is your goal? And figure out the smallest little details that you need to get there, to reach, to just have a chance to get there.

I think that’s the biggest thing, is people want a chance to do something. But if you’re not doing the things that it takes to give yourself a chance, then all it is, is words. It’s back to the “actions speak louder than words.” I think it’s just what you do, holding yourself accountable for things. But again, it’s what can you do right now? It’s not yesterday, it’s not tomorrow, it’s right now.

It’s trying to simplify every little small detail. Again, I say this a hundred times. My career wasn’t rocket science. It was just a lot of small things that were done well over time, and that’s it. Don’t have an excuse. If you didn’t want to do it, say you didn’t want to do it then. If you didn’t want to do it, then your goals didn’t matter. Right? If your goals are something that matter to you, you’ll never have an excuse, period.

For me, yeah, there were days where I wanted to hit snooze and not get out of bed, but those goals were important to me. That’s what pushed me. It’s the same thing now. How can I give my kids the best chance to succeed in this world? What does that look like? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, but I’m trying to figure it out.

For me, that’s all I think about. That’s all my wife and I think about every day, is how can we be the best parents to give them the best life to succeed however they want? Whether that’s in the pool, whether it’s in a classroom, I don’t care. I just want them to be the best version of themselves.

Daily Habits and Accountability

So it’s, what do you do every single day? What are your daily habits, and what are your daily routines that prove that you are trying to be successful and you are trying to be great? Because if your habits aren’t aligned with those things, then you need to look at yourself in the mirror and figure out what you’re doing and who you are or your goals need to change.

I don’t know if that answered the question, but it’s just, I always hear people, whether it’s a weight loss goal or this, that, or the other, “Oh, I really want to do this.” And you’re like, well, what have you been doing? Nothing. “I’ve been meaning to do this.” No, just go do it. Literally, just go out and do it.

I didn’t want to go into the gym today. My head just wasn’t great this morning, whatever. But I went in and I got done, and I was like, I feel different. You feel different when you set your mind to something. I got in the gym this morning, I was like, this is going to suck. And I was like, I’m going to put my music on. I’m going to put McAfee on TV. I’m going to stretch. And by the time I stretched, I was excited, and I was ready to try to get stronger. 20 minutes, 30 minutes before that, I didn’t even want to come into the gym.

So it’s just, it’s crazy to me that if you try to or if you force yourself to do something that you don’t want to, when it’s uncomfortable, how quick your mind and body comes back around and you’re not in that sh*y mood or depressed mood or unhappy mood. For me, that’s why I work out still every day. Because if I don’t, then I’m not giving myself the best chance physically and mentally. Because for me, for 25 years of my life I swam damn near every day. Some form of exercise. So that’s what I have to do now for me to be the best version of me.

There’s no excuses. I have to get in there for an hour, hour and a half plus, no matter what, no matter how I feel. Tomorrow I’m going to be sore as hell from the weights today. But you know what? If I get through tomorrow, the next day is going to be even better. And then I am going to build muscle and I am going to get stronger. It’s that process of it. It’s the process of things that I think people don’t like or skip or give up after a week, two weeks, three weeks into it.

Building Habits Through Repetition

Trust, it takes 30 days to create a habit. It takes 30 days to get rid of a habit. For me, throughout my career I would do different habits. So when I’m in the pool, I would learn and create different habits for strokes or repetitions or streamline or kick outs or this, that and the other. So naturally after a 30 day period, it becomes second nature. You don’t have to think about it. It’s a part of who you are.

So I don’t know, I mean, I guess the easiest way to say things is simplify it. Break your goals down in the smallest terms, smallest things, and take a little bite out of each part. If you try to conquer everything at once, you’re just going to fail and spin and it won’t be good.

RAJ SHAMANI: But what now, doesn’t it feel empty because there’s nothing to look forward to? What are you looking forward to now?

The Mental Health Mission

MICHAEL PHELPS: I mean, for me, everything I’m trying to do in the mental health space. Suicide, the second leading cause for people 10 to 34, that’s frightening for me as somebody who has thought about suicide multiple times.

RAJ SHAMANI: What got you out of it?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Just being able to learn more about who I am and being okay and understanding that it’s okay to share and talk about the things and the feelings that I experience where in the past all I would do is compartmentalize and shove them down. But I think over the last 10 years I’ve learned that it’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to have a hard day. But what did I learn from it? How can I try to be better? How can I try to not have it affect the whole entire day? Who can I talk to? Who can I go see? What can I learn more?

For me, I just want to ask questions. And I know there are so many people in the world that are probably suffering from similar things that I do, whether it’s depression or anxiety. And for me, I want them to get the help and care that they need and deserve. Being able to see a therapist or having the chance to see my first therapist, it saved my life. And who knew that just talking about things would make you happy and make you freer and just be your normal self?

So, yeah, for me it’s chapter one of my swimming career. Yeah, it was incredible and it was something I always dreamt of. But for me, I think the next chapter of mental health and trying to destigmatize it still or get people the help and care they need and deserve, or trying to learn more about it, I just think it’s so unknown to so many people.

The Power of Vulnerability

I guess for me it’s trying to help people become vulnerable because vulnerability is a scary word. But if you allow yourself to become vulnerable, then you allow yourself to grow and you allow yourself to change. And sometimes change isn’t always bad. So, yeah, I could talk for hours about it, but for me, the mental health journey and what I’m trying to do on that front, yeah, there’s no timetable. It’s just going to be a never ending thing and something I look forward to. For me again, being able to save a life is way bigger than ever winning an Olympic gold medal.

RAJ SHAMANI: I heard the president of this country say something like, depression isn’t a thing. Get busy working so hard that depression doesn’t even affect you. And in your case, you were working so hard and still it hit you. Do you buy what he was saying?

MICHAEL PHELPS: Depression is something, it is a thing.

RAJ SHAMANI: Do you think it won’t affect people if they’re just busy working day in and day out?

Understanding Depression and Self-Care

MICHAEL PHELPS: I think, for me, I can speak from my personal experience. When I did that, I just ended up stacking a bunch of stuff on top of each other and compartmentalized it inside of me. And then I just erupt like I’m like a volcano. So for me, when I go through depression, it feels like the room is shrinking on top of me and I do feel all alone.

And it doesn’t matter if I go work out or if I go and do my everyday errands, I still feel like sh and I still feel really dark and the thoughts that I have aren’t good. But I think for me, it’s when I do have those moments, I’m lucky that I have the tools that I have to help me get out of them. And that is whether it’s going to talk to my therapist, whether it’s calling my therapist, whether it’s calling my men’s group that I’m a part of, whether it’s calling a friend, whether it’s talking to my wife, whether it’s journaling, whatever it is.

There are things that I have, whether it’s getting in a cold tub, whether it’s sitting in an infrared sauna, there are so many different things for me as a self care checklist that if I’m not doing those every day, that I’m not being the best me.

I guess I agree to disagree with this comment then because I think if you have your routines and you stick with your routines, then, yeah, you’re going to be the best version of you and you’ll learn more about yourself. But if you do compartmentalize and shove the things down, they’re only going to come back stronger and harder. So, yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t ignore depression spells, I wouldn’t ignore anxiety.

Those two are things that I can talk about because I struggle with and I get anxiety when I have to go and speak in front of 2,000 people. But it’s a part of me. So you’ll see me, I’ll spin my ring or I have crystals that I’ll take and I’ll just kind of ground myself. They’re just things that I’ve learned that work for me.

Living With Depression and Anxiety

Yeah. And I mean my depression and anxiety are never just going to leave me. I can’t snap my fingers and have them disappear at will. I can’t. It’s not possible. They’re a part of who I am. I don’t want to say I’m thankful for it, but they challenge me. They challenge me to learn more about me and how I work. And I guess I’m thankful for it.

It sucks sometimes, and it’s really hard going through the rollercoasters of emotions that I go through. But again, that’s what makes me who I am. And I enjoy looking at myself in the mirror. This white beard and this man bun. I don’t see what I used to see. And I used to see somebody with a pair of goggles and a swim cap on, not somebody with feelings and emotions.

So, yeah, the journey that I’m on now is a pretty cool one. It’s a pretty fun one. You get some bumps along the way, but it’s part of life.

RAJ SHAMANI: Thank you so much. I’m thankful for this conversation.

MICHAEL PHELPS: Thank you.

RAJ SHAMANI: Thank you for coming here. Thank you for spending time. Thank you for taking us through your mindset.

MICHAEL PHELPS: For sure.

RAJ SHAMANI: It was really an honor to talk to someone like you. In middle of the conversation, you said somewhere, every time you go ask the goat of anything, they’re going to say this, this, this. And in my head I’m like, well, I’m asking the goat.

The Mindset of Champions

MICHAEL PHELPS: But it’s true. Honestly, I’ve gotten to know a bunch of them and a bunch of the real goats and legendary athletes. And our mindset and how we go about our everyday routine or schedule or job is pretty similar. It’s, again, that’s why I always say it’s not rocket science. It’s really not. It’s a mindset and it’s making a choice.

RAJ SHAMANI: If you had to give a name to your mindset, what would it be?

The Power of Learning from Others

MICHAEL PHELPS: I have no idea. I’m bad at that. No. I mean, I don’t know. It’s just, you know, when you say something like that, I don’t know if I can take credit for all of my stuff. Right. Because you know what we were talking about, knowing your competitors. I’ve been able to take, borrow what I’ve learned from, whether it’s other athletes or mentors or just people that I’ve come in contact with, and I’ve been able to put it into my terms in my way, and understand it that way. Right.

So I think it’s, you know, I used to hate talking to people. I used to hate talking in general, but I enjoy having really fun conversations with people. And, you know, for me, I’m still looking for different ways that I can change my routine to better myself. Right. From any conversation that I have. Right. Whether it’s a retired basketball player, football player, baseball player, politician, it doesn’t matter. Right.

For me, I’m just always trying to learn and I’m always trying to be better. Right. So, you know, in that process, yeah, I’m going to be my authentic self. But, yeah, whatever we learn, I think, from everybody and the people listening here, I wouldn’t say do it exactly my way, but, you know, the things that we talked about today, if there’s something that fits in a spot in your life or fits in your mindset or fits here, do it.

Because that’s what we’re all here to do. We’re here to help each other and try to help each other be great. I couldn’t have done this by myself. Yeah, I swam my ass off in the pool for 20 years, but it wasn’t all me. I think the more that we can work together, the more that we can accomplish.

RAJ SHAMANI: Thank you. Thank you so much.

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