Yep.  Phelps goes for Gold… yet again. ABC News Photo

“I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.” – Michael Phelps: “The Greatest Olympian of All Time”

M
ichael Phelps is the man. Nuff said. I haven’t really been following the Olympics too closely because I’ve been working my ass off lately (on the upside making a $).

But I did catch a bit of Phelp’s signature event, the 200m butterly, on TV today, which inspired me to write this article.

If you saw this, you would have realised that his goggles filled with water from the dive. If you swim, you know how tricky that makes it not knowing exactly where you are going. Especially in the Olympics.

But guess what. Phelps still broke the world record and won a gold medal.

Phelps is now enroute to eclipse Spitz’s tally of seven gold medals at one Olympic Games. Phelps has won five gold medals this week, all in world-record time, with the 200m individual medley, 100m butterfly and 4×100m medley to come.

And guess what Spitz has to say about Phelps?

“You haven’t seen nothing yet.” He could break his arm before Beijing, but as long as they have some duct tape, they can just tape him back up and he’ll swim — and win.” -Mark Spitz, 1972 Olympic World Record 7-Time Gold Medallist

Phelps, by the way, has hit a total of 10 gold medals, but before statisticians could even update their records, Phelps added another gold medal in the 4×200m freestyle relay, taking him to 11 gold medals with the title as ‘The Greatest Olympian in History.”

So is it as easy as he makes it seem?

5 Secrets to Michael Phelps Success (+ Bonus)

In view of the popularity of the Warren Buffett article on Living a Simple and Happy Life, I thought I’d write a bit on Michael Phelps, focused more on achieving success.

I spent (my very precious evening) researching facts, interviews and quotes I can find to put this together.

Overall, I can break it down into 5 different simple things he does.

They are: Struggle, Win, Prepare, Focus and Persistence

(and bonus secret at the bottom but don’t read it until the end…)

1. “Struggle“

“Every morning I wake up at 4.30-5.00, and it takes me a while to get up in the morning but it’s the Olympics, you have to. I need to recover as much as I can and it is crucial for the coming events,” – Michael Phelps

Phelps is no different from you nor I. He is human, and a creature of habit.

He admits struggling to wake up early in the morning. He loves to take naps in the middle of the afternoon.

The difference between you, me and Phelps, is that the Olympian is willing to put in the psychological struggle and emotional climb to move onwards and upwards. Imagine swimming for 10 hours+ a day, then taking daily ice baths to help his body recover from the grueling schedule. Imagine having to whoof down gargantuan amounts of pasta and pizza between races. He does manage to squeeze in 2 massages a day… oooh… that would make my day, but it’s definitely not as fun as it sounds.

Now that I have sort of left the rat race, I can wake up pretty much whenever I want and do what I like. But I have to constantly remind myself of my end goals and plan of action. It certainly has forced me to grow though. I have to push myself to get things done, instead of just watching movies all day or surfing random websites. Something we all do as a natural tendency.

So how do you counter such natural tendencies?

First, accept the natural tendency for us to be lazy, to be unproductive if given all the time in the world, to not challenge ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically…. and realise once you accept this that the only way to move upstream is against the current, otherwise you’ll be flushed downstream.

As Frederick Douglas one said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Celebrate the struggle, accept it if you want to move onwards and upwards. For better or worse, your future is determined in large part by what you dream of, and the steps you take and struggle you go through to make them come true.

2. “Win”

“I hate to lose. When you lose a race like that, it motivates me even more to try to swim faster.” – Michael Phelps

While talking about his two bronzes in Athens in 2004, Phelps insisted that he disliked losing, and ever since then, he’s tried to swim faster (see 1. Struggle).

“Four years ago I wanted to race and I hated to lose, getting third in the 200m freestyle and when I do lose in races like that it motivates me to swim faster,” -Michael Phelps

Winning and losing are interesting subjects. For one, I think the message behind what Phelps is saying is not about ‘winning’ itself.

If you read closely between the lines,Phelps is actually talking about the will to win.

The will to win = the passion, the desire. Not the medal.

Zig Ziglar once said something about how “winning is not everything. It’s the effort to win.” And I guess that’s what Phelps is referring to also. And part of that may involve having to take risks, make mistakes, and just take action to get somewhere. Something I need to do more often for sure.

Losing is a good thing. Start making mistakes. Start taking risks. Otherwise you won’t find your desire to progress nor get anywhere.

3. “Prepare”

“I prepare myself the best I can, to compete the best I can” – Michael Phelps

We all know that preparation is a virtue. But how many of us actually follow this religiously?

For example, I’m writing this post at 00:18 when in less than 7 hours I have to wake, then I am on-call for 96 hours straight. I haven’t even finished packing my bags for the weekend, nor am I anywhere close to where I have to be at 8 am tomorrow morning. I have to take a train, and I have no clue when it’s leaving.

Prepare!

And to top it up, there’s plenty of reading I’ve been wanting to do to ‘prepare’ for these next 96 hours, as I could be dealing with subjects that I am unfamiliar with. And you guessed it. I haven’t done the work!

That’s not what I would call great preparation.

I do fluctuate between being very prepared with certain things, and not so much with others. And I’m sure you do too.

I guess it comes down to deciding what’s important to you and in realising that while ‘practice may not make perfect, it will make better.’ I am a bit of a perfectionist so I do often have grand plans. So the lesson for me personally, is to be more organised so that I follow through. Work backwards from the end goal, and decide what steps need to be taken and make a plan to follow through with it.

4. “Focus”

“I have so many races, so much to do in every race, I have to keep 100 per cent focused. No matter how good, you have to force it out of your head,” – Michael Phelps

The mistake I used to make is to take on 10 projects at once, and never finish any one of them. At the earliest signs of an obstacle, I end up thinking it’s not worthwhile to pursue.

But then I realised that all my successful friends and mentors have one trait in common: they stick to one thing, and push through to the end until it’s complete and done with.

Focus is something I need to work on. My head tends to get like chattering monkeys. I’m probably an undiagnosed ADD. I come up with 100 great ideas, like to kick them off, but need to be more of a focused implementator.

I’m getting better at this now. I’ve now only got just a couple of things I’m focused on, and immediately have watched a rise in my income streams, and cut down on the signal to noise ratio.

Focus on one thing at a time, and give 100% on what you’re focused on.

5. “Persistence”

“If I didn’t swim my best, I’d think about it at school, at dinner, with my friends. It would drive me crazy.” – Michael Phelps

I have left this one for the very end, because it is probably the number 1 key to succeeding in anything. Desire and persistence. You have to want what you want and persist in getting it.

You see, the way I see it, if you want something badly enough and must have it, you will always find a way. ALWAYS.

You will do whatever it takes. If you want something badly enough, you will do WHATEVER IT TAKES. I am writing this in capital because as a self-affirmation actually. Whatever it takes means you will persist with no exception.

Notice I didn’t just say persist. I said persist with no exception. That’s a phrase I learned from Andy Andrews in Seven Decisions (great read if you haven’t checked it out, get it). And it makes absolute sense if I look back over my own life.

In my own life, alot of my friends think that I’m a natural and effortlessly get things I want, whether it be the dream job, money, girls, or whatever else.

It’s not true.

Look at Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett etc. Sure, they all have some talent and affinity to what they do best. And they never make it look difficult. But do you think they struggle? Hell yeah they do.

Frederich Nietzsche once said, “”The strongest have their moments of fatigue”. Just as a magician could make a magic trick look natural and simple, the reality is that they had to struggle alot to get it appearing that way.

“I’m the same kind of guy before all this happened.” – Michael Phelps

I don’t openly admit it because I do like the image of being a natural, just as Tiger Woods likes to make his swings appear effortless or Michael Phelps laps through looking so cool.

The truth is, EVERY step of the way to get the best things I want has been a struggle.

Persist with no exception.

“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” – Michael Phelps

It’s easy for us to look at successful people at what they do and because they make it look so simple, we think that they have some innate talent or magical ability to do it. That’s either because you don’t think you can succeed, or because you don’t want to think of success as work. My friend AJ was talking to me about this recently, and my personal take is that anything is possible, and that I can learn it too.

“I want to test my maximum and see how much I can do. And I want to change the world of swimming.” -Michael Phelps

I am also actually embarrassingly ambitious. Just as Michael Phelps wants to change the course of swimming history, I want to create some major change in this world. Who knows, maybe some day.

6. BONUS SECRET

“There is a one woman in China that claimed she paid $50 to get my e-mail address. It was pretty shocking. I got one this morning from Scotland. A girl’s requesting a signed photo of me.” – Michael Phelps

Haha. You gotta love this one. Yep. Part of a trait of most successful guys is an inflated ego.

Ok, I sort of mean this as a joke, but at the same time, it’s kinda true, with a few exceptions.

I guess you gotta love yourself if you want to do well, right? :)

FINAL CONCLUSION:

Prepare. Desire. Struggle. Persist. And Win.

And when you’re rich, famous and super successful, and the girls (or guys) are all over you, don’t forget to mention this post.

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