Michael Phelps broke a world record at 15 and learned to turn pressure into fuel through obsessive preparation: endurance work, perfect stroke, sleep, nutrition. He made small deposits in training every day so he could cash them in at the Olympics.
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Breaking my first world record at 15. That's when I was like, wow, this is actually meaningful. And what I'm doing is going to help me to be able to have the opportunity to accomplish lifetime goals. And it worked. Once I started getting on the international scene, I looked at pressure as what I put on myself. I didn't listen to outside pressure because I was always trying to be as perfect as I could in the pool and trying to do everything the exact right way that I knew how to. I always tried to turn pressure into a positive thing because that just allowed me to really be able to get into the zone and focus on something at a super high level. I think to perform under pressure, obviously you have to prepare. If you're prepared, it's going to go well, right? Like, it's common sense. If you walk into a meeting and you're not prepared, it's probably gonna go pretty bad. If I go to a meet and I'm not training, probably gonna swim pretty slow. For me, I had to make sure my endurance was good. I had to make sure my stroke was good and to make sure I was sleeping, eating right. I was always making small improvements. We would always kind of say, I made a deposit. We're making deposits into the bank, into like building my endurance, building my strength to then hopefully allow myself to withdraw everything that I did at the end of the year and have a good result. But also, I think you really just have to be focused, you know, in a big spot when the lights are turned on. There are so many people that get distracted from xyz and they're not focused on exactly what they want to do and what they're trying to accomplish. And I think that was something for me is I was always focused, you know, down the lane, down the pool. Going into 16, it was almost like it was the easiest Olympics that I really prepared myself for because I was engaged. I wanted to do it. I was preparing myself to retire exactly how I wanted to. And looking back at the Rio Games and being able to come out with handful of medals and be successful, that's what I wanted. So for me, you know, yeah, it was hard to get myself in the shape that I was in and be able to climb that top, that sort of mountain to get to the top. But it was enjoyable. And I know 20 years from now that I will be able to look back and say, I did everything that I wanted to in the pool.
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