Diving into the life and greatness of the greatest Olympian, Michael Phelps, from his book, Beneath The Surface


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4:30 - To find what you love, you have to suck at first

7:40 - How Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' coach, helped him prepare for competitions

“Champions produce normal and predictable results in abnormal and unpredictable circumstances

9:30 - First efforts aren't meant to work

12:20 - Michael's goal at 15, "“I want to change the sport of swimming… I want to change the sport of swimming. I want people to talk about it, think about it, and look forward to seeing it. I want them to want to jump in and do it. That’s my goal.”

14:00 - Volume wins. Michael trained every single day. Christmas. Holidays. Birthdays. Every single day.

16:45 - “When we practice long hours, we’re depositing money into the bank. We need to deposit enough so that when we make a large withdrawal, we have enough funds to withdraw.”

17:30 - Find different sources of motivation. "I use whatever I can to motivate myself."

22:30 - Bet on yourself . "If i were to win seven gold at either of the next two olympics, Speedo would pay me a $1 millions bonus for equaling Mark Spitz’ record for gold medals at one Olympic set in 1972. And unlike most contractual provisions, which remain confidential, we decided to talk about his one publicly."

25:50 - Daily routine."I’d wake up at 7a.m. and swim until 8:30 or 9. After that, it was a nap and at 3:45, we’d start up again. I’d get there at 3:15 to stretch. After swimming, we’d do between half an hour of dryland training. "

29:45 - Motivation leading up to 2008 Olympics,

"Leave it to Bob to grab the article that would set me off like a rocket. The article quotes Ian Thorpe, who was asked about my prospects for winning seven or eight gold medals in Beijing. 'I don’t think he’ll do it, but I’d love to see it. There’s a thing called competition. There won’t be one athlete competing and in a lot of events he has strong competition.'"

I then took the article and taped it to my locker. Whenever I look inside the locker each morning after arriving at the pool, the underlined story is the very first thing I see. If I'm dragging trying to accomplish what I need to do, I think about Ian’s words. Then I train a little harder.

33:00 - How/why he set records at Beijing

39:50 - Key takeaways

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