- For me it's just a whole different ball game.
You know for so long I was staring
at a black line in a pool.
You know like basically I was in the pool.
I would eat, sleep, and swim.
I don't know, I'm learning life all over again.
- Welcome to you Michael.
- Thank you.
- Good to see you.
You became the most decorated Olympian in history.
You say part of that of that was through visualization.
- [Michael] Mm-hmm.
- Can you explain exactly what you mean and how you used it?
- Well, whenever we're preparing for a meet or for a race,
we always would think of how we want the race to go,
how we don't want the race to go, and how the race could go.
So they're all based off of your preparation
and your training, right?
So as long as you're prepared for anything
that's gonna happen,
nothing catches you off guard,
you're not surprised, you can go in,
stay focused on what you have to
and go out and try to complete that mission.
So for us it was just really about the preparation.
'Cause that's the most important thing.
I've competed in five Olympics,
in four of them I was prepared,
in one of them I wasn't.
So I've done it in multiple different ways, and you know,
it's much better going to a meeting when
you're prepared and you're ready to go
instead of in La La Land and looking at the clouds.
- Right and you're saying that,
do you use it now in your life? After--
- I do and it's, you know it's actually crazy,
'cause it's like,
essentially it's the same thing, right?
Like it's the same mindset of
you know, what I'm trying to do outside of the water
compared to what I was doing in my career.
It's like, if I think of swimming
and what I was trying to do in the sport,
I wanted to change the sport, right?
That was the star that was in the distance
that I was always searching for.
And through that was my swimming career,
so it was the Olympics and
everything that went on in my career.
And it was a process,
so now it's just trying to figure out
what I want that star to be in the future.
- In a way there is a certain element
of what you're doing that is a business.
How did you first expand your brand
outside of being an athlete?
- I mean, it just goes back to
really what my goals and what my dreams are about
what I wanna do with myself, my life, and my brand.
So for me just trying to build a team,
but a brand that
I'm excited about and I love.
So for me being able to
not only start my own swimming brand
but continue to work with the partners
that I've worked with,
I mean some since 2001, 2002,
this has been just absolutely perfect.
I mean like,
I can't say enough like,
ever since I retired,
being able to now continue
to do everything that I love.
- [Lee] Mm-hmm.
- And still be able to have the support from my sponsors
and from everybody else who's helping
do what we're doing.
I mean 'cause,
the stuff that we have going on now, like you said,
could change how we look at the world.
And this is something that gets me excited
and gets me motivated every day,
and that's all I want to help me get out of bed.
- Have you been able to speak to other
similarly situated people
like a Michael Jordan or a Tiger Woods?
- Yeah, I mean I think Kobe is somebody
who's been super fun to kind of
pick his brain about a little bit about some things.
And, you know when it comes down to it
at the end of the day, it really just,
it's what your dreams and what your passions are.
That's the biggest thing and,
you know it's finding a way to get it done.
You know, like we've had the privilege
and the opportunity in our sports
to be successful or reach that pinnacle.
And we know what it takes to get to that top level.
So now it's always a challenge, I think,
for the athletes to find that drive
outside of the sport, right?
So it's a fun process and a new process.
- And we see a lot of young people in sports
struggle with money.
- Oh of course.
- Do you remember your first big check?
And the realization that made you understand
that this is life-changing money
and a heavy responsibility?
- I honestly don't even remember.
Like, I remember getting paid,
you know I signed my first contract at 15, 16 years old.
I probably couldn't even tell you
what I was making back then.
Like at that point I didn't know,
and I didn't want to know.
Because I knew as long as I kept swimming,
and as long as I kept training,
everything else would just kinda work out.
So I tried to never really get caught up in
how much money I was making or this, that and the other.
Because I was doing it because I loved what I was doing.
You know, I was just very lucky to have some good talent
and I had good work ethic.
But yeah, I knew, if I wasn't doing it in the pool,
nothing else would have come, so,
I took care of my job before everything else.
- But that was a level of maturity that's not common.
- It was just something I think,
you know once I got with Bob at the age of 11.
You know, he was just different than any other coaches
that I'd ever worked with before.
So I think just,
how prepared he was and, I mean,
how to like, very precise he is
to every little small detail.
I think seeing that at such a young age
just kind of helped me learn,
and he instilled a lot of those things
at a young age where, you know,
when I got older it was just easy
and it's all second nature.
- So he kept you grounded?
- Always.
- It's kinda like Cus D'Amato who, with Tyson,
when he says that as soon as he died,
my life spiraled out of control.
- [Michael] Yeah.
- Because you need that one person.
- You have to, yeah.
And he was great for me, I mean,
no matter how many times we'd get in arguments
and yell at each other back and forth,
he was the only coach and
probably the only coach in the world
who could've done what we did.
- Tell about your struggle with ADHD and depression.
- I mean, growing as a kid with ADD,
bouncing off the wall,
I'm still that way now, like,
I mean my head is,
I'm all over the place.
Non-stop go, go , go,
the whole entire day.
And for me as a kid growing up it was a struggle.
I mean, I didn't wanna go to the nurse's office
and take my medication every day.
Or I didn't wanna go through that
because I didn't wanna be different, right?
And for me,
I think that now has completely changed.
Because I'm now happy with who I am and I like who I am
so I don't care really what,
if somebody else doesn't like me
or has a negative opinion on me,
this is who I am.
What you see is what you get.
And for a lot of my career I think I was kind of,
I don't wanna say I had a mask on
but I wasn't really truly always my authentic self.
And that's what I'm doing now,
that's what I wanna do.
And being able to kind of grow from the experiences
that I had in 2014.
After my little bump in the road that I had then.
Being able just to look at myself
and like who I see in the mirror was a struggle.
So kinda going through that challenge
and learning more about me and who I am as a person,
I think was able to help me make that next step
to one, finish my career how I wanted to,
but also become a person who I wanna be.
You know, I looked at myself as a swimmer
for a long time and that was it.
Not as an individual.
So for me, learning all of these things
and experiencing these things at the age of 30
was new and it was different.
But it was something that definitely changed my life
and now, am I still gonna struggle with mental health?
Yeah, of course.
I'm still gonna have anxiety from time to time.
I just came out of a depression spell,
so you know, there are gonna be things
that happen throughout my life that
are gonna be normal for me.
Because it makes, that's what makes me who I am.
But for me now,
learning some of the things that I've learned
and picking up some of the tools
that I've picked up along the way,
to help me get through the struggles and the depression.
I mean, it saved my life.
You know, for me,
just being able to stand up and talk about it
I think it was something that was
a challenge but it helped me.
You know, and hopefully that can help other people.
And I know there are so many people that struggle
from the same exact thing that I've gone through.
- You said you just went through a depression spell.
What happens?
Can you just demystify it for me.
- Yeah, I mean, I can always see certain tendencies,
like sometimes I'll start to isolate a little bit or,
I might just not really be happy
and kinda be edgy a little bit.
And I just kinda know those signs
that something's not right so,
for me then it's like,
"Okay, take a step back.
"What's going on?"
Reassess every situation.
So then I'll go back in,
and I start looking at basically emotions.
Like, why do I feel these emotions
and where are they stemming from?
So I have an understanding of why I'm feeling that way,
and then I can go and talk to somebody,
or I can bring it up to my wife
or I can go to my therapist
or I can hop online and text my therapist.
So that's why I say I've picked up so many tools.
I was able to sharpen those tools along the way because
I know this is gonna be something that's
going to probably continue to happen throughout my life.
- How bad did it get?
What was your darkest moment?
- 2014 not wanting to be alive for a handful of days.
After my second DUI,
basically locked myself in a room for five days.
Didn't wanna talk, didn't wanna see anybody.
Didn't wanna even be here anymore.
And it got to that point and,
I think me being by myself
gave me time to kind of
understand that there's a different route.
And try a different route instead of taking my life.
Like, what else can I find, what else can I learn?
What else can I go and do?
The only thing I can think of was asking for help.
And, where do I go?
What do I do?
So for me I just started kind of looking up places
of where I can get off to
and I can go and spend some time and
kind of try to seek personal help.
And obviously I needed that with, you know,
carrying a lot of the stuff I
basically compartmentalized as a child
and I carried it through my whole life.
And I didn't need to carry that excess baggage.
So for me it was just a step that I wanted to take
because I thought I can learn more about what was going on.
And I thought there was a way to get help.
So I always like trying different things to try if it works.
Like I'm always eager to learn,
and that's something that I've always been.
- And now I can see that you're a man
speaking from that chair from a position of empowerment.
There's a de-stigmatization effect, is that?
- Yeah, and honestly really over the last year,
I don't really see a stigma around it anymore.
Like, you know, because there are so many people
that are standing up and talking about it.
And opening up and expressing the feelings
and the journey that they've gone
or the struggles that they've had.
And honestly, like,
the coolest thing is showing people that
they're human beings.
Right? Like, I'm a human being just like you are.
Just like everybody else in this world is.
- Do people not see that?
- Sometimes I don't feel like they do.
Sometimes I feel like, I feel like as an athlete or
a performer that you're supposed to be this person
that doesn't have any problems.
Or doesn't have a weakness.
But then it goes back to what we were saying
about human beings.
We're all human beings, right?
And we all struggle differently in life.
But we all have similar problems too.
So it's like, you know what,
for me just standing up and talking about it
has really helped me.
And truly if, like I said,
if I can save a life by
sharing the experiences that I've had
and continue to have on a day to day basis.
If I can save a life then that's,
for me that's all I want.
- I get the sense that you wanted to
swim competitively more than anyone else
when you were a kid.
What drove your motivation?
- When I was growing up, I have two older sisters
so I watched them in the pool.
My mom put us in the water for water safety.
That was the only reason.
They started swimming internationally and nationally
and I was like, "I wanna do that.
"I wanna be an Olympian.
"I wanna be a gold medalist.
"I wanna be a world record holder.
"I wanna be a professional athlete."
And the journey started probably like 11, 12,
and a few years later I made my first Olympic team in 2000.
- Was there a race or some significant milestone,
some story that you can tell
that told you, "I'm talented at this
"and I can be the best in the world?"
- I think over time things started kind of
setting in or happening.
I saw something special,
like I thought I was descent at it, right?
I mean I had a couple of races that
probably were pretty big wins and
they just kept going and going and going.
But I think also another aspect,
or another part of that was,
I had a coach who truly believed in me.
And for me as a young kid,
I grasped onto that really hard
when he said that I could be an Olympian in four years.
So I believed everything he told me and he proved it.
So, you know, I mean four years later
I made my first team and then
I basically just said, "Alright, what's next?"
Like, "What can we do?"
- What was your regimen like
in your earliest days of competitive swimming?
- I guess when I was like 11 or 12
I probably going five or six days a week in the water.
But it would be ten workouts a week so
three days I'd have doubles.
So Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
I'd have a morning session, afternoon session.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, a PM session.
At that point I was probably just doing like
three dry land days where it was
basically just body weight and push ups, running,
some of that stuff.
- But I think that that's something that people miss,
that a lot of people who we've seen
who have had tremendous success
from a young age and moved forward.
A lot of them wanted to do it.
- I was very excited to do it.
Like it was something that got me excited every day.
That was just who I was.
Like, I wanted to be the greatest of all time,
or try to be the greatest of all time.
That was my goal.
To do something in this sport that nobody had ever seen.
- What do you say to people who say,
"Well that's too perfectionistic?
"You shouldn't always focus on winning."
There are a lot of people out there who experience that
and are trying to be the best.
- But I wasn't focusing on winning,
I was focusing on preparing myself
the best way that I could.
Because at the end of the day when I step up on the blocks
and race another seven people that are in that heat,
I can't control what they do.
I can only control what I do.
So if I am over-prepared,
you can guarantee that I'm gonna be ready to swim.
And that's what we did.
You know, we just tried to make it where
we were overly ready.
So we had no shot of losing.
You know, that was the biggest thing, is we just,
we worked ourselves as hard as we could.
There was a reason why I went six years straight
without missing a single day.
- You're a paid ambassador for Colgate.
- Mm-hmm. This is our second year
with our Colgate partnership
being able spread the important message of
water conservation.
For me it's always been
what fits and what is,
I guess what goes hand in hand with the beliefs that I have.
And for me everything that I'm doing now has those beliefs.
You know, Colgate, we're both hand in hand
with trying to get this message out
to save and conserve as much water as we possibly can.
It's something that's so needed.
So for me, it's kind of easy when I see things like that,
that are so hand in hand that they get me excited,
and it's easier for me to be me and talk about what I love.
What we're doing now could potentially save a life,
but also it's the opportunity to save a resource.
- Would you have done everything the same as a kid,
being ultra-disciplined, ultra-competitive,
and just a kid who lived for swimming?
- I would never change anything that happened
in my life to this point.
Good or bad.
Because it's made me who I am today,
and I like who I am today.
- Michael Phelps.
- Cheers, man.
(nostalgic techno music)