The Rich Roll Podcast - Michael Klim Is An Olympic Swimming Legend

Episode Date: April 23, 2018

What exactly does it take to become an Olympic legend? Every elite athlete is devoted to mastering their craft. Some even strike gold on the world's largest stage. And every once in a while, we witness standout performances in consecutive Olympiads. But it's the rare specimen that can compete at the very highest level of sport across three Olympic Games to retire a legend. Meet Michael Klim. Awarded the medal of the Order of Australia (sort of like being knighted), Michael is indisputably one of Australia's most famous and celebrated athletes in a land that revers competitive swimming. A three-time Olympian with a slew of World Records, Olympic Gold Medals and World Championship titles to his name, he was part of a star-studded group of swimmers that took Australia back to the top of swimming in the late 1990’s & aughts — a group that included standouts like Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Keiren Perkins, Leisel Jones, Libby Trickett, Stephanie Rice, and Susie O’Neill. One of the stars of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Michael is perhaps best known as instrumental in Australia’s thrilling 4x100m relay victory, unleashing a world record lead off swim to win his first gold on the first night. Michael’s achievements also include: * '96 Atlanta Olympics: Bronze, 4x100m Medley Relay * '98 World Championships: 4 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze * '99: 2 World Records (100m Butterfly) * '00 Sydney Olympics: 2 Gold, 2 Silver & 2 World Records * '01 World Championships: 2 Gold & 1 World Record * '04 Athens Olympics: 1 Silver * '07 World Championships: 1 Gold Quite the successful entrepreneur after hanging up his budgie smugglers (see the Cambridge Dictionary definition), Michael is now the founder and managing director of a skin care line called Milk & Co. and conducts life optimization retreats under the banner Chosen Experiences. This is a conversation about Michael's extraordinary life as a lauded athlete, entrepreneur and parent. We cover his mental and physical success equation: the hows and whys behind his ascension to the very peak of elite Olympic performance. What was required of him to not just win, but keep winning. We discuss how he approaches high pressure scenarios. We cover his approach to remaining fit and how he parents his children. And we conclude with how he transitioned from decorated Olympian to successful entrepreneur — a pivot most professional athletes struggle with upon retirement. But most of all, this is a conversation about what is required to live a life of mastery, with more than a few critical takeaways you can implement into your own life. A personal hero of mine for as long as I can recall, I followed Michael's journey from the beginning. So it was a thrill for me to finally connect with him for this deep dive into his career and what makes him tick. I sincerely hope you enjoy the conversation. Full video version >>> http://bit.ly/klimvideo If you are enjoying the video versions of the podcast, please subscribe! Peace, Plants & Pools! Rich

I think we all understand that in sport, there's only a small percentage of athletes that win that ultimate gold or the championship or the world record, et cetera. I think there's so much more that you get out of the sport that you've learned about yourself as well. For me, sport was a great vehicle to prepare myself for life lessons in the future. You know, being able to bounce back in life in general, it's what it's all about. That's Michael Klim this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How are you guys doing? What is happening? How are you? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host of this podcast coming at you from my shipping container studio here in

sunny Southern California. Pretty excited. Got a great conversation coming up in a couple few. Julie and I just got back from New York City the other night. I was there to do a speaking engagement for On Running. So I just wanted to thank everybody at On for having me. It was at WeWork Times Square, this really cool co-working space. And the turnout was great. So I just wanted to also thank everybody who came out to hear me talk. It was really nice to meet so many cool, like-minded individuals. We were also there to promote and do a bunch of publicity around the impending release of our new cookbook, The Plant Power Way Italia, which comes out on Tuesday of next week, the 24th. We're very excited about it. So if you have not pre-ordered it or picked it up, please do so. I think you will be delighted. We're super proud of it. Also,

one little housekeeping item that I wanted to kind of put out there. I've been trying to determine the best format for this show. As you guys know, it is ad supported and many have groused about my long introductions. And so in the last episode, which was just Julie and I, in order to kind of shorten the introduction and cut right to the chase, I decided to play around a little bit and insert two of the ads into the middle of the conversation, which is something I've never done before and which, quite frankly, I'm not a big fan of. But I'm open. I'm open to experimenting with the format. So I decided to post a poll on both Twitter and Facebook asking you guys, should I put all the ads up front in the introduction, get it out of the way, sort of like how Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss does it,

or should I cut to the chase, shorten the intro and break away kind of like how James Altucher and many other big shows do it. The overwhelming response was to do all the ads upfront. So I'm going to stick with that, at least for now. And also I'm going to do my best to truncate the guest introductions,

which I realize are likely overkill. I definitely got that feedback from you guys. That said, I do want to create the best listening experience for you. So I am open to tweaks. So feel free to tweet me with any ideas that you have. Did I mention that I have Australian Olympic swimming legend Michael Klim on the podcast?

No, I did not. So I am doing that now. Michael is one of Down Under's most famous and celebrated athletes. Not just swimmers, but all athletes. Because for those that are unaware, swimming in Australia is sort of like the NBA here. It's absolutely huge, which I love. Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, which I gather is something like being knighted. Michael is a three-time Olympian with a slew of world records and world championships under his belt

and very much a part of the star-studded group of swimmers that took Australia back to the top of swimming in the late 1990s and early 2000s. That was a group that included people like Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, who else? Kieran Perkins, Liesl Jones, Libby Trickett, Stephanie Rice, Susie O'Neill, and many others I'm sure I'm forgetting right now. Michael's Olympic and world record setting achievements are far too many to list here, especially in the interest of keeping this intro on the shorter side, which I'm probably failing at. He's perhaps best known as one of the undisputed stars of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he won two gold, two silver, and was instrumental in Australia's absolutely thrilling four by 100 meter freestyle relay, unleashing a world record leadoff swim to win his first gold on the first night. An entrepreneur upon his retirement, Michael is now the founder and managing director of a skincare line called Milk, which is Clem spelled backwards, of course, which is very cheeky. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not

hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful,

and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Michael Klim. I've been a big fan of Michael forever. I've closely followed his journey from the beginning. So it was great to finally connect with him and go deep. We cover his swimming career, of course. We cover the experience of what it's like to be such a lauded athlete in a land that

has such a rich swimming tradition where swimmers aren't just noticed every four years like it is here in the United States, but where these people, Michael included, are just downright superstars. We get into his mental and physical success equation, why he thinks he was able to rise to the very top of elite Olympic performance, what he did to get there, how he approaches high pressure scenarios with quite a few helpful takeaways. And also we talk about how he was able to transition from sport to business and to becoming this successful entrepreneur, particularly when so many elite athletes struggle

with how to make their way into the world upon retirement. It was a great talk. Hope you guys enjoy it. So let's do it. Well, cool. Let's just rock right into it, man. Good to see you. Good to see you.

Yeah, nice to finally meet you. It's very nice to meet you. I've followed you. I've been following you for a very long time. Something in common. Yeah, a couple of things, I think. And it's funny because this podcast has become like a, I don't know, like it's become like the Australian podcast.

I have so many Australians on the show. I just put up, do you know Paul DeGelder? Yeah, yeah. You do, so I just put him up the other day. I'm like, now I'm staring at another super ripped, bald Australian dude, you know? And I'm like, I want to be an honorary Australian. What do they call it that you have, the OAS?

Yeah, OAM, OAM. OAM, so that's like being knighted, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, Paul's story is amazing. It's crazy, right? Yeah. I bumped into him in Bondi. I'm not sure if he's still living there, but his attitude towards the story is just phenomenal. Yeah. I mean, his ability to kind of transcend that experience and be this inspirational figure.

Like, and I said this in the podcast, like I knew his story was crazy, but I didn't have a grip on like what a great storyteller he is and how inspirational he is in the way that he tells the story. That Yod Grav from the hospital, when he describes.

It's unbelievable. Yeah. So yeah, he lives here now. Does he? Yeah, he lives in Venice. So he's having a go here. He does all the Shark Week stuff for Discovery Channel and making a name for himself out here.

So, you know, I don't know. Yeah, you've got a big following in Australia, man. Well, we love ultra sports, we love swimming. Well, the swimming culture is insane. I mean, I don't think Americans really appreciate or can understand the reverence with which, you know, the swimmer is perceived in Australian culture. Yeah. It's definitely our number one Olympic sport. And it's, you know, in Europe, they probably send their kids to soccer training or, you know, learn soccer.

And in Australia, it's learn to swim. It's a first sport pretty much. Right. As soon as, you know, infant aquatics is like, you know, it's not compulsory in every school, but it will be pretty soon, I think. So learn to swim will be the first sport everyone learns. Yeah, right away, like as soon as you can walk, right? Yeah, pretty much.

But you're originally from Poland, right? Yeah, so I've got a pretty interesting story. I was born in Poland. My parents, my dad worked for the Polish consulate. So we traveled a lot growing up. So I moved to India when I was one and a half. So I actually learned to swim in India for a country that's kind of probably more known for its cricket and those sort of things. Not a big swimming powerhouse. But it's funny how history repeats itself because I'm living in Bali most of my time and I go to a little bit of a country club. My kids spend most of their life in a country club.

So very much the way I grew up and, you know, dad used to drop us off on the way to work and pick us up eight hours later. And, you know, the only thing I could do is just play in the water and have fun. And that's how I sort of got this affinity with the water that I just can't describe. So yeah, that was early on. So you spend most of the time in Bali and then the rest of the time in Melbourne? Yeah. So I sort of split my time between my business, which I've got a skincare company now, and we sort of, we've got a skin fitness range of products. And then we also,

and yeah, my kids live in Bali. So I split my time between Bali and Malibu. Do they go to the green school? They do. Do they? They go to the green school indeed. It's so funny. Every day I hear about the green school.

I have a very good friend here in Malibu and he splits his time between Bali and here and he just left again and both his kids go to the green school. I've got a really good friend who's a meditation teacher named Charlie Knowles. He's got a whole bunch of kids that go to school there. And so I'm always seeing photos

and little videos of what goes on there. And then our mutual friend, David spent time there. And so I'm very familiar with what goes on there. I mean, that place is unbelievable. Yeah, it's insane. And John Hardy founded it, the jeweler. And it's, yeah, it's quite insane. In terms of, for me, I've seen the development in my kids,

the growth in terms of their confidence. And it's just a different approach to education, which they kind of, yeah, it's a community. It's very cult-like sometimes, but it's- Right, I heard like one of my friend Chris said like, yeah, like you drop your kids off from school and then all the parents hang out. Yeah, all day.

Like nobody's working. Like what is going on there? And there's no walls, like it's all outdoor education. Yeah, it's basically self-sustainable. They got water turbines, solar. Yeah, it's basically self-sustaining water turbines. It's a really good for my kids, especially my son where he's got a bit of a speech impediment and he was really shy, especially socially and within three years he's now narrating

the school play in front of hundreds of kids and he's got this air of confidence but it's still, I think it's just the school play in front of hundreds of kids. And he, you know, like he's got this air of confidence, but it's still, you know, I think it's just the school's empowered him to believe in himself and he's still got a beautiful personality. So, yeah, so it's definitely, it gets them kind of street ready in a sense.

Right, right, right. Yeah, it's super cool. It's really cool. All right, well, let's talk swimming. Okay. So you grow up, you know, basically with wet hair, you know, as long as you can remember. Yeah. I mean, were you like a talent from the get-go? Did you know like early on, like,

oh man, this is like my thing? Or were you just playing a whole bunch of sports? No, I definitely played a lot of different sports, but for me, swimming was something that, because when I traveled, as I explained earlier, went from India back to Poland, Germany, Canada, and then eventually moved to Australia. And all these things were changing in my life and from languages, you know, school environments and, you know, circles of friends, et cetera. The only thing that kind of remained constant for me was my swimming. It was kind of like I could join any squad in any country and kind of fit in did you learn all the languages everywhere you live yeah pretty much i had to

learn english and german and um i'm still learning english actually but polish is your native first language yes you still speak it oh you do yeah so um so yeah so for me swimming was something that i was i used to gravitate to because i was kind of good at it and it kind of gave me acceptance around in the circle of friends that I was in. But, yeah, my family is actually probably a tennis family. My sister played professionally and so did my dad. So I tried. I didn't quite have the temperament for tennis.

Being a sprinter, I sort of had too much time to think on the tennis court. But, yeah, so I definitely, you know, it was something that I had a really good sort of strong idea that I wanted to pursue it for a period of age. And how does it work in Australia? Is it like a club program kind of thing, or is it through the schools? Like I know once you kind of get noticed as an emerging talent, there's all this structure that comes into play. Yeah.

Look, it's still very amateur. It still comes through in traditional club structure. And then there is state funding, state institute of sport. And then there's obviously the overarching sports commission who sort of facilitate through the Australian swimming programs. But it's still very much, you know, the swim schools feed the swimming clubs and then you can obviously join some of the elite squads that still exist. But it's still predominantly a club set up.

And yeah, we're still pretty, a small country. And we're actually in the middle of our Commonwealth Games trials at the moment. Oh, that's going on right now. Yeah, so, but yeah, it's still, you know, for us, it's still a pretty simple, simple process. Does Australian Institute of Sport still exist? I just remember when I was a kid,

I would be like, man, what goes on there? Like, they look serious. Well, I spent eight years there. Oh, you did? So when I was 15, I was tapped on the shoulder by two guys. One was Gennady Turetsky, who was the coach of Alex Popov. And the other one was Jim Fowler. He came from Etobicoke in Toronto.

Oh, yeah. That was Paul Bergen's team before that. Yeah, that's right. And then Mitch Ivey before that. Yeah, so it was sort of at the age of 15 and they said, oh, we want you to move to Canberra and live there in the lead up to Sydney. And they already were identifying who could be good and could be a good fit for the relay.

And for me, the coach of the greatest sprinter of all time just asked me to train with him. So, yeah, a year later I packed up the bags and mum and dad drove me up the highway up to Canberra from Melbourne. So, yes, I moved out of home and made that sacrifice to solely pursue swimming. And the institute is, you know, people sort of, they're not very complimentary about Canberra. It's a pretty boring place.

Well, that's where Paul's from. He was telling me a little bit about what it was like there. I mean, it's definitely different from what you imagine Melbourne and Sydney to be like. Absolutely. Look, it's a military, it's a town, and now it's got a couple of good universities as well. But for us, it was ideal for what we were doing. Just training.

Just training. Great facilities. Still, the facilities are far superior to any other complex in Australia. So now it's more used for there's no more resident program at the Institute of Sport. It's more sort of for camps, et cetera. Similar to Colorado Springs, actually. Uh-huh. Yeah.

And does it work the same in terms of Olympic trials and qualifying for the team as it does in the States where you have a meet and you get first or second and you go and otherwise you're at home? Yeah, pretty much. And, you know, traditionally we have our trials two or three months prior to the big meet. You know, having seen the success of the US team, this time we're actually having the trials from the Commonwealth Games

only five weeks out of the Commonwealth Games. So I think it makes sense. I think there's a lot of opportunity for error and, you know, a lot of things can happen between now and, say, two or three months' time. So I think eliminates the, there's always gray and a black and white scenario. Right, well, it's a super tricky equation. I mean, for people that are listening

who aren't familiar with swimming, I mean, you basically bust your ass for nine months or however long, and then you taper down for a couple weeks, maybe a month if you're a sprinter like you, I don't know what your particular protocol is, and you hang it all out to dry in that one meet. And if it's trials, that's usually as competitive, if not more competitive, more high pressure than the Olympics itself. You make the team and then you're looking at five weeks. And that's a very difficult kind of thing to approach because you can't just coast for five weeks. You got to kind of build back up, but you can't build back up too much.

And some people hit it right. And some people miss it altogether and have really lackluster Olympic performances. Yeah, exactly. Look, we've, we've tried it. And I think it's, look, I think swimming does. We only have that big meet once every four years, Olympic games. And, you know, the world champs are on every, every second year.

But it is. We have two big hit-outs a year in Australia. Not like the US. We've got the NCAA system and you can really race competitively and have really good sort of hit-outs regularly. So Australians have struggled finding competitions, being so geographically so far removed from everything. But we're getting there.

I was very fortunate that my era was, you know, we had the likes of Thorpe and Hackett and Perkins and O'Neill and Samantha Riley and, you know, Lethal Jones and Libby Trickett. Then, you know, it almost they could probably got away with not racing as much. But, you know, the depth in the world of swimming has changed, I think, you know, the Eastern European countries that have come up a lot and also the Asian countries are swimming really well as well.

So it's a different picture to when I was swimming. But you were a member, like a, you know, a gold-plated member of the golden era of Australian swimming. I mean, that period of time, I mean, was the ascendancy of Australian swimming. I mean, you guys were a powerhouse. It was unbelievable from, you know, I don't know, 98 to 2008 or something like that, 2006. And that Sydney Olympics was really kind of a coming out party for Australian swimming. I mean, you've been a, you know, a global power for a long time, but that was something else

altogether. It was really like, it was quite something. Yeah. To get an Olympic Games on home soil for Australia, the one prior to that was in 56 in Melbourne. And the Aussies have so much pride in their sport. They're so fanatical, similar to you guys. And it was a magical two weeks in Sydney. The weather was fantastic. There was no traffic. Everyone was happy and smiling. So I don't know, the Olympic kind of fever. But the talent pool that you had was unbelievable.

Yeah. Look, it was, you know, it was Hackey's first Olympic gold. It was Ian. Yeah, look, it was, you know, it was Hackey's first Olympic gold. Ian broke the world record in the 400 and won the silver in the 200, but won the 4x1 and the 4x2 with me. And, yeah, we had, you know, it was Kieran's last swim, but, you know, we had the likes of Susie O'Neill still, you know, winning gold in the 200 freestyle. And, yeah, it was just an an amazing team and it sort of was led by these guys we had a really good mix of up and coming you know the likes of Hackett and

Thorpe which I mentioned but you know the Susie O'Neill and Kieran Perkins on the on the latter end of their careers and sort of myself and Jeff Hugel and a couple others slotted right there in the middle and yeah I was very fortunate to as as I said, to have, you know, the Olympics on home soil was just phenomenal. And, you know, I was part of the race that, you know, I'm more known in Australia for playing an air guitar. Yeah, I know. We're going to get into that. Well, we had, I had Anthony Irvin in here. So we talked about that a little bit and I was like, I got to get Clem in here to hear it firsthand. But I think like that is my, before I met you, you know, like I'm like, that's my visual image of you.

Like I just remember, that's like imprinted, seared into my brain, like that moment. So, I mean, maybe walk us through that story for people that are new to the show, don't know it. Sure, sure. So look, I mean, you guys, the Americans had never been beaten in the four by one freestyle relay in the Olympic history until that moment. So the inception was 1972, I think, of the event.

So, yeah, and, you know, through the NCAA program and, you know, you're just so strong in relays. You know how to race them, how to put the team together, heats and finals. And we had one guy, Brad Hawke, who was racing in the 50 freestyle, was from the Auburn system and Auburn University, and he kind of – he tried to help us. How could we put together a team that could challenge his superpower in the 4x1 freestyle relay? And we had myself who was – you know, I was the highest-ranked freestyler,

number third in the world. Ian Thorpe was highest ranked freestyler, third number, third in the world. Ian Thorpe was a 400 freestyler, but had some potential. A little bit. Chris Feidler was our oldest statesman and Ashley Callas was a rookie. So we really didn't have a team that was, you know, like in the American team had pretty much,

I think at three, we had Gary Hall, who's the number one shit talker. So he's the one who instigated this whole thing. And Tony Irvin and Jason Lezak. And who was the fourth? It was Neil Walker. Neil Walker, right. And those are more prominent names at the time.

Yeah, absolutely. And certainly Gary. Yeah. And look, I'm still in, it's funny how sport, you realize how sported for us, it was everything, you know, like I was, for us winning that relay, it changed my life. You know, people still walk down the street and do this. I'm sure they do. Yeah. And you, we should,

we should point out that you broke the world record in the hundred free leading off that relay. Yeah. It's to this point, it's still my best ever swim you know 48 one yeah yeah so it it just um look we basically this is the strategy we we you know we had we basically wanted to try and get a lead somehow and um and then get the americans to over race to each leg and um they're not you guys aren't used to coming second very often so it was kind of it threw them off the game now we might be a little bit back then now yeah like that no so it's sort of um and we just our psychology was really just to make sure that last 20 meters into the wall was really strong so um we just think we're focusing on back ending every single leg and um and if you look at the splits after the second the second third fourth summa

the you guys are always turning first at the at the 50 meter end and we're turning first at the at the uh and the 100 meter end so it was just it was just a real tactical event that um sort of fell our way but it was um yeah and look to to be honest and and to give gary credit he's he's an amazing ambassador for the sport he was the first one to shake my hand after the event. And I'm actually still in touch with him these days. And, you know, that's kind of, you know, 18 years ago. It's long. It's history.

But it sort of shaped the sport. He had a great rivalry with Popov that I used to watch in 96. I mean, he was amazing because he brought entertainment to the sport by being this you know really bold you know kind of outspoken muhammad ali type character and just for people that are listening what happened was he went on record he told some a reporter oh we're gonna smash the aussies like you know like guitars or something like that right and so when you guys won you're all playing air guitar. Yeah, it was actually Ian Thorpe's idea. So, yeah, so it was one of those moments.

So it's still regarded for us in Olympic history as one of the best races. Yeah, it's one of the greatest races ever. One of the interesting, you just said, like you guys really focused on, you know, the last part of those 100 meter legs. And one thing that you are unique in is you have this very interesting way

that you finish your races. You're the only person I've ever seen who lunges into the wall with a couple of underwater dolphin kicks on your way in. I've never seen anyone else do that. Like, where did that come from? And why do you think that that was like your advantage? Yeah, look, i trained a lot with

um obviously Gennady Teresky being my coach and initially i started swimming trying to emulate Alex and i wanted to have this beautiful high elbow recovery and um but i very soon found out that it was i wasn't six foot eight i didn't have his physique and um i started i as a drill we started swimming we used to have dolphin kick freestyle with your head up. It was kind of a water polo drill just to sort of emphasize as good dynamic recovery. And then I was – and then we have another drill, just a windmill drill with straight arm freestyle.

And then we just thought of combining the both of them as a drill only, dolphin kick with straight arms just to really emphasize each stroke and throwing your hand forward, et cetera. And I started just my first time I did it, I just felt like I was floating from stroke to stroke. Each kick kind of gave me extra inertia from stroke to stroke. And Gennady got me at like 24 points, something for a 53. And I was like, this could actually work. And my legs were my weakness. And probably psychologically,

I always used to think, oh, I hope my legs don't go. I hope my legs don't go. And when I wasn't psychologically strong in my races, I normally probably used to kick earlier than I needed to. But yeah, so it became a good way for me to keep momentum into the wall. And why do you think no one else started doing this? Well, I think it's, you know, that transition from freestyle kick to dolphin kick, you have to really, it's awkward. Yeah.

So I know that Michael Phelps tried it a couple of times at the last Olympic trials. But I think, yeah, when he got to Rio, he went back to his original stroke. So yeah, look, it's, you know, I had to be innovative. You know, I don't, I'm not much taller than the average, not much stronger than the average. And so I had to-

You're pretty fucking strong, dude. Get out of here right now. I'm better now. Yeah, no, I mean, you're a big boy, you know, let's get that straight. But I think you, I think you, you innovated in another way, which is that you, you did have this like straight arm recovery in your butterfly as well. And now when you look at swimming now, everybody's doing that. Like the swimmers look weird. Like it doesn't look like, I'm like, what are they doing? That doesn't look anything like the way that we used to swim.

And, you know, I'm older than you, but I was at a, I went and did a swim practice with Connor Dwyer down at USC with John and Vanchek and got to swim with all these guys. And like, they're all doing, they're all doing that, you know, and they're like, put your head down. I was always taught to put my head up, you know, like waterline here. And they're like, like the technique aspect, they figured out so many things. Yeah, absolutely. And I think your straight arm recovery was very unusual at the time.

No one was really doing that. Yeah. And look, I, we have, and that's actually touching back on the Institute of Sport. You know, it was, Australia swimming had to be resourceful because we didn't have hundreds of swimmers coming through. And we were, we used to fall back a lot on on all you know physiology and biomechanics and you know and nutrition so we we kind of had to use all everything that was available to us to get the most out of our team so um yeah and then you know i tested i tested the stroke a number of times and and yeah for me it definitely gave me,

I wouldn't say an advantage, but it just sort of kept me, especially when the suits came in and I had a stronger sort of more aligned core, I could sort of keep my momentum into the wall. But yeah, as you said, pretty much all the sprinters are doing it now. Yeah, it's crazy to see, right?

So what, like 21 world records? How many world records? Something like that records something like that yeah 8,000 olympic medals and then you had that crazy world championships where you won like i don't know everything pretty much right yeah i can't keep track of all the results seven medals yeah which is you know at the time after spitz was the first time anyone anyone had won seven so then obviously um you know michael came along after that. Right, of course. Yeah, rewrote everything. But is there a particular performance that stands out as your favorite or does it all bleed together as one big experience?

No, I think for me that week in Perth was, as an individual performance, was probably not my most defying because it's sort of always. 98. Yeah, 98. Yeah, I had broken the world record in 100 fly in October and the world championships were in January. And I was in great shape physically and also I was still pretty fresh. I hadn't been, you know, I'd spent only a few years with Alex

and I was really sort of targeting the 200 free and I managed to win that on the first night. And I started getting really tired towards the end of the meet and I qualified only fourth for the 100 fly final. And it's the first time that in that week, I thought that, shit, I've got a couple more swims to go. I'm not going to even finish this meet. But yeah, I stood up and won that

in a pretty close to world record time as well. So that was a week that kind of all my, you know, with the training with Gennady and the miles, we used to swim up to a hundred Ks a week, which is about 60 miles a week at times. And it all started really paying off just, you know, falling back into that. Yeah. I had that mentality of every time the gun went, I didn't really pace myself from heats to finals, whatever. It just falls out no matter what. It falls out pretty much. And it all just started coming into play.

So what did you learn from Gennardi? Like what made him a great coach? I think he was a really interesting coach because he was able to adjust not only his approach in terms of the sessions, what we were doing for every swimmer because we're all different physically. Right. And we all recover differently and we all need different stimulation. and, you know, we all need different stimulation. So he was able to get the most out of all the swimmers and even creating five different workouts for five different swimmers

on the board in one session. But then also being able to mentally get – he would treat myself different to Alex, of course, and then Matt Dunn, who was also my training partner, he'd have a completely slightly different approach. So that communication with the athlete was probably his key. I knew that he'd probably leave me alone for most of my warm-ups and just appear out of the blue just for the right time when he needed to see me.

He had a great eye. He could probably watch me for 10 seconds. I'd dive into the warm-up, he could tell you how I felt. Right, right, right, right. And so, and I think that having that real great intuition. So he was well-educated, but had a great eye for the sport. It sounds very similar to where Bob Bowman comes from. Like I was telling you earlier,

I was listening to this podcast with Michael Gervais. He's interviewing Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps' coach, who's also coached a number of other Olympians. And he was talking about the importance of the coach-athlete relationship and how it's a partnership and how you really have to individuate amongst these different people

and how he could tell, you know, as soon as one of his athletes walked on the deck, he would just look in their eye and he'd know like what kind of workout they were gonna have because it was such an intimate, you know, close knit thing and trying to crack like, okay, like what, you know, how is, you know, what makes Michael tick? Like what's gonna motivate him?

You know, you come at him hard, you come at him soft. Like that's going to be different for every athlete. And I think it's, you know, look, when you're dealing with the elite of the elite and you got like 10 people you're coaching, it's one thing. You're a club coach, you got 50 kids, you know, five in a lane or something like that. It's a different thing altogether. Yeah, yeah. But the more that you can understand, you know, what the sort of psychological makeup of that individual. And then, so people sort of wonder how we, you know,

the swimmers still manage to break world records. And it's, you know, we've even, the suits have gone back to almost a traditional. So it is, it's the training methods. It's being able to, I think that the coach-swimmer relationship now is so different to say the 50s and the 60ss where it was kind of everyone did the same thing. It was almost a survivor of the fittest. Yeah, yeah, that's the way it was when I was swimming.

Yeah. So now you can really, you know, I think Brett Hawke, who's obviously swam for Australia now, coaches at Auburn, you know, he's been able to pioneer that a bit further as well. And, you know, everyone's just the attention to detail, you know, from everything from, you know, nutrition to strength training to, yeah, technique, et cetera. So you were competing in the era of the technical suit and there was that

thing like, well, these records are never going to get broken. They're just going to stay forever. Right. And then sure enough, they've all, are there any records that still stand from that era? I think there might be a couple. I think Biedermann's 200 freestyle still exists, but yeah, there aren't too many, which is amazing,

or it's just good to see. No, it's good. But it just, it begs the question of like, what is the outer limits of swimming capability? Because when I look at swimming now, like I'm like, what are they? Like, I can't even relate to these times. Like, I didn't think that that was possible.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it progresses so quickly, much more quickly than track and field. It started to slow down a little bit, but it's amazing the frequency with which world records and swimming get broken. Yeah. What do you, when you look at that, like, what do you do you attribute that to i mean you kind of touched on it a little bit

but look i i think the um i mean we spoke about you know the specific sort of training approach and i think it's also swimmers don't tend to over over swim as much as what we're used to. I think it's become more quality rather than quantity. And, you know, even I know some of the open water swimmers that swim, you know, 10K and 25K, they're only really training, you know, 50 to 70 kilometers a week. But it's quite intensive. So I think it's, yeah, I think the quality of the training and just periodization, so it's really well planned. I think it's just more, I think we're, I think we've just become a lot more clever, or they have.

Yeah, I mean, when I, you know, in the 80s, it was just get in. I mean, we'd be putting in 20,000 meter days with regular, like all the time, you know? I'm just, I just walked around like a zombie, like periodization, like what is that? You know, like all the time. I just walked around like a periodization, like what is that? Like there was no conscious awareness

of any of that kind of stuff at that time. And the most common thing I'm sure you probably remember, like most people would miss their taper. They would just never come up. And your hose, like your whole year was about that. So, like you were so tired three weeks out of trials of your main meat, but you just, you probably needed another three weeks. Right, I know.

I don't think there was an appreciation for recovery. And like, if you beat yourself down that hard, like just how long it's gonna take for your body to bounce back. And I think I was chronically over-trained like my entire career. Yeah, yeah. And it's funny, I don't know, it became,

I don't know who led that, but I know that, you know, I know that the Russians were training a lot. I know the, you know, the Aussies were pretty well known for overtraining as well. I think, and I think it just, you know, the word spread around the swimming pools that you have to do this much.

Yeah, there was that era in the 80s. I mean, the coaches in the US that were really hitting that hard, you know, Mark Schubert was part of that at Mission Viejo, Dick Schulberg, Paul Bergen, you know, Paul Bergen was like notorious for just like, you know, you'd hear stories about these workouts that these guys were doing and you're like, well, I got to do that, you know? And there are only a few people that could weather that and survive it and excel at that. Yeah, exactly.

But now with periodization and rest and being very specific about what you're doing and why you're doing it, it's like, you don't just jump in and go all out every set. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. What about the strength training regimen? Look, I think there is, I think the jury's still out on that. I think there's anyone really yet to nail that in terms of what is, what really, what really actually transfers into the

pool it's such a you know the the mass of water that we pull through the water and the hand being accelerated through the movement rather than you know doing a doing a seated row is not quite doesn't you know translate yeah so it's i think there is there's certainly a lot of power movements that have you know i started doing a little bit of power lifting, which was great for my start and great for starts and turns. But in terms of overall sort of, you know, weight training, it's still, you know, and I think some of the conditioning, it's, you know, I think the core stuff is really important.

But I think, yeah, they're still trying to probably work it out. I've used to experiment a lot. That's the most things I used to experiment with. Yeah. I think there's still a lot that can be learned there. I mean, I remember at Stanford, like Jeff Kostoff, who held the high school national record in the 500 free for like 30 years. And, you know, one institute went to the Olympics, like incredible distance swimmer. He could, he used to like make fun of him cause he could only do like one pushup. Like he literally could barely do a pushup.

You know, he's like one of the greatest swimmers ever, you know, that era. And it's, and you're like, oh, well I can't, you know, obviously with, if you were swimming the 50 free, the 100 free, it's a different equation, but it's like, why can't he do that? But he can do this. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And it's, you know, then there's so many variables in swimming, obviously, you know. But also, you know, people that can't swim appreciate that, you know, how important feeling for the water is. And working with this medium that we have to actually work with rather than, you know, push through it or work against it. have to actually work with rather than, you know, push through it or work against it. So, yeah, but you know, having, you know, seeing a Caleb Dressel, for example, you know, the physique is slightly, you know, now that the suits don't exist, you know,

I think the guys is a little bit leaner, they're still super powerful, but they're not as, not as bulky as what they were probably 10 years. There's a lot of tall guys though. Yeah, exactly. It seems like the guys are bigger in general, maybe not as bulkier. But I mean, I remember watching the 50 free final,

Rio, you know, cheering for Tony. Yeah. And I was like, he looked tiny compared to all those other guys. And he's a tall guy, you know? So I was like, man, the sport has come a long way. Yeah, it's, you know, and it is, it does sort of vary. I remember, you know, just before my era, you know, Gustavo Borges, Alex Popov, it's, you know, and it is, it does sort of vary. I remember, you know, just before my era, you know,

Gustavo Borges, Alex Popov, Gary Hall, you know, Gary Hall is the shortest at 6'6". Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, man. Well, what's interesting about your career is it's easy to go, oh, 21 world records, like all these Olympic medals, you know, incredibly storied swimming career.

But, you know, it wasn't all roses, man. Like you had a lot of misses, you know, incredibly storied swimming career, but you know, it wasn't, it wasn't all roses, man. Like you had a, you had a lot of misses, you know, along the way and like a lot of obstacles and hurdles that you struggled to overcome. I mean, despite like these relay golds, you still struggled to like, you know, metal in the individual event. I mean, you set the world record four by one or free relay, but like you didn't make finals in the individual event. Like how did you like mentally, you know, approach trying to trying to you know deal with that kind of thing and why do you think you struggled in the individual events when the relays like you know went so well yeah okay yeah i was definitely um to this day all my all my relay splits are definitely my you definitely my best splits. I think psychologically I was sort of – I definitely put pressure on myself

to perform in relays, but I don't know if – it almost like I felt like having the camaraderie of the team, it almost deflected some of that. And, you know, I think in – as I said, I had a very sort of simple approach to my swimming. I used to pretty much have one strategy and used to tense up a little bit. And, you know, I never progressed too much from heats to finals. And, you know, yeah, I think so, you know, as soon as you tense up a little bit in sprints, it's, you know, it costs you. you know, it costs you.

So, you know, I was able to win a few individual sort of big meets, but the one, you know, obviously even leading, you know, the 100 fly with about 10 metres to go and then being touched out for silver and then same with the 100 free in Sydney. It just sort of, yeah, it was sort of I could see that there was, you know, there was some bad muscle memory that was coming in, creeping in in some of those races. So I think 98 was a success because I hadn't created some of those bad sort of patterns. And how much does, you know, the external pressure play in?

I mean, it had to be so heightened in Sydney. Yeah, it was definitely heightened. And because the 100 fly was towards the end of the program was day six and I hadn't won an individual. And I was sort of, you know, and I had swum in pretty bad heat. And so, you know, the pressure was even greater. Yeah, I swam an incredible sort of 85 to 90 meters, but unfortunately they don't hand out the medals then. So, yeah, but look, to be honest, you know, I've had some amazing races where I have handled the pressure. So it was, yeah, because of my, you know i've had some amazing races where i have handled the pressure so it did it um it was yeah because of my you know being able to stimulate myself so quickly behind the blocks and

sometimes i would over stimulate and and and go over the go over the edge sort of but uh yeah so if i look at it you know um my downfall sometimes having that ability to progress in terms of time from heat to finals. What is your like sort of mindset approach to, you know, gearing up for a race? Like do you have a ritual or how do you like you do visualization? Like what was your practice? Look, I was very, I used to try and warm up as close as possible to the event. So pretty much I would get out of the, and there was, I was very, I was very routine driven. So pretty much from the moment I walked through the door, I had the set routine. It was very dynamic and active warmup. So dry land and getting in the pool and pretty much it was pretty

intense. It was, it wasn't't very long but i would normally you know swim a lot at pace and um and pretty much from that point go and suit up and um minimize any time where i could sort of you know get distracted or uh but um yeah so for me the approach was really just to not to overthink that's why i tried to if try to, if I had a spare hour and a half, I would probably swim that race over about a hundred times in my head where I try to have, the routine just kept me moving through and getting to the blocks without overthinking it and playing the race in my head. And that's not me the downfall. Right. I got you. Are you motivated? Are you somebody who's motivated internally or externally? Like,

are you thinking about how to have your best performance or are you thinking about how to beat the other guy? Look, I think most of the time is how to get my best performance. It's almost how to put it there. I knew how to get it, how to put that performance together because I've done it so many times. It's almost just hitting a certain number of cues that I had in my race. So, you know, my breakout and my underwater kick was obviously one of my strong points. My breath control in that first 30 meters, approaching the wall correctly. Then, you know, so I had a number of cues that I tried to hit and I used to focus on those.

And when I was distracted and when I wasn't hitting those, then I'd start thinking about the other guy and look over my shoulder. And that's times where either I was, you know, swam over the top of or whatever. So I think it's like with anything, the clearer my head was before the race is the better the outcome was.

Yeah, it's interesting in swimming because it's you and the clock and you're in your lane and you have a choice whether to look over to the next guy and see what he's doing or not. And ultimately it just comes down to you putting in your best effort. And yet at the same time, it is a competition. Some people feed off of that.

They want it, you know, and when you were swimming butterfly, like you're breathing to the side, right? You're like a Mel Stewart thing where you're like checking the other guy out. I used to a Mel Stewart thing where you're like checking the other guy out. Yeah, she loves Mel Stewart. Yeah, he was the first guy to do that. So, I mean, was that a conscious thing?

Like I wanna be watching what the other guys are doing or? Oh no, definitely not. It was more an efficiency thing. Yeah, an efficiency and you're trying to keep it. Then Pancrato did it after Mel Stewart and then obviously I adopted it as well. It's more just keeping the body nice and flat. You know, Michael Phelps and Ian Crocker, they're kind of, Ian was a bit higher, but

Michael just, you know, keeps it really low body position, you know, with a flat breath. And I was able to do that with turning my head slightly. It became a little, you know, became habitual after a while. Right. So around 2001, you start having these injuries, right? And it kind of sets you back. So you're like, I couldn't figure out, like, did you, you still start, you were swimming, you swam through 2007.

Yeah. But you kind of struggled, right? Yeah, absolutely. And shoulder problems and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny that we're sitting here right now because that injury that actually ultimately, you know, cost my career. And it cost my career, but I retired because of it.

I broke my ankle just before the Fukuoka World Championship. So we were playing some basketball to warm up before some practice. Summer should never play basketball. I know. I know. I know, and that sort of followed, that led up to causing some issues with my lower back and I had back operation at the age of 25 the following year.

And then that led to being off balanced and that created some more pressure on my shoulder. And then three shoulder operations later, I qualified for Athens in the relay squads and swim all those, but you know, I never had that sort of individual success that I had prior to 2000 or 2001. Right, right, right.

Yeah, that was, yeah, it was probably, you know, and mentally there was a really tough time. Had to be. Yeah, I mean, I think. Cause you were, I mean, it wasn't, how old were you at that? Like 2006, 2005? Yeah, 2006, I was 28, you know. So you're still in the game.

Like you could still be, you know, crushing it at a high level. So I would imagine that was frustrating. So you retire, but then you try to make this comeback for London also, right? Like why would you do, what inspired that? Look for me, fitness and exercise and swimming is still a big passion of mine. I still love to do it.

And I swim more in the open water these days. But, you know, I always feel better after it. And I started, I actually did a few crazy things. I did a couple of adventure races down in Tasmania, which is, you know, probably the coldest, rugged place in Australia. It was a week-long sort of adventure racing. And I did a bunch of runs and swims and got on the bike even. I was locked skinnier then. And I was still in reasonable shape.

And I started having a family. I had two kids at the time, started my own business. And I thought, look, it was a couple of things. One, I wanted to prove to myself that i could still i was still in good shape i wanted to see how fast i could swim with all these different new variables in my life um but then i also wanted to to kind of show my kids you know i set an example of being able to achieve a pretty high standard of in my sport and um in it you know it was a bit of a dare initially and it kind of turned to this 18

month campaign and you know it ironically i i end up swimming the same time as i did at the trials what i did on my last meet when i retired so i managed you know seven years later maintain it maintain it or five years later get back to similar levels so um unfortunately we had the birth of uh you know james james magnuson's came came through and um cameron mcavoy and those guys started going you know in in the low 47s which you know i was uh i was nowhere near that big yeah pace but that takes balls to give it a go like that man i applaud that yeah my yeah we were expecting a third baby at the time it's probably easier to be in the swimming pool than to change nappies and to manage your training is very simple you

know this monk-like existence where everything is like organized for you you know absolutely and you know that's you know that's and that was the thing that i realized you know i had started and on your business you know had this growing family, all these variables, still swimming. And, you know, people say, how did you manage to swim so much and how did you stay focused? I'm like, I wish all I had to do now was just swim. Yeah, life would be easier. Life would be so easy. I know.

One of the things I think is really interesting about your story and perhaps unique is that between you and Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett, I mean, you guys were super, super stars in the wake of Sydney. Like American audiences, I don't think can really fathom, like I said earlier, like the extent to which you were

just thrust into the media in like a massive way. And that's a very difficult thing to figure your way through, you know? And you seem to be somebody who figured that out. And I think it seems as somebody who doesn't know these individuals and just is kind of looking at it as an outsider looking in from 10,000 feet, you know, that's something that I think really, you know, probably took its toll on Grant and on Ian. Like they've had their sort of very public, you know, kind of struggles with trying to figure out,

you know, who they wanna be. And, you know, when you go from this place where, like you said, everything's taken care of for you, you know exactly what you're doing. And then suddenly it's like a free for all and a free fall. Like, okay, what do I do with this now? Yeah. It's definitely been a very, it's not just swimming.

I think in, and it happens here in the States. I think our identity as athletes is so strong and, you know, people reinforce that in every opportunity they have. And then probably for guys like Ian and Grant and, you know, they reached their success. Ian won the final freestyle world championships when he was 15. Like my oldest daughter's 12. I can't imagine her going to- Being a world champion. World champion. In a couple of years.

So, you know, and he became, you know, like Ian, obviously, there was so many eyes and expectations. It's like Michael Jordan in Australia. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and I think, yeah, and Ian definitely struggled with that. There was a lot of pressure on him and the level of expectation. So I think it's just realizing that identity, it's that swimming identity, even though it will live on forever, it's only temporary.

And having sometimes a fear of that transition into life after sport is, you know, it can be daunting. And even finding your place in life and what do you actually, because you're so good at swimming, what's gonna replace that void and what's gonna give you that stimulus? And who's gonna help you figure that out?

I mean, when everything is being taken care of for you, it's like, well, what do I do now? Like your whole life is premised on, okay, I'm gonna be on this podium at the Olympics in Sydney, but there's no thought that goes into what happens the day after that. Yeah, it's sort of,

I've been fortunate enough to work with a group called the the chosen experience and then we sort of talk about purpose and intention and and you know looking after all these different areas of wellness if it's spiritual and emotional and environmental social so it's sort of thing i think when you you know you when you're actually in that swimming bubble and the sport bubble you're kind of taken care of and when you're actually in that swimming bubble and the sport bubble, you're kind of taken care of. And when you come out of it, there's a lot of areas of that wellness that fall off, especially socially. You know, your swimming fraternity is your family that no longer exists.

You know, spiritually, swimming is very meditative. I'm sure you'd probably agree. For me, it's the most meditative exercise that I can do. Yeah, so from a fitness point of view, and we're talking about nutrition, everything was going all in place. So you have to start to, until you find that, those sort of dimensions,

how you're gonna be able to fill them, and it takes time, and some people do better than others. Yeah, I think that, and I've mentioned this in the past, that sports organizations, whether it's swimming or the NFL or the NBA or the NCAA and whatever specific discipline within that needs to have organizations or governing bodies that are charged with helping athletes make the transition into civilian life. I mean, it's the same with a soldier coming back from a deployment. There's a sense of confusion. It's like, well, this was my career. Now, like that, snap your fingers, it's done, and you're just a normal person. And that can be very destabilizing for a lot of people. And I think the higher your achievement, the more kind of challenging that transition can be. I mean, obviously you have opportunities

and cool stuff comes your way, but trying to figure out like, well, who am I? Like, I'm not the swimmer anymore. So wait, who? What's the new passion? Where do I put this energy that I had for this drive? I'm not the swimmer anymore. So wait, who, you know, like I mean. What's the new passion? Where do I put this energy that I had for this drive? You know, how do you suddenly replace this drive that you had?

And, you know, you see most people swimming on, you know, like there aren't too many swimmers that actually never, you know, don't swim on because it is such, plays such a big role, you know, probably more symbolically than anything. But it is, yeah, it is such, plays such a big role, you know, probably more symbolically than anything, but it is, yeah, it is quite tricky. And I think it's better through the NCAA system because of the education that, that provides them with, you know, the athletes, but in Australia, I think we've struggled with, you know, certainly, you know, the athletes aren't supported financially from, from the sports, so they, they need to find careers and then it becomes quite daunting on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How is Grant doing? Are you in touch with him? Yeah, he spent a fair bit of time with Michael Phelps recently and he's back. He's living in Melbourne. He's working in corporate finance again. So, again, for him, the physical exercise plays a big role. So even though he came back, he missed London as well,

but he's still back exercising and, you know, he's got a good routine. And so, yeah, I think he's back on track. So you knew that you – did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Like when you were swimming, were you hatching your plan for how you were going to start a business? No, certainly not. Like, you know, I obviously had a good sort of example with my dad being in his export and import and he sort of did a lot of trades and things like that so i sort of had i watched him

do do his thing but um i didn't have a tertiary education most of the you know most of the guys uh you know went to uni or whatever i sort of fell out after my first year. But I had to realize I've been exposed to branding and marketing. I've been a product for many companies in the past. So I had a little bit of insight into what it takes to promote and sell something. So yeah, the opportunity came about when there was two companies within a couple of months that approached me to endorse the skincare products.

So I thought, oh, there must be something in that. So I did a bit more research and the skincare market in Australia was definitely growing, especially for men. And, yeah, so I sort of, you know, did an A4 business plan on a bit of paper and spoke to a few different people and then, pardon the pun, but took the plunge into becoming a – I wouldn't call myself an entrepreneur, but I guess, yeah. I think you are.

Yeah, why not? Why wouldn't you call yourself that? Yeah. So, look, it was incidental sort of the way I fell into it. Being a swimmer, you know you have to wash yourself from the chlorine and you protect yourself from all the harmful UVA and UVB rays. So I sort of had a little bit of insight from my history and I had to apply that into life after sport.

Yeah, I mean, we just walked around with super dry skin and green hair. Exactly, and then like mid afternoon, there's no like dude product for that. Like chlorine would start creeping in. Yeah, lick your hand. The whole room smells like chlorine. Yeah, exactly. So then, so you start this company Milk,

which I like, I don't know why, but like I didn't even think about it until like yesterday. I was like, oh, that's Klim backwards. Yeah, that's right. But that's so obvious, right? It's a great name for for a line it's cool yeah so we you know like we've initially we just had skincare products for men and um as you said you know we guys in general generally in australia in the us are still you know they still need a bit of prodding when it comes to uh you know self-maintenance and looking after their skin.

So I wanted to create products that were easy to use, multifunctional, affordable, but guys were still cool. Like they still were pretty, would be proud about having them on the base and in the bathroom. So I created a really simple sort of range, but it wasn't smooth sailing. That's for sure. I made a few costly errors and, you know, obviously I think that was probably – I think the business world has been much more challenging than swimming. Why?

There is a lot of things that are out of – you know, like even when we're talking about – You can control everything in your swimming. Pretty much everything. Except the guy in the other lane. Exactly. And even then you're trying, you think you can. But in business, you're dealing with so many different variables from retailers to manufacturers to partners and stakeholders etc. Whatever. It's so vast.

And then people. You're actually liaising with and dealing with people on a daily basis. and that becomes a skill, how you manage those situations. What did you learn from your swimming experience that does translate into being successful in business? Yeah, I'd say there's probably like four or five key sort of learnings that I take from it. The first, probably that sense of team. So our business is very much a

horizontal business. We don't have, not very hierarchical at all. So, you know, making sure that culture within your business is right. And it doesn't have to be a business. It could be any, it could be a club or organization. So I think it's, you know, people that enjoy coming to work or having things in common or having even maybe things in common but common values so um so that was for me it was really important i think that that was what made the osiswim team so great it was almost like this unwritten code that we had we had no idea what there was but the camaraderie yeah exactly it's a human ship innovation too i think obviously something that as you touched on

with my stroke and the suits and um i think always you know like if if you know we came out with some great products that were selling okay but you can't just rest on your laurels so you have to innovate constantly um i think knowledge as well i was um i think when i was swimming i think i had about 12 of probably double thickthick books like this. I would log every stroke, every session. Oh, wow. So all the sessions, I wouldn't even need to write it down on pull deck. I would remember pretty much everything that we did.

And I've got about, yeah, as I said, a dozen of those books. So I think you gain knowledge about yourself to then make better decisions with training, et cetera. So in business too, I think it's really important to know your business and know your numbers so then we can make better decisions if we're investing money in certain areas and marketing, et cetera. And then now we can, you know, now I guess in swimming people can get information about other swimmers a lot easier than what we could. But so, I mean, the business world really try and tap into, you know, data about your competition, knowing your competition is really important as well.

I'm just not, but, you know, the mindset that you have to have to be competitive, you know, at the level that you were in swimming takes a very sort of singular, you know, focus and ability to kind of hone in on a goal and like work your way towards that. Right. And so obviously business is a little bit different because you have all these people and personalities and all of that. It's not just you, right. And as a swimmer, you can be kind of a control freak. Like this is what I'm doing, you know, all that kind of stuff. And so there has to be some aspects of that

that translate into your like, okay, like to be just to be determined. Like this is what we're moving towards, you know, but then also having to let go of certain things that were important in swimming to let other people in and delegate and things like that. Yeah.

It's, yeah, it's almost like you, you know, I was being empowered to do what I was able to do in the pool. Whereas I think in business, it's almost me empowering other people. You have to be the coach. Yeah. So a little bit. So that's, and look, as I said, I've had some great coaches in my career, so I've been able to fall back on that as well.

But I think – and then just the other thing, which I just remembered, is just the relentless nature of running your own business. It's very similar to swimming and sport where you definitely have bad sessions, bad swims, but just the ability of coming back the next day, you know better how bad it is. And, you know, you may show up in not the best mood, but you still show up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that was, yeah, so probably those are my key learnings. And so now you're shipping in countries all over the world, right? Like are you in the US? Yeah, so we're only are you in the US? Yeah so we're only in on Amazon in the US but we're sort of our focus is sort of Australia and the proximity to Australia so all the Asian countries from China to Korea to Japan and Hong Kong and Singapore so really sort of our products lend itself really well through, especially the baby range, which is all natural and sort of really sort of simple.

And it seems to be going really well into that region. But I think, you know, our culturally, we're so similar in the lifestyle between sort of Melbourne, Sydney, et cetera. No, I can see it doing well here. And I like like it's, you know, it's clean and it's like minimal in its design. Like it's just very like simple in kind of a beautiful, elegant way. Yeah, thank you.

I haven't tried the products yet, but just based on like following you and stuff and reading up on it, it's cool. So that's cool. So that's your main thing, right? I know you do these retreats too, the chosen experiences. Yeah, it's a chosen experience. It's actually good because it helps me to, you know, I sort of facilitate some of them. I do some of the goal-setting workshops and some water skills

and swimming, et cetera. But it also helps me to recalibrate every now and again because, you know, we're sort of getting – I know what the tools are for me to be the most effective person, but sometimes, you know, in life, you know, when you get busy or, you know, there's things that don't always go your way. So, yeah, so Chosen has been a great way to meet amazing people, meet successful people from different walks of life, but then, you know, do things that are really good for yourself spiritually, mentally, physically as well.

So I enjoy that. I still, you know, enjoy talking to the team, working with the swim team. I worked with them in the lead up to Rio, which was unfortunately wasn't a great games for us. But, you know, it's great to see these youngsters that are, I wonder if I was that mature when people were looking at me back then, but almost the way they hold themselves and with all these extra distractions,

I think that they seem more professional than what we were back then. Yeah, like they come out of the womb now, like media trained because everybody is a public personality now. Yeah, it's unbelievable. And the awareness that young people have around that is interesting, but it's also like,

it's so distracting. It's so easy to fall into a social media hole rather than do the hard thing that requires you to turn the phone off. Yeah, absolutely. So look, I think that, yeah, so I still enjoy working with those guys. But it is tricky, actually, because I think I heard you say the other day, I still enjoy being on Instagram every night. Yeah, me too.

Seeing what other people are doing and, you know, sharing my stories, especially, you know, if it's something cool. But I do, you know, when I have a digital detox at Chosen or whatever it might be, I do appreciate the other side as well. Yeah, I was looking at the website for Chosen and there's a lot of trips, man. Do you go to all of them? No. It seems like they're happening all the time.

Yeah, there is a bunch. There is a bunch in Bali. Iceland is a very amazing location. I just came from Guatemala. I was there last week and I was there as a guest. So that was nice to take a week off for myself and to recharge a little bit bedtime yeah in new zealand so those are the four iconic locations yeah it's cool they also tend to have uh volcanoes and um you know i don't know what else but they always seem to be in a very

very exotic kind of pretty rugged environment i know i want to go to iceland so bad yeah never bad i have to get you there when you look look back on your swimming career, what do you think you were able to do that others couldn't? Or what do you attribute your success to beyond just the training and whatever God-given talent you have. Like, I know you mentioned being an innovator, but do you think there are certain things that you were keyed in on that others weren't that allowed you to get that extra advantage to achieve? Yeah, I think definitely the innovation in my stroke definitely helped me a lot

because I think if I hadn't found that stroke that really worked well for me, I'm not sure where I would have been. I think that I hadn't found that stroke that really worked well for me, I'm not sure where I would have been. I think that was the key. But I think almost that I had a really, really sort of strong drive for my sport from a very early age. And I think growing up, Eastern European sort of background and almost like people ask me, where did you have it from?

I said, I don't know. I just had it. It's something that I, this purpose that I wanted to swim. So I think that was definitely an advantage. And I think when it did come off, my mindset was really, you know, I was able to, you know, I was pretty strong mentally when I, you know, most of the time. There was obviously a few where I wasn't. But so I think even my mindset put together with my purpose

and I guess with the new strike, et cetera, I think those three things. Did you ever think, I mean, you're a Polish citizen, right? You're from Poland. Yeah, I probably could have. Yeah, I know. But I wouldn't feel right, you know, especially after so much time and money

invested by the Australian government. But what about during the comeback up to London though? You know, the Polish team is doing so well now. Oh yeah, that's right. There's a bunch of guys that are in the 100 free and 100 fly, so it probably wouldn't have been that easy either.

When you look at what Michael Phelps was able to achieve and the impact that he's had on the sport, like how do you conceptualize that? Like, what does that mean to you? Look, I was lucky enough to be in Rio and see his 20th gold and also see all his swims and raced him a bunch of times as well. So I've realized how hard it is to come back

and not only just to come back but to come back and dominate, especially and he's been, you know, I guess in the dumps a little bit when it came to, you know, he fell out of, you know, a lot of people fell out of love with him and he was able to just, you know, I think, you know, I could see how important swimming is to him as a person. And he did definitely, he had the drive that was probably 10 times greater than mine as well. But I like the story because it did sort of, you know,

the career did take a downward turn, but he was able to bounce back, which was an amazing feat for me. he was able to bounce back, which was an amazing feat for me. But just his ability just to be able to come back from race after race. I did it once, once in the blue moon. The longevity is unbelievable. And I think it's only natural

that something's gonna break along the way. Like you can't maintain that for 20 years. Exactly. And so, you know, shocker, like, you know, that there are gonna be periods of time where he doesn't wanna go to the pool. You know, that has to be the case in order for him to be able to continue and perpetuate.

And I think it's super brave how he's kind of come out and spoken publicly about the mental health issues. And I hope that he does more of that because I think it's so powerful and could be transformative for other people. And it's amazing how, it could have gone left. He could have, it could have gone sideways for him, even with all the performances,

just how he was acquitting himself in the public eye. And then for him to like pull it together and transcend that and to become this, you know, this person that he is now, I think it's quite remarkable. Yeah, it's great to see him and being, I think he's expecting his second bub soon. And you know, he's found, he still seems pretty fit. I think, I know he's obviously swimming still.

There's that like, oh, is he gonna do it again? Well, look, I hope not, actually. He left Rio. I don't think there's any more room on his chest, is there? Like I saw those medals. No more. He's going to tip over. Exactly.

But, you know, he was him and both Ian. You know, for me to actually watch them swim. I saw one session actually, which was Grant Hackett, Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps training together on the Gold Coast ones. And it was so amazing. They had all the guys that were actually in the pool swimming with them. We actually just got out and watched them because to have the, you know, probably the three of the greatest freestylers or swimmers of all time going head-to-head, it just became like a show.

So it was a great pleasure to watch them swim in the same era. But just, you know, it's mental toughness is probably the thing that stands out for me, especially in the last one where Chad DeClo was declaring himself the champion. And that was, you don't poke a bear. That guy needed media training because that's the last thing that you say to Michael Phelps unless you want to lose.

It's like, I don't know what came over that guy. If anything, you always put them, make them the favorite. I know. Deflect. That's the one thing that gets Michael out of bed in the morning. Fired up, exactly.

It's crazy. Yeah. And I think, you know, we'll be seeing the impact of him for decades to come. Yeah. Like the inspiring young kids and the next generation of swimmers coming up. I mean, it's going to be cool to see kind of what he does next. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

He seems to like golf. Yeah. I know. I know. I don't know. We'll see what's gonna happen. Let's talk about like what fitness looks like for you now. Okay. Like what's your typical routine? I mean, you're still super fit.

Yeah, I sort of, I do, I probably do two or three kind of structured modified CrossFit like sessions. so pretty intense sort of circuits. And then I probably do two swims a week. They're pretty cruisy between 2,000 to 3,000 meters. And it's actually my real solo time. I really enjoy that. And then that other incidental exercise, you know,

surfing and playing with the kids and that sort of stuff. So I probably don't get more than five structured sort of sessions in the week, but that seems to be, you know, with work and three kids, et cetera, that's kind of manageable at the moment. Right. I mean, you've been able to keep it together, dude. You look like you're ready to go right now if you got up on the

blocks right now what would you throw down in 100 free i don't know i think i would probably go close to 50 or 52 53 yeah i'm glad i didn't swim at the end of the day but you could know that's only one off you know i'll probably blow my shoulder or something like that yeah it's funny how like all these devices now are on the market where people can wear you know earbuds during swimming and listen to stuff that's the last thing i want to do yeah yeah and i even try that for a while but now it's even yeah just that even the sound of the water just rushing past your ears and all the, you know, you can almost hear, you know, you can definitely hear breath, you can hear a heart.

So for me, like, I appreciate swimming for different reasons now completely, you know. I swim with my kids and, you know, it's a skill that I'm so glad that I've got. So it's much safer in the pool than I am on land, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So where do you see this all going? Just continuing to grow milk? much safer in the pool than I am on land. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so,

so where do you see this all going? Just continuing to grow milk? Yeah. Like what's next for you? Yeah. For me, I think, you know, with the business has been going nearly 10 years. So for us, um, you know, I think it still has some great potential and looking at, you know, different partners along the way to, to try and get it to a global brand. I think we're still a small fish. So yeah, putting that together. But still, I think for me, spending time with my kids and seeing that I've got the 6, 9, and the 12-year-old. Those are great ages.

I used to travel a lot between Melbourne and Bali. And for me, it's actually finding a little bit more, you know, being more grounded. It was sort of, yeah, pretty hard to juggle everything. I went through a divorce a couple of years ago as well. And that sort of took a bit of a toll on me physically and mentally and just trying to be everywhere for everybody. So I think it's been a pretty interesting time just to prioritize health kids you know

my partner there's always it's hard to balance all that stuff man absolutely it's like you know and then coming coming from swimming where it's just like i can train five hours a day yeah and you know eat and nap and all of that and then they're like there's business there's kids there's you know whatever like trying to apportion your energy across all of those things and and and being somebody who is driven who wants to excel in all of those areas like it's it's a hard equation to solve yeah it is and it's sort of um for me as well i'm probably i'm not i wasn't great at saying no in in the past and then probably i don't i think it's uh i'm sure i heard about i i'm not i don't really like letting people down in terms of the thing. Well, when people are asking you to do stuff, though, it's probably cool stuff, too, that you want to do.

Sometimes it's, you know, like it's, you know, and look, I've been very fortunate because people have done me a lot of favors. So I sort of feel like I have to repay them. But yeah, so it's definitely, I think, you know, i'm at a phase in my life where i'm just you know much better prioritizing well thanks for saying yes to this no no thanks for you agreeing for yourself to agreeing to see me when you when you look back on your career are there things you wish you had done differently or any regrets that you have or do do you feel like, you know what? I laid it all out there, man. Yeah, I definitely, in terms of my approach and my training, I definitely didn't leave a stone unturned in the pool

and in the training pool. I think probably overcoming some of those, I wouldn't say, like we were talking about, the slightly mental sort of toughness and some of those big individual events. But I wouldn't say, you know, like we were talking about the slightly mental sort of toughness and, right, some of those big individual events. But I wouldn't say it's regrets. It's probably being able to work on that a little bit better, identifying that early in my career.

But, you know, I think I was, I certainly, you know, I certainly did the work. I was, I got so much out of the sport. I was great, great friends and it gave me an opportunity to, you know, to move forward in life as well. So I'm pretty, pretty, pretty happy. If you were gonna coach young, up and coming Olympian swimmers, what would you focus on?

Or where do you think like the white space is? Like, what do you think like when you see these kids coming up or you see what coaches are doing, do you see like, oh, why are they doing that? They should be doing this or do you look at it differently or? I don't know, I think the guys are pretty on the money, pretty revolutionary already at the moment,

obviously they keep improving. It's a really good question, which I don't know. I think they're, you know, I think what I've liked and there's some of the Aussie guys, they're still being kids, you know, a lot of them when I was growing up and I loved the sport and I remember, you know, coming back from one of the swim sessions in Perth and I saw, you know, Hackey and Thorpey and the guys on the PlayStation. It's just being, they're still 15, 17.

And, you know, I think probably if anything, it sometimes becomes too serious. And, you know, and so, yeah, I think having, yeah, just having fun with it. And I think, you know, if it gets too serious too quickly, it can, you know, having fun with it. And I think, you know, if it gets too serious too quickly, it can, you know, it can burn out. But in terms of training methods, I think they're, you know, on the money. They're certainly better than what I was doing. Yeah, yeah.

So I can't tell them what, you know, what to do anymore. I wonder when, who the next huge star is going to be. I mean, the shadow that, you know, Phelps leaves is so massive. Like who could ever possibly, you know, eclipse that. But you see some guys like Laclau coming up that have the potential to make it. I think Caleb, obviously, Dressel was-

Oh, right. That's who I meant to say, Caleb Dressel, yeah. I mean, he just did, it's just like short course worlds or something like that. He's like breaking world records in breaststroke. In breaststroke, yeah. So I think, you know, I think we've found him to be honest. Like, and he's doing in events like the 100 free,

100 fly medley. He's, you know, so versatile. You know, it'd be interesting to see how, if he can repeat that in Tokyo, I think he won five gold in the world champs. So yeah, so he's the next one to watch for sure. Yeah, it's pretty exciting, man. Yeah.

So if a swimmer or any athlete for that matter, young person who's trying to excel in their sport is listening to this and maybe they don't have the greatest coach. Yeah. They don't have the Australian Institute of Sport at their disposal, but they're trying to figure out on their own through podcasts

and the internet or whatever, like how to be the best athlete they possibly can. Like what can you convey to that person? Yeah. So, you know, I think obviously, I think we all understand that in sport, there's only a small percentage of of athletes that that win that that ultimate gold or or the championship or the world record etc i think there is so much more that you

get out of the sport that you find learn about yourself as well um so i would encourage i mean my kids aren't great in any sport in particular but they still do it they still you know i think the routine is really important. The structure is important. And I think the ability, I think it prepares you, that toughness, being, you know, being able to bounce back in life in general, it's what it's all about. You know, I think it's, you know, there's certainly adversity

is around the corner and that's how we manage through that. And I think for me sport was a great vehicle to learn my sort of prepare myself for life lessons in the future. So, yeah, I think, you know, and not just physical development. So I think, yeah, I would say definitely have a crack, which is another bit of an lg saying but um you know just being able to just just perseverance being a persevered day to day you know that's um yeah keep chipping away i think for a young person it's got to be hard

in our social media fuel culture because you go on Instagram and everything looks easy and sexy and romantic. And it's like, it ain't to, to be great at anything is the most unsexy thing ever. Cause you got to show up every single day and like slog through the mud and it sucks, you know, and you feel like shit and that doesn't translate well, you know, on Instagram, you know, but that's the truth. You know what I mean? Like it's fucking hard, you know, and's the truth you know what i mean like it's fucking hard yeah you know and it's about consistently showing up for whatever you care about yeah yeah it's finding that you know we've i mean these words keep coming up but obviously finding the drive or whatever that purpose is and um you know so and it's funny because sometimes in my squad i've had a couple

people even in my club squad the people that are most driven and most passionate necessarily weren't the best swimmers in our group. Some of the best ones probably had the most talent and things used to fall into place for them. But the ones that we used to fight the most were the ones that probably didn't have the most amount of talent. Right. So, yeah, I think it's- I take that guy any day over the super talented guy who doesn't show up for workout. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Because that, you know, prepares you for life after sport. Yeah. Well, were you one of those sprinter guys that like slagged off? Like it was always the sprinters, like, oh, he didn't show up for morning workout again. Yeah, no, unfortunately not. I think, you know, I was actually, when it came to training, it was one thing that I really enjoyed. Work out again. Yeah, no, unfortunately not. I think, you know, I was actually, when it came to training,

it was one thing that I really enjoyed. And I was, you know, always pretty, very punctual. I used to get more, we used to cheat a little bit when sessions, when that coach was, you know, put on some crazy sets and then, you know, just maybe cut the warmup down a little bit. What was the hardest set you ever did? I don't know. It was mainly just lactic sort of tolerance stuff. So you can really sort of as simple as doing three max 100s on –

you can do it really simply on 10 minutes and then just that falls out or but you know doing um you know we did six as well 650s max on on two minutes as well so but it's it's it's just getting race ready um so i you know i didn't do a great deal of high intensity um you know short rest training because of my events. But that lactic tolerance work was probably the toughest. It's painful. Yeah. Yeah. All right, man, we got to wrap this up.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Rich. Super awesome to talk to you, man. Yeah, thank you. Very cool. Thanks for having me. What else do you have going on here in LA? So actually, I'm here supporting my partner, Desiree. She's got a fashion label.

So she's got a bit of a publicity event tonight. So it's called SWF boutique. So I'll be probably the Instagram husband tonight. But I'm here just making my way back home from Guatemala. So I'm enjoying this crisp weather you've got in LA. And are you going straight to Bali? I'll go to Melbourne first and then go back to Bali. So I'll be back in Bali next week.

Well, I'll hook you up with my friends in Bali. That'd be great. I'd love to meet you. So awesome, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate it. If you're digging on Michael, the best way to connect with him,

milkingco.com is your skincare line. And you got like nutrition products and stuff like that. We don't anymore. We used to have some protein products, but basically it's called the skin fitness range. So we've got a chlorine wash, which is great for swimmers, a sunscreen,

a bunch of other products for active people and some natural products for babies and some more pampering products for women. So yeah, check it out. And the men's line is called Klim, right? Yeah, and then the other, well, it's funny. The blokes out there, they didn't kind of like yourself,

didn't get the idea that Milk and Kai was Klim backwards. They couldn't do that math? No. It's funny. When I do a couple of corporate keynotes and I tell them the story that I've just looked in the mirror. I mean, obviously, I knew my surname was milk backwards for many years. But, yeah, it doesn't always jump out. So we did a bit of study on our products,

and guys thought it was a little bit too feminine, not quite masculine enough. Well, those Aussie guys, man. Yeah, we just want to be tough and simple. What, I put this on my face? Cool. And then you're at Michael Klim on Instagram. And Michael Klim 1, yeah. Right, Michael my face. Cool, and then you're at Michael Clem on Instagram. And Michael Clem one, yeah. Michael Clem one, right, cool.

So yeah. And any other chosen experiences coming up? Yeah, so we got a bunch of chosen experiences coming up in Bali. So if you guys wanna check out choisenexperiences.com, there's all the dates and locations, but yeah, come and do us i've got a swimming week uh coming up in july so that should be uh it should be good we do a bit of skill work

with a bit of surfing a fair bit of a little bit of gym work but it's uh it's a pretty fun week that's awesome and it's chosen experiences.com are people to find out more about that. All right, man. We'll close this down by saying, my man, Dan McPherson says hello. And I told you earlier, like Garrett Weber-Gale called me yesterday out of the blue, who also won a gold medal in the 4x100 free relay in his subsequent generation in an epic, that was an epic race as well.

And I was like, oh, I got Klim coming over to the podcast tomorrow. I was like, do you know him? Like, what should I talk to him about? And he's like, I don't really know him. He probably doesn't remember me. But he said that he was at a meet in 2005. I don't know what meet it was.

Did he tell me? I can't remember. Montreal World Championships, I think. Some World Championships or World University. I don't know what meet it was. Did he tell me? I can't remember. Montreal World Championships, I think. Some World Championships or World University. I don't know, something like that. And he said that like he came up to you to meet you because you were like a big hero to him. And you ended up giving him like all your Aussie gear.

Oh, really? And he's like, I still have it. He's like, I'll never forget that. It was like super cool. So he was like a big hero. Oh, thanks. he he said to say what's up oh beautiful it's nice it's nice when that you know when it when you get that feedback after many years it's you because you never know who that person might right you know turn turn to or what what effect that might have on their on their career and then he ends up getting the you know winning that relay

winning that relay in eight away that relay. That was an amazing race. Actually, Jason Lezak's ankle leg was just. That is probably the greatest relay race of all time. You know. Phenomenal. Second to us. Okay.

Well, we'll leave that open for debate. Yeah, that's right. All right, man. Great talking to you. Thanks,

dude. Thank you. All right, we did it. Hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. Please let Michael know what you thought of the exchange. He is at Michael Klim AUS on Twitter and at Michael Klim One on Instagram.

As always, check out the show notes for links and resources related to today's conversation on the episode page at richroll.com. And if you haven't done so already, please pick up a copy of our brand new book, The Plant Power Way Italia. It's coming out on Tuesday, April 24th. It might already be out by the time you hear this. So what are you waiting for? If you enjoyed our first cookbook, The Plant Power Way, I guarantee you, you're going to freak

out for this one. 125 delicious plant-based recipes inspired by the region of Tuscany's rich culinary tradition. Super proud of it. Can't wait to share it with you guys. It's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever you buy books. And if you would like to support my work, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, share this episode or your favorite episode with friends on social media or one-on-one in person. All of this really helps us out

and it makes it easier for me to book the very best people for future shows. You can also support the show on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. And finally, I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today because I certainly do not do this alone. Jason Camiolo for this guy does everything. Audio engineering. He edits the show.

He handles production show notes. He even writes a lot of the interstitial music and takes my calls late into the night when I'm having a panic attack. Michael Gibson and Blake Curtis for video and graphics and theme music as always by Analema. Thanks for the love you guys. Peace. Namaste. Thank you.