Michael Phelps went six years without missing a day of training. 365 days a year. Christmas morning, New Year's, Thanksgiving. People assume I made him do that. It was the other way around. 🧵

2. The details matter because they repeat. Léon Marchand takes seven kicks off every wall. Every set, every day. I don't let it slide, even in practice when it doesn't matter. By the time the race is close, nobody has time to think. It has to be automatic.

1. Talent is real. It is also the thing most likely to ruin you. Every great athlete I have coached had unusual ability. My job was to make sure they didn't rely on it.

6. People become what the room expects of them. If the room lets a standard slide, it slides. If the room corrects the small thing every single day, people stop believing small things are small. My goal is to build an environment where success is inevitable.

3. You have to practice for the day things go wrong. In Beijing, Michael's goggles filled with water in the 200 fly. He couldn't see the wall or the lane lines. He counted his strokes, because that's what we did in practice.

I've coached Olympians for almost 40 years, and my athletes have won over 30 Olympic gold medals. I don't want a single one of them to be mentally tough. Mentally tough people break down under pressure. 🧵

4. A big goal is only useful if it turns into a schedule. Write down the eight gold medals if you want. Fine. Then you still have to swim the 500 free that's right in front of your nose this morning. How do you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.

8. Winning is harder to survive than losing. The hardest people I've dealt with are the ones who actually got the thing they chased. There's something genuinely destabilizing about it. You celebrate it. Then you decide what's next. Otherwise it decides for you.

5. Motivation comes and goes. That's true for everyone. Some of the most driven people on earth wake up and don't feel like it. The answer isn't complicated. Do your work.

Every year at our first team meeting, I give the same talk. Here are the 5 non-negotiable things I ask of every athlete. I've given it so many times now that the seniors say it along with me. 🧵

7. If nobody fails in practice, the practice was written wrong. Don't be afraid to let them fail. That's where they learn everything they need to learn about how to get better.

9. Confidence is built on the calendar, not in the head. I plan the season so a swimmer has already proven it to themselves before the big meet. You can't talk someone into feeling ready. You show them what they've already done.

10. There is no one magic way to do this. People are always bringing me the new method. It's like spinach. It's good for you. I'm still not going to eat it every day.

10. There is no one magic way to do this. People are always bringing me the new method. It's like spinach. It's good for you. I'm still not going to eat it every day.

Set the goal. Build the environment. Do the work. Fix the details. Let them fail while it's cheap. Keep going. It isn't complicated. It's just hard to do for long period of time

I had Michael Phelps fill out a goal sheet when he was eleven (I coached him through all 5 of his Olympics). On the front he wrote, "I want to swim in the Olympics." I didn't find out what he really wanted until I turned the page over. 🧵

There is something incredibly destabilizing about success. The most difficult thing I've dealt with is the people who actually achieve what they set out to achieve.

After 40 years of coaching champions to more than 30 Olympic gold medals, here are the hard truths about becoming one. 🧵