Ten lessons for success in sport

There are people naturally good at sailing, and while loving the sport is vital for continued involvement and success, how they approach it impacts their path. American swimming coach Bob Bowman has coached over 30 Olympic gold medals and shares the lessons he wishes more people understood:

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.

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.

3. You have to practice for the day things go wrong. In Beijing, Michael Phelps’ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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