I learned to swim at six. The lady who taught me was the coach of a local swimming club in Bradford and she invited me to join the club. I don't think I showed any particular talent at that age, it was just that I liked being in the water. A lot of kids do. My kids are just the same.
I quite liked racing. I was one of two boys and it was always a competitive environment at home. So I liked the idea of being able to race people in club swimming championships. By the age of nine I was making finals and winning medals. It was one of those things where success breeds confidence and you want to do a bit more of it. It's all about immediate feedback. A lot of people suffer from not getting immediate feedback at work, but sport is really good for that. You work hard and then you have the race and you think, "I'm doing quite well at this" and you're encouraged to keep going.
My development really accelerated and by the age of 15 I was on the British team. What went by the wayside was studying. I was doing quite well at school up to O Levels, but then I started travelling a lot to swim in competitions. My mum and dad went to parents' evening around mock A Levels time and spoke to the maths teacher. He said, "You do know he's not going to pass his A Level, don't you?" My dad came home and said, "I just want you to promise me one thing. If it doesn't work out with wimming, you'll go back to school and carry on with your education." My parents left school at 14 and worked really hard to provide a better start for me and my brother, so for me to have a conversation with my dad about failing my A Levels must have been hard for him.
When I left school, I went to university in the States for a year on a scholarship but I dropped out of that because I didn't enjoy the swimming coaching there. When I came back I made the conscious choice to be a full-time swimmer and
I signed on the dole. At the time there was no lottery funding, so it was the only thing to do. But by that point I'd won the Commonwealth Games at 18. I was in the top five in the world. It was just a question of getting stuck in.
It was at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 that I hit the buffers. I wanted to win so much that I became too intense. I swam in the US Open in January that year and won it with quite a fast time, so for most of the year I was carrying the world ranking of number one. I was working harder and harder and just burning out mentally and physically. I found it very difficult to go in as a favourite and manage the pressure. I didn't swim very well in the heats and just couldn't cope with what that meant. I unravelled. In the final I came fourth.
I learnt a lot about dealing with pressure between 84 and 88. And I've learnt a lot since. I'm in the Olympic ready room for about half an hour before the final. There's a lot of pressure. So where's it coming from? Mainly from me. But I'm in control of that to a degree. I've got to beat seven people, not the whole world. It's a two-length race, I've done thousands of them. And what's the worst that can happen? I've already lost an Olympics and I survived. And actually I could walk out of this room if I wanted to. So I'm in complete control. It took me three or four years to work out that way of thinking.
As you get closer to standing on your block at the beginning of a race, you start thinking about processes. The first thing under my control is the dive. So what I'm going to think about for the next five minutes before the gun goes is my dive process. I can't worry about whether I win the race, I'll deal with that when I get to it. The mistake a lot of people make is to bring the mountain into the room. And that's true of lots of things I do now at work. Because it's a recession and it's tough, what do you do? You don't think, every company's going to fold, it's going to be terrible. You think, OK, what can we do from this moment now for the next few weeks? You have to think about what you are able to control.
The final was hard. I found it difficult to sleep the night before. I qualified number one after the heats and everything was panning out. I just had to do the same the next day and I'd get the gold medal. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. Going into the final I felt a bit tired and that I'd be relieved when
it was over. And I was. That was the biggest feeling I had at the end. Relief.
When I retired, I wanted to do something I was interested in rather than just doing something for the money. My dad was a wool merchant, so commerce was always in our family. I had a belief in long-term performance psychology skills. There's a myriad ways you can set goals, handle pressure, that sort of stuff. Then there's team performance and how you interact
with other people. That was how Lane4 came about, working with individuals and teams over a period of time to improve their performance and ultimately that of the organisation they work for.
I've learnt a lot personally going from being
an individual sports performer to being a leader. I think some managers start off being really good at what they do and then get promoted to team leader and if they're not careful they end up trying to spraypaint everybody with their way of doing things.
You have to understand different characters' personalities and how to get the best out of them. My coach couldn't swim but he enabled others to be Olympic and world champions. It was all about working together to get the best out of each other.
I'm very excited about London 2012, not just as a sportsperson but also as a businessperson. For a lot of businesses it will be a catalyst. I've been to seven Olympics now and I believe the energy will change something. You'll see ordinary people doing extraordinary things, especially when you get to the Paralympics, of which I'm a massive fan. So what can the rest of us do?
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