Home / Top 20 Most Significant Swimming Stories Of 2016: #8 – Bob Bowman’s Golden Rules

Top 20 Most Significant Swimming Stories Of 2016: #8 – Bob Bowman’s Golden Rules

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SwimVortex continues a countdown of the most significant swimming stories of Olympic Year 2016.

Our series so far:

9: The slow burn of Sarah Sjostrom and coaches 10: Mireia, Fred & The Alchemy Of If To When 11: Gregorio The Great 30-Lapper 12: Putting the Great Back Into Britain 13: Masters, Servants & Subsidies – a model of governance that has had its day 14: The ruinous nature of runes in an Olympic year 15: Custodians in Crisis: FINA – Same As It Ever Was 16: The Australia/ China interface highlights questions of faith & fair dinkum 17:  Schools Out; Schooling’s In: aspiration, inspiration and the impact of Michael Phelps 18. The Swimming Selfie 19. The Canadian Comeback  20. On Hosszu Heights

Today, a man, a maestro, a mentor, a coach: Bob Bowman, ‘grandad’ to Boomer and the mind behind The Golden Rules 

No8 – Bob Bowman’s Golden Rules

It being Christmas Eve, the mind turns to heralds, heavenly outcomes that arrive with challenge as a prerequisite to things that last the test of time.  No8 on our list – a perfect reflection of those eight golden orbs at one Games.

Back in Rio at the Olympic Games – the fifth and swansong Games of Michael Phelps no less – a colleague (nameless to protect the guilty) suggested that the Golden Rules, by Bob Bowman, with Charles Butler, was “ok but … well…”. It didn’t tell him much, was what he suggested. You might say the same about the Bible. That’ll be a bit short-sighted, too. Miracles are a bit like that: the smoke and flash tend to blind the unsuspecting to the grind and daily determination, discipline and dedication that goes into astonishing things.

Things like 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold. How long before we see that again? Not in my lifetime. probably not in yours. Unless a maestro of a coach in search of a composition meets a Mozart of a swimmer and all the notes all into place, by hook, crook, design and the fortune such things may bring.

You’ll be pleased to know that I’m not going to pour through each page of “The Golden Rules” and find a reference that can teach us – though I suspect that it would be possible to do that even in the most ordinary of the tales twixt the covers.

For those of you lucky enough to have Santa pop the book in your sack this night, you needn’t waste time reading my thoughts on it all. For those who want to do so anyway, here are the three articles that formed the SwimVortex review of a book that speaks to those with ears to hear and eyes to see.

From the archive – February, 2016

Review part 1: The Golden Rules by Bob Bowman

Dust down a shelf, make room for a pride-of-place gem heading to the book store and tablet this May: The Golden Rules by Bob Bowman.

Yes, the foreword is written by the biggest ticket he help punch: Michael Phelps. Yes, it is well-written, the co-author Charles Butler, entertaining and instructive all at once. And you can get your hands on the works from May 17. NB: don’t think ‘swimming book’.

There’s a lot of swimming and Phelps in it, for sure, but the sub-title provides the clue when it comes to a guess that this book will not (and should not) be confined to the sports shelf: “10 Steps to World-Class Excellence in Your Life and Work“.

This review in three parts over the course of the week will not rattle out the Golden Rules one by one nor the sub-points within each of the 10, nor will it cite great chunks of the work. That’s not just out of respect for copyright but because the devil in the detail is something each should read for themselves and work out how to apply it to whatever skill, mission and goal in life they set out to master, dedicate themselves to and achieve.

I start this review with a memory of my own. It is late 2009. A Berlin pool up in the Gods with the Gods of swimming and coaching, Bowman to the left, Phelps to the right. A long string of questions prompt some of the very best answers I ever had from either, ever had from any coach or swimmer.

Transpose those on The Method described in The Golden Rules and the constellation takes on more beauty. Bowman’s Golden Rules were forged on the burning deck and in the water he watched over but they transcend swimming and sport: this is a book for all and for all seasons.

Bob Bowman by Craig Lord

Back to Berlin, 2009. Phelps does not look to Bowman to answer his questions for him. He pauses, thinks and speaks in words that tell me I’m addressing a man with his own mind not the automaton who supposedly got great because he ‘followed Bowman’s orders’ (he doubtless did on many occasions but that misses the point backwards).

There is one question that Phelps does not answer. It is about loyalty and faith. He promises to think and get the answer to me. I’m still waiting, though the foreword to The Golden Rules provides part of the answer I was expecting:

“Without Bob, my story is different – 100 per cent different … I don’t believe any other coach could have brought me to where I am today. Bob is one of a kind. He made me see the value of pursuing excellence and what it could bring. And what was that? No, not medals or records, but memories born of dreams.”

One of a kind; one of several “somewhat unique” aspects that placed a success story in the outer orbit of sporting achievement. Among them is what Bowman calls “the Method”. The 10-step plan is what the book is about. It won’t turn you into Bowman nor Phelps but it could help you to achieve your goals in the way they did. That is what Bowman calls his “personal mission”.

As Bowman puts it: “… I believe it can work just as well in the boardroom, in a retail shop, in the family kitchen … Anywhere achievement and excellence are sought, the Method can work.” It is not, he adds, “intended simply to turn a good swimmer into a gold-medal winning one.

“It’s meant to motivate a person to pull greatness – to get gold – out if every day.”

The Method is not an article, nor three – it is as the book lays it out – and for understanding, you will have to read it. Don’t imagine it all comes stress and argument free. “We butt heads. Lord knows we butt heads,” writes Bowman. The rich vein that runs through the work are the tips and guidance provided by a story of “staying focussed”, not just for a month, a year, an Olympic cycle and those phases of life played out under the spotlight of world-stage super troupers – from 11 to 30 in the case of the athlete, 20 and more formative years for the coach, too.

Underscoring the focus is this line that Bowman told a group of world-class salesman he was asked to speak to:

“Whatever you do, avoid complacency. If you’re already number one, set the bar higher, every day.”

Bowman did that with Phelps even beyond the eight gold medals – and the kick back from that taught the coach new lessons that whisper to his dislike of the term ‘review’. What he seeks is “preview”. It is what the Sun Devils working with him and under his guidance in Arizona can expect.

Explanation: in the midst of Rule No 4 – on the theme of long-term success – Bowman asks why people facing their “annual review” at work face the moment as though the grim reaper has come to call. He answers his own question by suggesting that the manager who waits for a year to point out the things that could and should be improved might be the one to reconsider his position. Writes Bowman:

“I’m a big believer in instant and constructive feedback … I don’t wait for a midyear review. I don’t like ‘review’. If I’m going to the trouble of planning time to meet with (sic, meet is a verb and doesn’t need the ‘with’ as we say in England) a swimmer of an employee, I’d rather do a performance ‘preview’, not a review.’

Learn from the past, see how the lesson applies to the future; turn the moment into a way of looking forward, adjusting the “Game Plan” and make progress.

“History shows that adjusting the Game Plan can, in fact, lead to making history.”

The outdoor pool at North Baltimore Aquatic Club

Bowman explains with a story from the very beginning, when he had a meeting with Phelps, aged 11, and his parents, Debbie and Fred. The North Baltimore Aquatic Club coach tells them that the boy is bound to be an Olympian – most likely by 2004. Phelps blows the plan by making the Sydney 2000 Olympic at 15.

The need to adapt hardly stops there, Phelps’ trajectory leading to Peter Carlile as an agent from heaven (why is well described in the book), the million-dollar Speedo bonus that the swimmer fell shy of by a gold with six in 2004 but landed four years on – when he fell one gold shy again but this time only because he’d set a target of 9 golds and got eight at Beijing 2008, Bowman’s “Method” etched on every golden orb.

Bowman concludes Rule 4 with: “My advice: Expect stuff to happen. That way you’ll be ready to react to it – with a new Game Plan… to get to where you ultimately want to go.”

Expect stuff like “Roger”, too. That’s the name Bowman gives to a world-class athlete who joins the program in Baltimore but tows alongside his skills attitudes that just don’t fit.

When Bowman suggests a change to the swimmer’s stroke, he listens, waits and then, coach back turned, mutters within earshot of Phelps “It don’t matter.”

The words reach Bowman. He described the explosion in the book and how Phelps would tease him for weeks after by muttering “It don’t matter”, delivered with a ‘snicker’, every time he walked by.

Roger had to leave. He’s not forgotten. Often, after a great workout, Bowman will tweet his troops #itdoesmatter.

The best ever: the term applied to Michael Phelps at London 2012 as he took his golden tally to 18  [Photo: Craig Lord]

As does celebrating success. As we noted in our feature on coach burnout this week, Bowman writes: “Over the years, I have become a firm believer in the value of celebration as part of the Method … in recent years I’ve started to celebrate the end of each year with a holiday party at my home …

“Achieving our dream vision requires plenty of sacrifice: we use hours we can never get back , we must propel ourselves through daily to-do lists, we need to find a way to fight through emotional and physical exhaustion. But once that moment of completion arrives, it’s imperative to stop, reflect, and consider what has been accomplished and discovered.”

“If you have found success … you have to revel in the spirit of achievement. If success has not found you, then still celebrate the road you have been on …”.

A Book For Everyone

Michael Phelps – by Patrick B. Kraemer

By rippling out the success of self and Michael Phelps in the water to the wider world of all of us in whatever realm of personal or work life you care to name, Bob Bowman has punched himself a ticket to a bigger market and a shelf beyond the sports titles.

It would be easy to interpret that stretch from pool to wider pool of people as a sign of the salesman in Bowman. I have no doubt that the coach would answer ‘sure – you bet’ or something like that, if asked whether he wanted to sell the book to the largest audience possible. He has a brain, a keen one at that.

More importantly, he has a Method. he has a proven Method, he has a message to pass on that transcends Michael and 10x200m of whatever it was on a given day that constituted point 7,342 on a join-the-dots success story that left the canvas and wrote a soaring score many years ago.

The Golden Rules is a book for all of us, for all who, like Bowman and Phelps, have a goal in mind and understand that it will not be easy to achieve; it will not come without adversity; it will come with no guarantees; it will require daily dedication, devotion and discipline; it will require change and adaptation; it will be your life.

The Golden Rules 10 Steps to World-Class Excellence in Your Life and Work St Martin’s Press (from May 17) ISBN #9781250059505 – US$26.99 E Book – ISBN 9781466864573

Review part 2: ‘Let Me Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity’

How Bowman Hooks Shakespeare To Swimming

Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman during a masterpiece of a world titles in Melbourne seven years into maturity beyond the ball of it all at Sydney 2000 – by Patrick B. Kraemer

There is a sense, when achievement reaches the heights of a Hilary Mantel, a Kate Bush, a Lennon and McCartney, a Charles Dickens, a Michael Phelps and soarers from myriad other realms, that it has all come easily, the smoothness of movement, the sharpness of quality, the unmistakeable uniqueness in the score apt to note nature and even nurture more than the sheer toil of blood, sweat and tears along the way.

Make no mistake, the latter is laced with adversity. The overcoming, coping and conquering is as strong a note in the Phelpsian Symphony composed and orchestrated by maestro and coach Bob Bowman as the wingspan, the lung capacity and those other instruments that play their part. The swimmer is the sound. Phelps has made a sound like non ever heard in swimming before.

The Method used to get him to that point on outer orbit with its eight golds at one Olympic Games, with its 18 golds and 22 medals at three Games from the launch pad of pre-Sydney 2000 and a 15-year-old finishing 5th in the 200m butterfly final, is described in Bowman’s “The Golden Rules“.

The book written with Charles Butler, as I noted in the first of three parts of a review, transcends Phelps and swimming and sport: a book in which all of us may find valuable guidance.

An element of adversity (in various guises and interpretations) is inherent in all ten Golden Rules …

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