What is your single best advice in life?

All right, this is-- obviously, tons of great advice. But the one that sticks out when I was younger, and I think it applies to every job and everything, is my old boss, when I worked construction, it said, use your bean. So that's use your brain. And it's as simple as that. But a lot of times, we make rash decisions or make decisions without thinking about it. So in construction, you're, like, hey, you got to use your bean. So, you know, I pick up a-- I pick up of sledge hammer. I start to swing it, but I didn't check the surroundings. Or I pick up a sledge hammer, and I start hitting this thing, and I don't look around. There's actually wires near there. It's simple stuff like that. And it applies to, obviously, all our sports. In training, use your bean. You know, if somebody says that they want to work this hard, but you know that they're not prepared to do it, and use your brain and know that they shouldn't do it, and don't make them do it. So use your bean.

Hey Michael. What is my single best piece of advice in life? I really like this quote that my mom shared with me years ago about basically if you have a committed heart, you're going to make something happen. Even if the conditions aren't perfect because often times in life, the timings never exactly right? You know, like, for example, at the Olympics, I had food poisoning 30 hours before the timing was not right? But if you really want something to happen, it's Worth committing your whole heart to it and committing everything you have and really going after it. So essentially if something is worth doing to you then go all in and really just commit to it because then, you know, that you've really tried and you've given it your absolute best shot and you don't have to wonder, you know, what, if I had tried this, what if I had just done it, you know, you know, I tried it. Here's what happened. And you get to live at peace with that answer. So, even if If it's not the outcome you wanted, you know that you gave yourself the best chance of success in whatever it is that you're going after. So yeah. Basically the advice I would give is if you if you want to commit to something commit with your full heart. Even if the timing isn't right and just see how far you can take it.

There's an old Buddhist proverb that talks about a series of three events that happens to a farmer. And then the first event, the farmer's son, brings back a horse to his property, which in theory allows the farmer to complete a lot more work. And so the town's people say, oh, that's so wonderful that your son brought back this horse and the farmer says maybe. And in the second part of the story, The Horse kicks, the Sun and breaks his leg and so the sun can no longer work and the Oz people say oh, that's so terrible. And the farmer says, maybe and in the third part of the story, The Town militia comes by to take all the young eligible soldiers to go off to war. Many of whom inevitably. Inevitably get killed. And so the townspeople say that. So fortunate that your son is able to be spared because of his broken leg, you can't fight. And the farmer says, maybe and the principle of the purpose of that story is to not pass judgment on the events and circumstances in your life. A life. So the single best advice that I can give to someone is to not pass a judgment saying, this is good, this is bad. Don't pass judgment on the events and your own life and especially don't pass judgment, or don't put criticism on the events and expectations of others. And the reason judgment is so harmful is that when you judge a situation, you have a narrow Focus, the opposite of judgment is creativity. Its openness, it's imagination. And having three young kids, I see the possibility of everything, the imagination, the lack of judgment that they place on situations and that's a very powerful thing. So my single best advice is to be open-minded. Don't pass judgment on others. Have trade in expectation for appreciation. And I think those things can make your life a lot happier and it'll feel like it's a lot more fulfilling for you and those around you.

Hey Michael. Yeah, my single best advice I got was from my dad. Once I was a freshman in high school, I was playing hockey in the freshman team and I never played. I saw it in the bench whole time, all year, every game might get one shift there in there in its socked, I hate it Amendment the end of the season. I'm M by walked out of the dress. My have my bag old much older I was bummed out and the coach was standing there. My father come around the corner and bumped right into him, hit him with the shoulder said, hey, I'll come my kid can't play and you know, of course, I was embarrassed, but and I went out and I got the car, we're driving home and he, you know, I was bummed on. He says, what's going on? I said, honestly, I think they're quitting hockey, I hate it, I hate sitting on the bench. I want to play and my father told me he said, listen, here's the deal, you can quit. If you want to Quit. Go, right ahead. But he said, I'll tell you one thing. You quit that will haunt you for the rest of your life. It will haunt you. Now, you can quit or in getting the gym, you can start working harder, you know, doing the things that are going to help you become a better player. Go down the, you know, practice you shot down the school yard. Like I did. Yeah. He put it on me and you know what? I took that advice. Vice. I didn't quit and I didn't quit in any areas in my life because of, that advice, I didn't want to be hunted for the rest of my life. Hope that answers your question.

What is your single best advice in life? Well, I'm 45 and it's taken me a long time to, I guess appreciate this and also put it into practice. But if you've been an athlete for any given amount of time and you've now left that life, you're used to a certain structure of opportunities, to perform and to grow and to get the best out of yourself. And I'm a Believer that all of us have a purpose in this world and that is tied into the special gifts that we received. So, to find out to marry those gifts with a purpose, a calling in life and understanding how those two married together can benefit other people. I think, once you get to that point where you found each of those three ingredients, You hear the saying all the time you, if you know, do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. That's exactly what that is. You know? Like because every day is a purpose filled life. You you know, the opportunities that come to you will require you to progressively improve who you are as a human being every single day and, you know, retirement from that. Why on Earth would you want to do that? That's just such a great recipe for Lifetime success. I'm just fortunate that I found my three ingredients and I hope that, you know, off this response. I hope you start looking for yours.

I would say my single best advice is going to be always having fun, finding the joy and things and that sounds really easy. It's not, sometimes it's hard, you know, sometimes you're going to have your days where you don't want to be there and you're doing things that you don't enjoy. And you have to work a little bit harder at finding the things that you love. But honestly, I think when people love what they do, you know they say you don't work at this single day in your life, I don't know if that's 100% true, but I do think that when You love what you're doing? You're going to, you're going to swim faster. You're going to compete better. And in general, you're just going to be happier. Overall, in life, I've had periods in my life, where I had to work harder, to find the joy typically, that's when things aren't going well. And you're having plateaus and those kinds of things. And a great piece of advice, I got once was literally make a list of every single thing that you love about swimming and you know, specific to swimming, it could be anything, you know, it could be that you can eat more that That, you know, you get to see your friends at practice, you know. It doesn't always have to be swimming specific but yeah I think sometimes you have to find those things and then sometimes focus on that and change it up a little bit if you need to but always find the love, always find the joy.