Bob Bowman, ASU Men's and Women's Swimming Head Coach
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2018
⏱️ 134 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s conversation is with Hall of Fame swimming coach Bob Bowman, the maestro behind the illustrious career of Michael Phelps.
He’s now the Head Coach for the Men’s and Women’s programs at Arizona State University.
He is a four-time member of the U.S. Olympic Team staff, including Head Coach of the Men’s team at Rio 2016.
He has guided swimmers to 38 Olympic medals, including 21 individual medals and 19 individual gold medals, and 43 World Records over the course of his illustrious career.
Bob comes from a family of teachers and that’s how he views himself: a teacher.
He has experienced an incredible amount of success, but it is all about the process for him.
When it comes to the process, Bob has four phases to his model: discovery, imagination, challenge, and high performance.
This conversation has it all.
We cover the common traits of high performers, how he gets the most out of his swimmers, and Bob shares some fantastic stories about his experiences coaching Olympians Michael Phelps, Allison Schmitt, and others.
Bob has been by the side of the greatest swimmer to ever do it for 20 years. I can’t wait for you to learn from him in this conversation.
_________________
Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMastery
Get exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/
Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter
Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindset
Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | At the end of the day, the thing that drives performance, well at least in swimming, and I would say in every sport, is a coach-athlete partnership. |
| 0:10.0 | It's not a system, it's not a supplement. It's not a weight training program. |
| 0:14.8 | I mean, it is the coach and athlete partnership and on a daily basis how that works. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | I'm Michael Jervay by Trade and Training. |
| 0:35.4 | I'm a sport and performance psychologist. |
| 0:37.9 | And the whole idea behind these conversations |
| 0:39.9 | is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery. |
| 0:43.2 | Those that are dedicated and have dedicated |
| 0:46.2 | ridiculous amounts of focus and energy |
| 0:48.7 | and passion towards the nuances of their craft. |
| 0:53.0 | So what we want to do is see if we can understand what they're searching for. |
| 0:57.0 | We want to understand their framework, how they see the world and themselves, |
| 1:00.0 | and make sense of events. |
| 1:02.0 | And we also want to understand the mental skills that they've used |
| 1:05.0 | to build and refine their craft. |
| 1:08.0 | Finding Mastery is brought to you by natural stacks. |
| 1:11.0 | Your brain is one of the hungriest organs in your body. It's been found to consume roughly |
| 1:16.0 | around 20% of your energy every day. That means an important factor between the days you feel sluggish |
| 1:22.1 | and the days that you feel sharp is how |
| 1:24.4 | fuel efficient your brain is and that's why I'm excited to be partnered with |
| 1:28.6 | natural stacks. They've got a product, they're dopamine brain food supplement that's designed to support |
| 1:35.8 | the body's natural production of dopamine. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. Michael Gervais, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. Michael Gervais and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.