An Olympic Attitude - How to Achieve Greatness in Your Life

Michael Phelps has done it again, and big. He now holds the record for the most golds won at a single Olympics- a whopping eight. Overall he has won an amazing sixteen Olympic medals.

Can you apply his Champion mind-set to your life? Certainly you can, with two steps:

1. Get a coach: We all need someone. You need someone there to encourage you, keep you disciplined and on track in the day-to-day challenges of life. Michael Phelps has a coach in Bob Bowman, but you can have a supportive spouse, best friend or even an actual coach.
2. Put some "Time" in each of your Banks: Time is money. Unfortunately most people do not make that connection. With each action of your day you are spending Time/Money on that activity. If the critical areas of your life are the physical, inner-peace, relational, financial and spiritual, then you need to deposit some "Time" in each of those Banks with each action you take. Start to look at the five critical areas of your life as Bank accounts that you deposit "Time" in.

Michael Phelps has obviously been putting an enormous amount of "Time" in his Physical Bank and he just cashed out with a few Gold medals. Being at the top certainly has its rewards and he increased all five of his Banks while at the Summer Olympics.

• Physical Bank: The Olympics are the ultimate test of someone in top Physical shape and Michael was just rewarded with eight medals. This certainly qualifies as having a huge Physical Bank account balance!
• Relational Bank: Michael's Mom and sisters were there supporting and loving him as evident by him climbing into the stands to give all three of them a kiss after winning his eighth medal. A supporting and loving family supports a strong Relational Bank.
• Inner-Peace Bank: Most certainly Michael's self-confidence must be at an all time high with this celebration. Inner-Peace is found in such amazing moments.
• Financial Bank: Endorsements and sponsors will be following this amazing achievement, thus increasing his Financial Bank for years to come.
• Spiritual Bank: I can only imagine how connected he felt to the world as a whole and how alive he must have felt. That feeling of connectedness and celebrating such human achievements is what draws us to the Olympics.

Bob Bowman, Michael's coach, understands how to push him.

"Bob has a saying, 'Putting money in the bank,' " Phelps said. "When we train every day, sometimes there are workouts you don't like, don't want to do. Bob says you're putting money in the bank. "I guess I put a lot of money in the bank over the last four years, and we withdrew pretty much every penny in the bank. After Bob and I both grab a little break, it'll be time to start depositing."

After pushing himself for so long Michael Phelps is ready to head back home to Baltimore. He is balancing out his Bank accounts. It seems to me that Michael and Bob understand how to use their Banks. Do you?