Building a positive outlook

Peter Jackson (00:06): When was the last time you had a 3:00 a.m. conversation? I’m talking about those times when you’ve got something on your mind that you just can’t shake off and it always seems to hit you in those wee small hours. I’m Peter Jackson and as the former CEO of international law firm Hill Dickinson, I’ve been there too, and I think it’s really important to examine those moments in the cold light of day to get some perspective on them and build more resilience for the future. In this podcast, 3:00 AM Conversations, you’re going to hear from high achievers about their own 3:00 a.m. conversations and so you can apply their insights to your own life. In this episode, you’ll hear from Olympic athlete Steve Parry. Steve’s a former swimmer turned businessman, motivational speaker, charity fundraiser, and BBC Pundit. He won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics and after retiring from the sport, Steve built up a highly successful business teaching kids how to swim. He’s certainly got his head screwed on right, but as you’ll hear that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have the odd 3:00 a.m. conversation.

Steve Parry (01:18): Most times I’ve had broken sleep around I really want to go and win a medal at the Olympics. I’m not currently good enough to be on the British team. What do I do?

Peter Jackson (01:29): And you’ll hear Steve’s story coming up. But first though, let’s hear from my co-host for this episode, Lizzie Jones. Lizzie is a corporate lawyer based in Hill Dickinson’s Liverpool office. So then Lizzie, tell me about the day job.

Lizzie Jones (01:44): Well, Peter, as you just said, I’m a corporate lawyer in our Liverpool office and essentially do a bit of everything in relation to advising businesses, from mergers and acquisitions to investments. That’s how I first got to know Steve Parry, actually. We’ve acted for him for the last 10 years and just last month we advised him on his management buyout of Swim.

Peter Jackson (02:02): Excellent. So how did you get into law in the first place?

Lizzie Jones (02:05): Well, I didn’t really have a plan to become a lawyer as such, but I just picked law as a degree as I was more suited to the art subjects rather than sciences, so a law degree lent itself well to what I was good at.

Peter Jackson (02:16): So you’ve landed here by default?

Lizzie Jones (02:18): Basically, I wasn’t clever enough to be a doctor, yeah.

Peter Jackson (02:21): I’m not having that. Anyway. Have you ever had a 3:00 a.m. conversation?

Lizzie Jones (02:27): Pete, I’m a corporate lawyer. I have 3:00 a.m. conversations every week trying to get deals over the line. No, in all seriousness, I actually had one last night. And I wake up at 3:00 a.m. most nights with my mind in overdrive, just thinking about everyday worries really, from work to family and everything in between. It’s always the subconscious stuff, isn’t it?

Peter Jackson (02:48): It is. Well, hopefully this podcast, amongst others, will help you cope with them. You mentioned earlier that you’ve worked with our guest, Steve, before. So as you know him, what are you really looking forward to from the conversation?

Lizzie Jones (03:02): Yeah, that’s right. So I know Steve as a successful businessman, so I’m looking forward to hearing more about his journey and how he got there. He’s actually one of the most positive people I’ve ever met, and I always wonder if he gets that from his time as a successful Olympic athlete or if that’s just a character trait that he was born with that has made him succeed in both sports and business. I guess I’ll have to wait to see what he says to find out.

Peter Jackson (03:23): Well, let’s find out then. Time now to hear from our guest for today, Steve Parry, MBE. Steve’s a former swimmer who’s represented Great Britain at the European Championships, where he won gold, the Commonwealth Games, and at the Olympics, where he was a bronze medalist in 2004 at the Athens games. And after winning bronze in Athens, he retired from the sport, setting up his own business, Total Swimming, with friends and former colleagues, Becky Adlington and Adrian Turner. He’s also worked as a motivational speaker, BBC pundit, and a charity fundraiser. And as a pundit, in addition to his learned views on swimming, I understand he’s still the BBC correspondent for beach volleyball. Maybe he’ll talk to us about that.

(04:13): One thing I know he will talk to us about is his passion for teaching kids to swim and getting kids into swimming pool where he spent a lot of his business life. But in addition to the challenges he faced as a sportsman and in business, he possibly faced his greatest challenge when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer only four weeks after getting married. Thankfully, everything’s now right, but I know he now raises awareness for Cancer Research UK. So Steve, thanks for joining us today. I’d love to think you were here just to see us from Hill Dickinson, but I know you’ve got an appointment later this evening at Anfield.

Steve Parry (04:49): Well, it did time in quite nicely, didn’t it, Petey?

Peter Jackson (04:51): Didn’t it just?

Steve Parry (04:51): We get to have this lovely chat, and then we get to go and watch some football. So yeah, it was perfect.

Peter Jackson (04:57): Excellent. Well, thank you very much for coming to see us. You’ve spent over 30 years in the pool in one way, shape, or form, either as an international athlete or in your business life teaching kids to take up the sport. So a couple of questions to start with. When did you get the bug and what is it about swimming for you that has driven so much of your life?

Steve Parry (05:19): You know what? I was dead lucky growing up in South Liverpool because without knowing it, I had the perfect set of parents for me. They got me into absolutely everything and I just found that from a very early age, I knew I was all right at swimming. And when an individual gets excited about something, it doesn’t matter what it is, the parents have won because they’re then driving themselves. And I think that’s more true now in this day and age when it comes to all the electronics that they’ve got to deal with getting kids out the house, being physically active. If parents can do that, they win.

Peter Jackson (05:53): I’ve heard you talk previously about swimming being much more of a team game than those of us who aren’t in swimming might understand. Of course, you were the captain of the GB team in 2004. How does that work when it is such an individual sport?

Steve Parry (06:09): Well, I think that’s the key. When you’ve got your head in the water for 23 hours a week and you’re just looking at a black line the whole time for hour and lap, hundreds of laps after each other, you absolutely can’t do that as an individual, you need a team of people around you with the same endeavour trying to do the same stuff. I mean imagine the scene, 4:45 in the morning, it’s like Groundhog Day, the alarm goes off. That happens six days a week. And I bet you can imagine what the first thing is you think of. I won’t repeat it because it’s too rude, but it’s like okay, here we go again.

(06:45): But then there’s something, the heart has to win over the head at that point because your head just goes, this is silly, this. Go back to sleep. Humans should not be up at this time. But then I had this burning desire inside of me from a very early age that actually if I do this and I go down to the pool, I might have the chance of achieving my dream, which is getting on the Olympic rostrum. But also next door to 4:46, he was always a minute later than me, was a lad called Adie Turner, who is my business partner now, but before that was my training partner and best mate, and I would have to get him up, bowl of cereal, in the car, and off we go. The teamwork, the camaraderie starts there, it doesn’t start in the pool when you dive in. So before you’ve even got in the water, before you’ve even seen a coach, the team element is already there. I absolutely loved it. Taught me a lot about life.

Peter Jackson (07:32): Well, it brought you to the Olympic rostrum and also you were one of only three swimmers ever, I think, to beat Michael Phelps.

Steve Parry (07:40): Yeah.

Peter Jackson (07:40): Sadly in a semi-final.

Steve Parry (07:42): You shouldn’t have said that. I prefer you just to leave it out there. Just one of only to beat Michael Phelps, you know what I mean?

Peter Jackson (07:47): We can edit that.

Lizzie Jones (07:47): At least it was on record.

Steve Parry (07:50): It’s on record. It was a great moment, that, because I mean just exploring that 36 hours at the Olympics, we were in a terrible state and when I got up to swim as captain of the team, we didn’t have any medals at that point. And also, Britain I think maybe had one or two medals. We weren’t doing very well at all and all our top guys just weren’t getting the medals, and I don’t think I was one of the favourites to get a medal, but I found myself in this position where the morning at the Olympics, everybody turns up. You see about 200 people turn up. There’s only 16 spaces for the, well, top 16 to get through for two semi-finals. I was 16th by four one hundredths of a second.

(08:27): I was the slowest qualifier, only just scraping through literally by less than a fingernail, and I just wanted to be out of there. It’s funny because sometimes I think people are more scared of failure than they are at trying. I thought if I mess up in this semi-final, I’m going to be a complete loser and I would’ve taken the ticket to go home if I could have in the morning. But it was actually me coach who was really good and he said, Listen, Steve, just put your shoulders back and smile. And I was like put my shoulders back and smile? Just had one of the worst swims in my life. I don’t want to be walking proud. Do you know what I mean? But he made me do it and it completely changed my mindset, and he said, You were just off this morning. Come back tonight, get your right head in the game, and just go for it. I was too cagey in the morning.

(09:14): And anyway, I came back that night, it was only eight hours difference, and I broke the British record and Commonwealth record. I beat Phelps and I was fastest qualifier for the final. And that was another life lesson, because usually when you wake up in the morning, you have a bad time, it doesn’t mean that your day’s going to be rubbish, but jeez, the pressure. I know this is called the 3:00 AM podcast. I don’t think I slept that whole night because the pressure of being a fastest qualifier at Olympics is acute, especially when you’ve got some dude called Michael Phelps going next to you, and he didn’t like being beaten. I think I got a one-line mention in his book, but he wasn’t very impressed. But yeah, third, the following night, to the best time I’d ever done at the Olympics in the final, at a veteran’s age of 27. So it was quite a proud moment, yeah.

Peter Jackson (09:56): Brilliant. What is it about the Olympics? Does it trump every other competition

Steve Parry (10:03): Without a doubt. And I think there’s something magical about it, because you’re professional people, you’re smart people, you work very hard. But imagine if someone said to you, You do four years work and then we’ll judge your performance on two minutes on the 17th of August 2028. If you do well, you’ll get all the rewards, and if you don’t, then you’ll get nothing. That’s what’s so special about the Olympics. Everybody knows it’s one opportunity every four years and I think there’s something very, very special about what that is. I’ve always loved that.

Lizzie Jones (10:37): Have you, Steve? So how’d you deal with the pressure of that though on yourself? You’ve worked for four years really hard for this one moment.

Steve Parry (10:45): The biggest stress, Lizzie, is that you might not be there or you might qualify and then be sick. I mean you are so paranoid. Before COVID was this thing with the hand sanitizer and all that, we were going round with little bottles of hand sanitizer on our hips, cleaning our hands every five minutes. But I think the pressure’s quite fun. I quite enjoy pressurised situations. I don’t know. Yeah, I’ve always quite enjoyed that pressure bit.

Peter Jackson (11:12): You said there it wasn’t about medals. Do you still keep yours in the sock drawer?

Steve Parry (11:16): I’m scared about how much you know. Where you getting your intel?

Peter Jackson (11:21): I listened to The Anfield Wrap with John Gibbons. I mean, he tells us everything, doesn’t he?

Steve Parry (11:24): Oh, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, it did. Yeah, it is still there, although I’ve got to move it now because I’m starting to tell people. Originally, I had a chat with my wife and I was like, Where am I going to keep this thing? And she was like, Oh, keep it somewhere nobody will ever look if we get broken into, so I stuck it in the sock drawer, and now it’s stayed there, but it’s so tatty now.

Peter Jackson (11:44): Just talking about your time at university for a moment, because you went to Florida State, didn’t you?

Steve Parry (11:48): Yeah.

Peter Jackson (11:48): Straight out of school. You studied business and marketing, I think it was.

Steve Parry (11:52): I did, yeah.

Peter Jackson (11:53): Was that with an eye to the future or was that just a subject that interested you?

Steve Parry (11:56): I went to America primarily on a swimming scholarship, but to study science. But what they did was they have a careers advisor for all the athletes that are going over, and I was invited to go to this meeting, I remember it’s the first week that I got there, and they sat down, they asked us a few questions, and they stuck us on the computer and they asked us some more questions. And at the end, they said, Are you sure you want to do science-based learning? We think you’re suited to different courses. Looking back, that is incredible. I remember the fellow’s name, Matt Smock, sat us down and he took us through the thing, and he got me into business study. The lectures were fantastic, full of energy. And I don’t think I ever won an Olympic medal without going to America for four years because I got in the habit of going, Hey, Coach. What’s up, man? I’m ready to go.

Lizzie Jones (12:40): It’s a recurring theme for you as well, isn’t it? Obviously worked with you for a long time. I do think you’re one of few people whose glass half full, actually. If you have an issue in business, it’s not like oh, it’s the end of the world, it’s how do we deal with it? What’s the best we can do?

Steve Parry (12:54): Lizzie, I think what is the point in life of being a pessimist? I don’t know if pessimists go to bed happy or not, or content. I’ve been so grumpy today.

Lizzie Jones (13:10): You’d have to ask [inaudible 00:13:11].

Steve Parry (13:11): But yeah, I think if you’re a positive person, you get better results. We need cynics in life to get through, of course we do. There are two sides of every beach ball. It’s just not for me. I like glass half full approach.

Peter Jackson (13:23): Well, on that theme then, and let’s talk about the cancer diagnosis, that must’ve been obviously devastating at the time, but were you able to keep that mindset, that positivity going faced with that challenge?

Steve Parry (13:36): Yeah, I was really, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s business, or personal health, or swimming, I’ve got very similar philosophy on all of them. Do we understand where we are and where we’re trying to get to? A lot of people would call that goals, but you’ve got to recognise where you are and you’ve got to recognise where you want to be. That’s step one. Can you surround yourself with a team of people that can help you get there? So business, personal health, or sport, that’s really important. Having the right mindset in order to be able to achieve those things as well. Yeah, and there’s a thing in there about when you’ve got mindset, it’s challenging negativity. I mean, when I was told I had cancer, I’m laughing about it now, I wasn’t laughing about it at the time.

(14:21): A fellow just turned around to me, and he says, Your doctor will be in touch. And I was like well, that doesn’t sound good. I said, Can you just tell me? And talk about bedside manner, he went, You’ve got a tumour. Now, I didn’t find it within myself to be positive over the next 24 hours, but when the doctor called the next day, he was a glass half full guy and he said, You’ve got a good one. He said, If you’re going to have any cancer as a male, you want testicular cancer because the survival rates are absolutely fantastic. So same thing, discussed it with my wife, and we discussed what the approach was going to be, and went through that philosophy, but I was very, very lucky with my diagnosis. But it was doubly hard because my wife unfortunately lost her sister to cancer very shortly after she got married, so the whole C-word was profound. It is in everybody’s family. Everybody knows people have being touched by it. But yeah, same approach. I think you’ve got to stick with your philosophy.

Peter Jackson (15:27): Well, should we move on to the 3:00 a.m. conversations?

Steve Parry (15:29): Oh, yes.

Peter Jackson (15:30): We always ask our guests to give us in advance three topics that will keep them awake from time to time at 3:00 in the morning. And your first one, I suppose, really goes back to your swimming days because it’s about strategies for being successful and particularly at that ultimate level, which as you’ve told us is the Olympics. So how did that play on your mind in the real world when you were an athlete?

Steve Parry (15:53): I think when you’re literally racing for what you eat, sport’s fantastic for that, because you’re not paid for the time that you’re put in, you’re paid for your results. So the way sports people get paid in this country at Olympic level is if you’re top 5 in the world, you get one band, if you’re 6 to 12, you’re another, and so on and so forth. There is always a pressure of have I got enough money to live and carry on doing what I’m doing? There’s dozens of times that I wasn’t successful, but in 1996 that was particularly painful. So I’d gone to America, I was training really well, I was improving no end, but I wasn’t dedicated enough. I wasn’t committed enough. I was enjoying the American lifestyle, it was great, and I came home to race and I missed the Olympic team. So imagine that you’re not good enough to even wear the tracksuit and you then have to wait, in total, 23 months before you get to prove yourself again. And yeah, do you know what? It hurts me just talking about this.

Peter Jackson (16:51): Sorry.

Steve Parry (16:52): No, it’s good. And then I ended up going back and I trained really hard for three months, and we went to the worst pool for the Summer National Championships in Leeds, and I did a time that would’ve finished me fifth in the Olympic final. And I was like what are you doing? You’ve got the talent to do this, but you’re making the wrong choices. You’re doing times in a rubbish pool in Leeds that would’ve got you in the Olympic final in Atlanta in front of 15,000 people. Sort your life out. And the reason I refer to strategy, always trying to link it up to business and other stuff as well, is you have to make some fundamental changes when things aren’t going right.

(17:30): You can’t carry on doing what you’ve always done because you know what you’re going to get, you’ll just get the same stuff. And I was with the British Swimming Centre, but I didn’t get on with the coach. So we had all the resources, we had all the money, but we didn’t have the right leader, we didn’t have the right coach, or at least he didn’t fit me, and I was like I’ve got to change everything here. But when you’re not a youngster, I was 24 years of age, but to make that call against the system and against your current coach is not an easy thing to make. But I go back to stuff I said before about where do you want to be and what sort of team do you want around you? I just knew that it needed to change. I wouldn’t articulate it as I’m articulating it to you now, but I knew that it needed a change. And there was months and months of agonising over that, and I never agonise any more about making changes if stuff isn’t working, I’m action-oriented, off we go, just change.

Lizzie Jones (18:29): Does that help you now with your business decisions, Steve?

Steve Parry (18:31): Hugely. I get immensely frustrated that we don’t go even quicker as well. Because I go, Come on, we’re doing this, and everyone, Oh, what about the … Yeah, okay. Well, we’ll discuss that but we’re doing that. But I think that’s probably the most anxious I’ve ever been. Not anxious, that’s the wrong word. Most worried, most times I’ve had broken sleep around I really want to go and win a medal at the Olympics. I’m not currently good enough to be on the British team. What do I do?

Peter Jackson (18:59): What I’d suggest as well is you’ve learned from mistakes, haven’t you? You’ve learned from when things are not right and as you say, you’re a doer. If they’re not right, put them right.

Steve Parry (19:07): Yeah. I mean, I think so. The real mistakes in life are when you keep failing at the same thing and not doing anything about it. I try to surround myself with people in life now that have similar mindset. You need to experience all sorts of different people in life, of course you do, but I find that if you do want to be successful at anything, you’ve got to go and ask someone that’s being successful in that arena. If you want to be successful in business, go and have lunch with successful business people and ask them how you do it. You want to be successful in sports? Go and speak to an Olympic medalist around what they did in order to be successful. You want to get over a health issue, go and speak to someone that’s done it. We can overthink these things, but I certainly think in any one of those environments, you don’t move yourself forward by hanging out with people that tell you that’s simply never going to be possible, because you won’t. The mind is an amazing thing.

Peter Jackson (20:06): Well, on that note, let’s move on to the second area. And the way you put that was your concern about work-life balance and I suppose I’d start with asking can you have one when you’re training for the Olympics?

Steve Parry (20:22): No, you can’t, but you do sacrifice a lot. And now I’ve got children, I try to look it through that lens. Would I wish it on my kids to be Olympians? Would I hope that they can make an Olympic final or win an Olympic medal? And what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to weigh that up against all the stuff that you’re sacrificing, the stuff that we all take for granted that I certainly do now, weddings, mates’ parties, summer holidays together with your mates, all of that stuff is generally out the window. So in terms of work-life balance there, when I was really serious about it, I was saying no to everything. I remember not falling out with my mum, but my mum’s family friends got married, my mum’s best mate’s kids got married and I said, I can’t go to this wedding over the water.

(21:14): And it’s like, Why? You don’t train on a Sunday? I said, Well, I know, but I need to rest competing next week. And even with my mum, who was absolutely fantastic and my biggest fan, like all our mums probably are, she was like, I don’t understand that. It’s one day and you’ve got to do it. We fell out about that one. So you’re absolutely right, as a sportsman, work-life balance was out the window because you’re all in, until you have your three weeks off and then it’s party central. But then in business, I think business, it’s more interesting. Once you achieve a certain level in work and career or business, and if you have family as well, it’s not necessarily work-life balance for you personally, it’s are you overworking rather than spending time with your kids? Because ultimately I’m a dad and that’s my first job, and I think my responsibility is to raise these four kids. I was just making sure I had four them because they keep appearing.

Peter Jackson (22:04): Yeah, you had to think about that, didn’t you?

Steve Parry (22:06): Yeah, four. And I’ve got a dog now as well, Dotty, and she ranks ahead of me in the house as well.

Peter Jackson (22:11): Of course.

Steve Parry (22:13): But yeah, I think the 3:00 a.m. question on work-life balance is because I’m so keen to be successful in business, I do ask myself a lot, have you got that balance right? The prime example of missing the Christmas Carol concert when your kid is singing one line as a sheep. Most people would go, Listen, he’s a sheep and it’s a carol concert, and you’re only singing one line. He’s not really going to miss you. Well, actually he’s looking for his dad at 3:00 in the afternoon to sing this one line and I’m off doing a very important business meeting, and that’s the work-life balance that I’m talking about. But I think we should all be working towards actually having the freedom of time. The more successful you are, the more time you get back, and I think that’s the real currency, not money.

Peter Jackson (23:00): Totally agree with you. Let’s go straight on then to the third one. And the way you put that was tactics around growth. Now, we’ve heard a lot about growth in the economy recently. I mean the Chancellor of the Exchequer can’t use any other word at the moment, can she? But what did you mean by that?

Steve Parry (23:17): Everything. Growth in life. And again, it orientates back to that very simple philosophy of where you are and where you want to be. [inaudible 00:23:26], me and my wife sit down every six months and we do this planning, it’s like life planning. So I’ll give you an example, if you’ve got a 3-year plan in business and a 10-year plan in business, and it works and it’s really important to do that at work, wouldn’t it be really important in life for you to have a 1-year, 3-year, and 10-year plan? But you’ll be amazed at how many people are willing to invest time and energy into planning business but won’t invest time and energy into their life.

(23:53): So when I talk about stuff that might keep me up at night, if you’re trying to improve yourself personally, yeah, you know where you want to be, but can you put the plan together of how to do that? I find myself waking up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning trying to think about solving issues, and I’ve taken to putting a pad next to the side of my bed of actually I’ve cracked that one. I’m going to write that down. And then, you follow up in the morning like you were a genius at 4:00 in the morning. That’s amazing. So I often find myself trying to solve problems while you sleep. And it’s weird, I wake up more now the older I am, I think I’m now conditioning myself to you’re going to come up with the answers at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, just write it down on the pad then.

Peter Jackson (24:37): You see, other guests we’ve had here have seen 3:00 a.m. in the morning conversations as a negative, but your glass half full mentality is you’re actually planning for them now, aren’t you?

Steve Parry (24:47): Yeah. Making provisions for those 3:00 a.m. conversations.

Peter Jackson (24:52): Brilliant.

Steve Parry (24:52): We had one, not the other day, it was months ago, where as a family, we think we’re spending too much time on the phones. And I mean it’s obvious, right. Kids these days with phones and stuff. And I woke up middle of one night and I was like right, we’re just not going to turn screens on on a Sunday. So we have digital-free Sundays. Oh my gosh, the best days. I look forward to them so much because you’re actually engaged.

Lizzie Jones (25:15): And then you go into your Monday, your next week, then feeling positive.

Steve Parry (25:18): You do. Although, I do sneak on a Sunday night. You have to get on just to get ahead. Answer all those emails from Hill Dicks.

Peter Jackson (25:27): Check the football score.

Steve Parry (25:28): And check footy scores, yeah.

Peter Jackson (25:30): One thing that’s come out of a couple of your conversations really is that you seem to apply the same mentality, the same psychology, the same approach, the same positivity to everything, whether that’s sport, business, life. Do you see the clear similarities between the psychological aspects in sport and business?

Steve Parry (25:53): Absolutely, but also in life. Yeah, they’re all very much the same. There’s one I didn’t talk about, which is individual responsibility, and we live in a society these days where someone else is always responsible. And actually, at the very highest levels of our government, this is not a political statement, but at the very highest levels of British society, the governments are almost saying, You don’t have to be responsible for your life. We’ll be responsible for your life. And actually, that’s not the case. The first premise of everything is whatever situation you’re in, that’s your responsibility. It is not somebody else’s responsibility to resolve that. Sport has taught me all of this. I didn’t know this before I did sport, I’ve got it from sport.

(26:36): When I didn’t make that team in 2001 and everyone was getting on the plane, I was on the phone to my mum moaning away. It was like, my coach doesn’t and my agent’s not getting any money. My girlfriend doesn’t care, blah, blah, blah. She went, Steven Benjamin Parry. Do you ever get full title when you’re in trouble? Steven Benjamin Parry. I was like where’s she going with this? She said, There’s one thing I’ve learned in life. If you want something, you’ve got to make it possible. And I’m like yeah, why am I moaning about everybody else? Ultimately, you’ve got to sort it out. And I think if you take that philosophy and realise that actually other people can’t solve your issues, and at the very least if you rely on other people to solve your issues, then you’re at a disadvantage. You can have other people help, but ultimately you’ve got to own whatever issues there are out there. That’s the philosophy I got to in swimming and in business.

Lizzie Jones (27:28): You mentioned earlier that your best coach, someone who is really positive. Is that how you approach your own team?

Steve Parry (27:33): Absolutely, and I think I’m lucky that I do have some leadership traits in me. Are all leaders extroverts? No, but I think if you don’t mind talking in front of people, if you don’t mind articulating a vision. I have always been able to take people with me, whether that be in a sporting environment or in a business environment, but actually I’ve learned from other people, I’ve actually wanted the traits to do that. I would’ve followed my American coach in anything he asked me to do because he just oozed this charisma and belief. I mean, he used to give us these 20 kilogramme weights. We had a diving pit at Florida State University. It was right in the middle of campus, 30 degrees outside, middle of Florida. Everyone used to walk by, 30,000 students, and there was this diving pit at the end of the swim pool. And in order to get our legs stronger, he went, Hey guys, what do I want you to do is hop in that diving pit and kick your legs.

(28:29): So we’d hop in the water, kick our legs. And then he’d come out with these weights and he gave us these 20 kilogramme weights to hold, and he said, You’ve got two minutes. You’ve got to kick as hard as you can for two minutes. Now, that would be bullying these days. A lot of people would say, You can’t do that. You can’t tell people they’ve got to kick so hard for two minutes, otherwise they’ll drown. In the social context that we have now, that was crazy. I thought it was great fun. I was like yeah, this is brilliant. We’ve got to do this or we’re going to die. How cool. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, I do believe that you do have to be positive with you, and I think that has its benefits that people do then want to follow you, but you can’t achieve anything without other people as well. So whilst I’m saying individual responsibility is important, don’t think that you can do it on your own because that’s a mistake as well.

Peter Jackson (29:19): Your individual responsibility point, of course, goes back to your work-life balance, because you made the point. You’ve got a choice.

Steve Parry (29:25): You do have a choice.

Peter Jackson (29:26): It’s all about sacrifice. You can train for 23 hours a day, and you’re never going to see your kids and your family, or you can see your kids and your family, but you’re probably not going to win an Olympic gold medal. It’s your choice.

Steve Parry (29:36): And Peter, I think that’s where balance comes in. You want to win at everything in life, don’t you? It doesn’t matter what area of your life, you just want to live the best life that you can and win. But it is about balance because you can head off down one route and be achieving that one area, but it might be detrimental to another. I think because I’m getting too my late 40s now, probably already look 50, but I think because I’m getting to my late 40s now with a relatively young family, that’s the most pertinent question that I’ve got at the moment.

(30:06): Because I wouldn’t want my kids to say, Oh yeah, he did amazing a business and he built this really cool thing, and the industry’s changed a little bit off the back of his ideas, and say, But he wasn’t there for this, that, and that. I mean, I’ve just done it now, so the diary for next year, first thing I’ve put in is the kids’ birthdays. Now, that doesn’t make me a hero, but I’ve got to make sure that I don’t mess up. On the Tuesday in January, when it’s Ava’s birthday, I want to be there when she wakes up and I want to be there when she gets back because I’ve missed plenty of birthdays before, just to the sheer volume of children.

Peter Jackson (30:42): Yeah, well, you have set yourself a challenge there.

Steve Parry (30:44): Yeah. Get it done.

Peter Jackson (30:47): Steve, I think we’re coming to the end, but I am going to ask you my stock final question. So at some point, Spielberg’s going to get his act together and come to Liverpool, and make Swim the movie with the story of Steve Parry. Who’s going to play you?

Steve Parry (31:03): There’s only one person.

Peter Jackson (31:04): Go on then.

Steve Parry (31:05): We look quite similar. People in Tiananmen Square will tell you that is the case. It’d have to be Phelpsy. He fancies himself as a bit of a TV star, I think. He does plenty of TV, so it’s got to be him.

Peter Jackson (31:18): So Phelps plays Parry.

Steve Parry (31:20): And he’ll have an experience of coming third one time. The reason I say Phelps is because, I don’t know if you saw this, but I was doing the telly for the BBC in 2008, and we were covering Michael Phelps and all the gold medals that he was winning, and he was trying to beat the great Mark Spitz’s record of seven. He was doing eight events. On the telly, we were putting gold medals around Phelps’s neck every time that he got it. It was a bit of an ongoing thing with Gabby Logan and all that. BBC said, Would you go down to Tiananmen Square and find out why the Chinese kids think Michael Phelps is so good? You can YouTube this. It’s so funny. And I went down with this cutout of Phelps and all the Chinese people thought I was him. And it finished with about 400 people chasing me around Tiananmen Square calling me Michael Phelps, asking me for pictures and all the rest of it. So that’s the reason that I know that him and I look quite similar.

Peter Jackson (32:12): I did hear you say you went for a pint with Michael Phelps after he beat you. You did?

Steve Parry (32:17): Very true.

Peter Jackson (32:17): Did you enjoy it?

Steve Parry (32:18): So it was actually in 2008 and he’d got these eight medals. Now, he’d beaten me in 2004, and bearing in mind he’s got 23 Olympic gold medals, he’s beaten a lot of people. But he was always dead gracious with his time. And I saw him in a Speedo party at the end. I mean, I’d been not competing for four years and I do like the occasional beer, and I said, You smashed me four years ago, but I’d like to buy you a bevvy, and we’re going to down it because we’re celebrating. And he absolutely whooped me at that as well. I was so gutted. We got these pints and we had about five minutes of conversation. I mean, he was the star of the show, but we’re at the bar together, we had this five minute conversation and he didn’t even look at me. He downed this pint, and I’m still working on mine, and he put it down and he walked off, and that was the last time I spoke to him.

Peter Jackson (33:12): Never seen him since.

Steve Parry (33:14): So yeah, I was gutted. He beat me on four length butterfly and he beat me downing a pint as well, whilst he was the fittest he’d ever been and I’d had four years head start on him.

Lizzie Jones (33:19): I saw somewhere that when you won your bronze medal, you downed seven and a half hamburgers. Why seven and a half? Why not seven? Why not eight?

Steve Parry (33:32): This is disgusting.

Lizzie Jones (33:34): Oh, go on.

Steve Parry (33:34): You shouldn’t have raised this. So in the Olympic Village, McDonald’s are a big sponsor of the Olympics, and what they did with all the British Olympic medalists in 2004 was they gave us a card that I didn’t know existed, it’s called McDonald’s Platinum. And for a few years, I could go to any McDonald’s and order any amount of food that I wanted to. And having a family now, I wish I had it now because it’d saved an absolute fortune. I don’t know how it worked. Actually, let’s give our Olympians free McDonald’s.

Peter Jackson (34:03): It doesn’t seem right, does it?

Steve Parry (34:06): But anyway, we got this card and it was absolutely fantastic. But the Australians started this thing, when they were finished competing, the Australian swim team, they would eat the most amount of cheeseburgers that they could to the point where they were making themselves sick. And we thought that seems like a good idea. Let’s try that. And the reason it was seven and a half is I physically couldn’t eat anymore. It wasn’t hamburgers, it was cheeseburgers.

Lizzie Jones (34:34): So is everything you do with competition, Steve?

Steve Parry (34:36): Yes, I think it is, now you mention it. My wife goes on at me about, Why don’t you let them win a Monopoly? I’m like, no chance. Do you know what I mean?

Peter Jackson (34:48): I’m with you on that one. Definitely.

Steve Parry (34:48): No, I think if you’re going to do something, you’ve got to try your best, and try and win, haven’t you? But yeah, seven and a half. Although, I try not to eat cheeseburgers now because I’m certainly not the frame I had when I was an Olympian.

Lizzie Jones (34:55): Just because they’re not free anymore, Steve, isn’t it?

Steve Parry (34:58): Exactly. Yeah, getting it done.

Peter Jackson (35:01): Brilliant. Steve, you’ve been a wonderful guest. Thank you so much for your time. Wish you success, health, and happiness for the future.

Steve Parry (35:08): Oh, thanks so much.

Peter Jackson (35:09): Let’s hope we cross swords again.

Steve Parry (35:11): Yep. It’s been great to meet you.

Peter Jackson (35:11): Cheers, Steve.

Steve Parry (35:12): Thanks for having us in.

Peter Jackson (35:22): So Lizzie, what do you think of Steve Parry, MBE?

Lizzie Jones (35:25): Well, what an amazing, positive person. There’s no way he can’t be successful based on his mindset and how positive he is. You can just imagine being around him, you’d want to succeed, and you can just see how he’s done so well.

Peter Jackson (35:40): What I liked was he seemed to have picked up a consistent approach to everything, whether it was business, whether it was how he makes sure he’s in front of the kids for the birthday, how much he had to do when he was an Olympian. He’s got that consistent approach, hasn’t he, of real focus? And if you want something, you’ve got to go for it, as his mother taught him at an early age.

Lizzie Jones (36:03): Yeah. To the point where he just said he actually sits down and plans things, how do I get from A to B? And if it’s not working this way, let’s swap it around and do it another way to get me there.

Peter Jackson (36:14): Yeah. And I thought he had a very balanced view to work-life balance, given that it’s clearly troubled him over the years, more so perhaps as a father. But he was able to rationalise that and accept that, and back again to how he described losing in 1996, you get out what you put in, and you’ve got a choice, and you have to make sacrifices. So you can choose to work all the hours God send if that’s what you want to do, but you’re then sacrificing other areas of your life. That’s your choice. And he was very clear about that and very balanced in his view. So he talked as well, didn’t he, about the times he had been rejected or had suffered what he described as a failure, but how he bounced back? Have you ever had anything like that in your career or in your life generally?

Lizzie Jones (36:59): Yeah, so I’m a pathway to becoming a solicitor. I tried for a training contract and I got rejected the first time around.

Peter Jackson (37:06): Sorry.

Lizzie Jones (37:07): Yeah, your fault. But it’s so interesting because, as Steve just said it, I think I had similar feelings to what he said when he said he didn’t qualify in that race and he just wanted to go home. I remember just being so upset and I was critical of not only myself, but the people around me. And you know what? I just had a word with myself and I thought right, just go at it again. You’ve got another year to prove yourself. And similar to Steve, I just knew if I worked hard, if I did all the right things, did some things differently, because we learned from our mistakes, I’d get it, and I did.

Peter Jackson (37:40): Did it cross your mind that 3:00 a.m., after we turned you down, to pack it in?

Lizzie Jones (37:46): Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone’s self-critical, aren’t they? Steve touched on it earlier, he said you get judged for 20 minutes, but it’s the years worth of work. In my case, it wasn’t as many years, but it was every day working really, really hard for a 45-minute interview, and you get told no, you’re not good enough. Sometimes you think well, that’s it then, isn’t it? What do I have to do to get there?

Peter Jackson (38:14): Yeah. Do you think you’ve learned from that? So if you, as you undoubtedly will, suffer setbacks at some stage in the future, did that make you stronger mentally?

Lizzie Jones (38:24): Absolutely, yeah. I think you need to be. This whole thing where you’re self-critical, and actually, like Steve touched upon, if you think positively, it’s going to be okay. Actually, there’s no science to it. If you do A and B, it hopefully does lead to C. So Peter, Steve mentioned there about work-life balance and how important it is to him. How have you ever had to deal with that? You underwent quite major surgery quite recently, and probably for the first time in your life you had no choice but to put life before work. How did you deal with that?

Peter Jackson (39:01): It wasn’t easy, although I didn’t have much say in it because if you have a quadruple bypass, you are out of action for a bit. But in a way, I look back on that period with, bizarrely, a bit of fondness actually in the sense that until that point, as you say, in the middle of February 2023, whenever it was, I’d worked nonstop for 40 odd years through choice. As Steve said, you have a choice. And I had. And I thought I had a reasonable work-life balance. I mean, my two lads are my best mates. I’ve had a life.

(39:35): But not being able to work, certainly for two months, and then I was easing myself back in gently, taught me a lot, and it taught me that I did still want to work. Because I had the option at that point of not working and packing it all in, but it taught me that I did want to carry on, but I wanted to do it my way and ensure that I was able to genuinely get something of a work-life balance for the rest of my career. That I didn’t want to retire, I wanted to carry on for who knows how long, as indeed I have done for a couple of years and intend to for a few years more, but I was going to do it on my terms.

Lizzie Jones (40:16): Yeah. And it’s choice, isn’t it?

Peter Jackson (40:17): And it’s choice. I won’t be letting anybody down. When our CEO wants me to do something for him, I’m there for him. When our chairman wants me somewhere, I’m there for him, whatever time of the day or night that is. But as long as I can do the limited, and it’s relatively limited number of things that I want to do that make me really happy with life, then I’ll carry on forever.

Lizzie Jones (40:37): Do you know what, Peter, though? You’ve sound like you’ve got it spot on now because you’ve probably overworked your whole life, but you’ve made this choice, you’ve had this epiphany, whatever’s happened to you. But actually, no, it’s a choice. I want to still work.

Peter Jackson (40:48): It is a choice.

Lizzie Jones (40:49): But there’s no sum of guilt associated to that. Because sometimes I think people feel they’re not doing anything right, yeah.

Peter Jackson (40:57): I don’t feel guilty at all about it because I know, I’m comfortable in my own mind and skin, that when the business needs me or any of the people I help outside of our business need me, I will be there for them. But unlike when I was CEO, well, it never happened that you get to 3:00 in the afternoon, there’s nothing to do, but if it ever had done when I was a CEO, I’d just sit there waiting for the next call or the next email because that’s what I do. Now, I go to Calderstones Park, I sit down. I watched Deal or No Deal the other day. It’s back on 4:00.

Lizzie Jones (41:26): It’s not that bad, is it? You’ll be on Loose Women next.

Peter Jackson (41:29): No, I won’t be doing that again. But my point is I don’t feel at all guilty now. When I fulfil my obligations to other people, I’ll stop and I’ll do what I want to do. Only then, but then I will. And I’m very, very comfortable about that.

Lizzie Jones (41:40): What a great place to be in.

Peter Jackson (41:43): It’s all right. I recommend it. But I don’t recommend having a quadruple bypass to get there. But anyway, enough of my problems. Thanks for listening to this episode of 3:00 AM Conversations, and you’ll hear from us again in a month’s time. Don’t forget to please rate, review, and follow this podcast, and that way you’ll be able to spread the word. And if you’d like to find out more about how Hill Dickinson could help you, then head to hilldickinson.com. See you soon.