41 – New Science of Swimming: Tom interviews Dr. Pete Andersen

Episode 041 – Pete Andersen
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody it's Tom here with episode 41 of screw the commute podcast. I've got Pete Andersen here. And this is the guy who's actually saved my life. You're going to hear about him in a moment. And I hope you didn't miss episode 40. That's my weekly Monday training session where I told you all about Craigslist and buying apps and how they help your business not only getting cheap equipment and supplies but I don't hire anybody unless they're on Craigslist so hope you heard that one episode 40 our sponsor is Kickstartcart.com. The shopping cart system I've been using and promoting for 16 years because mere mortals can operate it we give unlimited free one on one tutoring. Nobody does that on the cart to get you up and running and they help you figure things out fast. So get your 30 day free trial at KickStartcart.com. We'll have that show notes. Plus I covered shopping carts in episode 10 in case you want to go back and listen to that.

[00:01:31] Now let's get onto the main event. Dr. Pete Andersen is regarded as one of the best swimming instructors in the world. His brand Teach yourself to swim is the system of easy to master. One minute steps regarded as the New Science of Swimming His illustrated book and pro demonstrations DVD video packages have been sold over seven countries and all over the United States. And he didn't put this in his introduction but he's got enough gold medals and Senior Olympics if you melted them down You could finance a small country. So Pete are you ready to screw... the commute. Tell everybody what you've been doing.

[00:02:22] I teach people how to teach themselves and their children how to swim using their well starting at home and even without a pool. And I use a kitchen sink a dressing mirror mattress in a bath tub and they think I'm nuts.

[00:02:35] I don't think I can fit. You know I've been through your system but a lot of people are thinking well how would you fit a person into a sink.

[00:02:45] With this process I've learned that there's so many instructors that are so poor that I created a book and a video that's all illustrated and of course I'm the pro demonstrator not some high school kid that's not a very good swimmer. And the sad part about this whole thing is that I've learned that the people who teach the people that teach swimming are not very good summers and they've never been certified teachers. And that's been the other problem that I wanted to solve. And so I've sold my books and videos now and packages over seven countries and all over the United States. And but the whole idea is to teach people how to teach themselves and save some money because everybody in the family gets to share it. And a lot of time and frustration because parents have remarked how oh my gosh I got to schedule my kid one with soccer and everything else to go to the swim lesson. And it's a problem for them.

[00:03:34] Yes. There's no pools at all to be had. And then also you got Winter. Even if there was the pool not open in the winter in the cold parts of the United States. But give them a little bit about you know I mentioned about the gold medals. You know as far as I'm concerned you are a beast in the water. You are a beast in the water. So tell me a little bit about your credentials. So not only are you great at swimming. You have a lot of teaching abilities that these young people have no clue about on how to teach things. Give them both sides of that coin.

[00:04:10] But when I talk to people I usually insert this kind of a little statement. I say well OK the humorous part of this is that I'm not like a man telling a woman how to have a baby. I'm still doing this stuff. Friends always get a good laugh from that. I found that if you get people relaxed and happy they are more willing to talk to you. Also I found if you give them a little bit of praise like boy you've got a beautiful child there whatever. They'll have their ears open and they'll listen and pay attention to you. But if you criticize them you're not teaching your kid right while they shut you down immediately don't care who you are what your credentials are. And so that's a big important point I've learned but. So but anyway I was a five time All-American at Indiana University where Mark Spitz swam and when he started setting all these records and winning all these gold medals in the summer Senior Olympic Games Championships. They started calling me the Michael Phelps of Senior Olympics and for that I didn't think that was appropriate. But I have set world records international marks in the United States Masters Swimming and part of that problem was when I got started in swimming was that. Well let me go back to Indiana University when I was at Indiana my coach was the 1964 1976 U.S. men's Olympic swimming coach. The team coach and on their team alone at Indiana when I swam these dual meets was Chet Jastremski who was the world record holder in the breaststroke events that I swam in and if he wasn't there Kenny Nakasone from Hawaii would be the world record holder.

[00:05:42] So he'll I complacent third all the time it pissed me off. So I'm going to master something came up and I'd start coaching. I was like 56 years old I think I decided that well you know I could go win a national title I was never able to do that because Chet and Kenny were in the way. So I won my first national title I think when I was 56 and it took me another five or six years to set a world record in the 50 metre breaststroke long course at Rutgers. I think it was. And from then on I started entering the senior Olympic championships and started winning a lot of gold medals and that too. So I'm setting records but I did it for my health. Believe it or not I'm going to be in the 75 I'll be 75 in October so I'll be in the 75 79 age group and I'm going for the world record the 50 metre breaststroke long course and short course when the season's over will start up in September. But yeah I go to Orlando July 28 through August 4th for a big meet. I hope to be in the top three in all my events.

[00:06:42] Yeah. They may have heard this by then or not heard by them then probably it probably be over by then and maybe we can do an update in the show notes on how you did. So anyway though you're a killer swimmer to start with and then you have educational experience on proper teaching.

[00:06:59] Yes absolutely. With my coach being so good I spent my bachelor's and master's in health and physical education at Indiana. So is mentored by one of the world's greatest. Well it's not the greatest swimming coach of all time. That was Doc Councilman.

[00:07:15] And you're a Ph.D. now too yourself.

[00:07:19] Yes I came out and started to coach and teach for four years and I went back to the University of Toledo for my Ph.D. and I specialized in perceptual motor learning and sports psychology which essentially is the psychology of learning principles which no other instructor I've found anywhere in the world knows about. So I teach people a whole lot faster than other people because my methods and cues having been a swimmer. I know what the right kinesthetic cues are to feel the water pressure to pull down the water and move your body over the water efficiently. But even in my book The One Thing I advocate more than anything is that you float first swim second. The problem I've had with instructors is that they want to show mom up there in the stands look see your kids kicking and stroking and they're swimming well.

[00:08:06] But the problem is there is a lot of splashing.

[00:08:09] And the other problem with that Tom is that the child gets the mindset that hell if I don't move my arms legs really fast I'm going to sink and I'm going to drown. And that's the absolute worst thing you can you can put in anybody's mind. So I always emphasize floating first.

[00:08:26] I mean we're definitely talking about business today but this is so important this is a life or death issue. This isn't make a little extra money issue. This is your child or you I was 60 years old before I got a hold of Pete and he got me swimming. You know I was at risk my whole life or at risk and avoiding places you know I couldn't enjoy going boating. I actually wore lifejackets one time in case one malfunctioned. That's the absolute truth. So this is a life or death thing but tell him about the guy that wanted to go into the Navy.

[00:09:07] Oh wow. Occasionally I relent and because I teach people how to teach themselves all my books and DVDs of course and I'm the demonstrator on their TV or their iPad or whatever they take to the pool or the shallow end of a lake. I don't care. But this guy came to me and I sometimes relent and will break down and I'll teach a lesson in person. And here in San Diego of course we have the Navy base and this guy calls me up and I always ask the adult why do you want to learn to swim now. I mean I asked that of you too. You were older you were in the 60s. Well I don't care but what's your why. Why do you want to do this. Because my attitude in the back of my mind is that people need to know how to swim because it's the only sport in the world that will teach you enough to help potentially save your life as you've mentioned. But the other part of this is that you have more relaxation and family fun times with your family knowing that they're safe and secure. So anyway I asked this guy and he tells me I can't float. And I said Well why do you want to learn to swim as well. Because I think I really need to and because I've signed up to go to the Navy at the end of September. And I said Dude the ships crossing the open ocean and open water and just like 10 20 30000 thousand feet deep. Well I can learn and I said Well my first session with him I had him some 50 feet first I taught him how to float. And then he had a grin from ear to ear. Tom you can't pay me enough to see that. I mean that's why I do it. It's not for the money.

[00:10:39] And his wife standing on the side just almost ready to fall in because she's never seen him do this.

[00:10:45] Yeah. And he was from West Africa. I mean so you know he got out of Niger about 10 or 12 years ago got over to England then came here and got married and now they have a little boy and but just a great guy and. But yeah in the first 45 minutes I had them something 50 feet and I was not a breath. Then the second lesson I taught him how to breathe and things and of course now on the fourth lesson I've taught him to do the breaststroke. Which is kind of complex but my system of easy to master one minute steps unless you have an IQ under 80 anyone can do this. Anybody can do this.

[00:11:18] It's called a room temperature IQ. And so it is the little you know strange to people because you were teaching me to work on my breath in the sink and how to keep my mouth open and all of these things so we can't get into them today. But these are the things that I was able to do on my own in practice so that when I got into the pool which when you haven't been a swimmer for 60 years that you know intense environment when you're in the pool Yeah. So I got to learn outside of the pool so that when I got into the pool I wasn't so freaked out. So that was just my impression of it. But you've had jobs in the past right.

[00:12:02] Oh absolutely. Yeah had some hard lessons to learn through years of doing that for about 40 years and but essentially I was a teacher and director of aquatics for large aquatic programs from while I used to manage these eight lane 50 metre pools with towers and you know three metre boards and the whole thing. And then of course was able to coach and have coached collegiate all-American women at a university and my high school boys team and 79 80 were ranked fifth in the nation. So but I learned all these things so the physics like I said from my coach and being mentored by him and I love people and I was able to motivate the kids to do well.

[00:12:44] Right but you actually were a superintendent at school. You're retired from that now. So tell us about the transition from getting a paycheck going to work for a school district. And then now you're an entrepreneur. How is that transition time for you. What was it like.

[00:13:02] The only thing I really like the only thing I regret is that I didn't do it like two years sooner. The truth of it all. From 1980 to 2000 I got out of education I went to medical sales and I learned some valuable lessons there because I was in the business world and which many of your listeners are probably in that world. And I learned some valuable really valuable lessons there. But ultimately then realized I wouldn't have much of a retirement plan by staying in that. But I thought I would make more money in medical sales. But the fact is that there's so much of a morass of politics and things that was worse than even in the educational system. So I went back to school and got my endorsement to be a principal and then it became a school superintendent. That was pretty rigorous but it was worth it because it's given me a retirement plan from the Teachers Retirement System in Illinois and that's helping to fund what I do now to help more people. But yeah it's the school board. I hadn't gosh you know I don't want to get into much detail but I only had one member with a college degree. It was in southern Illinois mostly a farming community small district and it was just different. It wasn't pleasurable.

[00:14:19] Yes. So when you retired. How long was it before you started your business and creating the swimming products and all that.

[00:14:28] It was even before I retired I was starting to do this a little bit on the side so that I could kind of sample the market and see what people wanted that was key. But again you know I had some free time on that. Most people do in any kind of position they have. The real key was to me. I retired in July 1 in 2008. And then what happened is that following August month later there were six African-American teenagers who should have known better but didn't even know how to do a human chain. They all drowned going after one another trying to save each other in a river. And I've since found where the article was and what happened. And it moved me so much the tears that I said because I had six kids at the time and nine grandkids and I sat in a chair and cried for about 20 minutes and then I thought God blessed me with so much knowledge and skills. Why the heck haven't I written a book and teach these people how to do it especially in rural areas where there's no pool as you mentioned. Or even then if there's a pool you know someone's picking an extra paycheck to go on a cruise next spring that they don't really care if you teach correctly they don't even have teaching degrees they don't know teaching methods and they're teaching people how to teach swimming. It just drove me nuts. So I created this curriculum of all the strokes and put it together and then did a filming thing and I spent about 30 grand of my own money to do this.

[00:15:51] Tell me about the things that you have to offer people if they have kids or grandchildren or they as adults want to learn how to swim. What are the things you have and where do we find them.

[00:16:03] Well the easiest part is to go to my website learntoswimprogram.com. There's a menu bar up there that you can shop and there's all kinds of things I've repurposed my book into items that cost ten dollars or less. But the big one is a four DVD set of all the strokes at seven hours and 21 minutes of viewing time and people can teach themselves and learn at their own pace. So if you've got multiple kids I talked to a mom the other day she spent 400 dollars for one of her children just to learn how to blow bubbles.

[00:16:37] I don't want to laugh because that's really sad.

[00:16:40] It is but you know this is what's happening and they have to keep going back for more and more lessons whereas in my videos you just pluck the thing into your DVD player or your iPad or whatever and you take it to a pool and you practice the lessons in these easy to master one minute steps. I mean you don't learn the whole curriculum in one hour.

[00:16:59] I mean you had stuff even working on a bed.

[00:17:03] Oh yeah. You can do one arm freestyle on the side of a mattress and then turn around to the other arm. You can learn to hold your breath for 20 seconds in your kitchen sink and the joke about that was I tell people that there are still fearful of that. I said come on you're not an elephant you're not going to suck water up your hose. I mean you've got both feet on the floor of your kitchen sink. See one of my teaching methods is mind control and if you've got control of your mind then your body will follow. But the other way around where you're tense and you're nervous you can't move to the next step it's called mastery learning. And no one's doing these. And that's why I get much faster longer lasting results by helping people to learn how to teach themselves using my methods and me demonstrating and then they just copy what I do. So I'm the model.

[00:17:51] Ok so what's the thing you like best about working for yourself what's the worst part.

[00:17:57] The best part is that I get to manage my time better. I mean this morning I'm going to go kayaking with my wife. I can go boogie boarding because I live in San Diego I go boogie boarding even if I wear a suit I've done it in February here. So there's always something good to do around water that my gills would dry up if I wasn't in the water. So I swim for my health pretty much too. I know that I can swim in my 70s 80s and 90s by having good strokes and mechanics and in fact this Friday I've got another lesson scheduled for a guy that's 63 and he says he knows how to swim but he wants to be able to swim laps and be more healthy and be healthier by doing that. And so I relented and I'm going to go up to a town just about a half an hour north of me here to do that. But no the best part about this is that I see a grin on their face when they get it. And I know I'm helping people because I'm getting so much good feedback from people said Wow. And I have them Call me because they're part of my family. Anybody that buys a product from me they can call me. I say wait till after 7 o'clock my time in San Diego. Don't call me 9:00 in the morning in the East Coast.

[00:19:05] The worst part is that if you don't work you don't eat and of course sometimes you know I've never gotten a bad review. I mean I've always had five star reviews. But yeah it's gets to be a grind sometimes especially when you're retired because you know it's not like you're going to live forever. Every day is a blessing to me. I get up and I see the sun come up and take a deep breath and while I'm blessed to have lived already 75 years.

[00:19:37] Well I'm thinking something that's bad that frustrates you because I've heard you talk about it where you're swimming somewhere maybe in the ocean or lake or something and a lifeguard that's like two years old tells you get out of there because of something and you know he's absolutely wrong.

[00:19:56] I was at my wife's family reunion up in northern Indiana swimming in Lake Michigan and these waves are really moderate compared to what we get here in San Diego and he didn't understand what a rip current is they call it a riptide which is wrong. They call it a rip everything you know and just. And so these waves are about two and a half feet high. And I was going to go body surf I didn't have my boogie board with me and it was going to be great. I had my tank suit on and my goggles. I was just going to have a ball. And I started to wade into the water and I get all these whistles and a couple of lifeguards are waving me out of the water and I say what. Why. He said oh sir we have a very dangerous rip current here. They said no no you don't. I said just a little bit of an undertow it's not going to take you all the way to the northern climes of Michigan. And he said no no no. We've had a couple of drownings here all summer I said what. How could you. I said you're in three feet of water. You know it's not going to happen. Well anyway so I didn't get to enjoy what I did. And that's been my argument is that there are so many people did one stupid thing that everybody has to suffer and because they can't they lock it down. I mean look it pools the taking away the three meter boards. Now it's the insurance companies just think it's a risk. Well I don't know. I just think that we're cutting things down we're losing our freedoms. And I didn't like that.

[00:21:18] All right so we got to take a quick break for our sponsor and then we'll be back and tell us what a typical day is like for you and how you stay motivated. But I got a call from a lady who was paying four thousand dollars a month for a part time person to operate her shopping cart system and she wasn't even using half of what it could do. And that's in addition to the three to four hundred dollars a month she's paying for the system. Well that's highway robbery. She got sucked into a big company aggressively marketing to people that don't know any better and she got taken for a ride. So the system I promote kickstartcart.com cost a third of the price. And with our unlimited one on one tutoring you'll be able to easily operate it yourself. So get your 30 day free trial at kickstartcart.com and then also check out Episode 10 where I went all in depth about what a good shopping cart system should do.

[00:22:17] All right. We're back with Dr. Pete who saved my life by teaching me how to swim and save myself and float and things like that. So I'm always indebted to him for that. Tell us what a typical day is for you business wise and how do you stay motivated.

[00:22:35] Tom I'll tell you that's an easy one because you know when you're retired you can do anything whenever you want it's you can just set your own schedule. But it's tough to stay into a routine and because there's so many distractions when you're retired because you've got it in my case I have a Social Security income and I've got a retirement income from the state of Illinois as a teacher. But when I like to do as I like to get up around 630 I don't I'm not my wife goes to bed at 9 I can't go to bed then I wake up at 3:00 in the morning. So I go to bed around 11 I get up around 6:00 630. I get 7 7 1/2 hours of sleep and then I splash water on my face to wake up. But now because my training routine I'll do 70 pushups or what one third of the way down because I'm a sprinter. And then I turn on my back and I do two sets of 70 scrunches stomach curls and then I get on the 1700 gym and I do three sets of 20 second notch the top and to build up my lat strength but then I'll make up a cup of coffee and eat a leisurely breakfast watching the news and about eight o'clock. But again the beauty of this I don't ever wear a coat and tie anymore. That's done.

[00:23:46] Now I'm not going to do interviews in my underwear or anything like like some guys in my speedo Yeah. They call those pickle pouches. Yeah my grandkids are embarrassed when I wear a speedo to go body surfing.

[00:24:04] But you could do it though because you've kept in shape all these years.

[00:24:07] Yeah I don't have that big overhang that some guys with a gut have.

[00:24:13] That's called dunlap syndrome. My belly done lap over my belt.

[00:24:21] So at 8:00 I'd like to check my emails in case I've gotten any orders and things like that that I need to fill and you know box up and send out and things like that but then I check my emails but then I don't spend a lot of time on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn. Maybe I should because you can market with them if you've got a decent list.

[00:24:39] You're going to save more lives. Soon as I tell you that I know you're going to do it more because you're dedicated to that.

[00:24:46] And I have five hundred plus on each of those and so I'm kind of a good marketer with that but then I think and I think it was one of your programs. I learned how to post boards on Pinterest and that's worth it. Let's face it. Moms make the decision about learning to swim for their children they want to protect them. The dads are off working so I'm posting more boards on Pinterest because that lasts for more than just a Google ad that costs a lot of money. So I learned a great tip from you.

[00:25:16] And well yeah Pinterest we found that 80 percent women and they spend way more money per person than all the other social media. So Pinterest is a great place for marketers for sure.

[00:25:32] And I want to interject something here too though. You know you've been a good friend for gosh over a decade and I tell you what I couldn't be in this chair doing what I'm doing now. If it weren't for your help. You know I've learned so much from you that you've been my mentor a great friend and I take everything you've told me is like gold gold.

[00:25:54] I would say we're equal since you saved my life.

[00:25:59] Well and you know so there's so many things that you've told me how to do and I'm trying to do. And of course I'm not as good at it as you are but I'm still trying and busting my chops to do that.

[00:26:10] Well yeah and a lot of people I mean when they get retired they just go straight downhill. I mean but nothing but improve since you've been retired.

[00:26:20] Well again thanks for your help and prodding. I will tell you that everything you say just makes sense and. And you have a wonderful way of motivating people in a kind way. And it's been helpful to me.

[00:26:33] Well we're really thrilled about the work you're doing. You're going to save a lot of lives and I encourage people to go after this because some of the old school swimming traditions are so antiquated and so poorly run. And you know you got a 15 year old kid that can barely swim teaching your children at some of these big institutions and we need pressure to change that because it's a new world out there and you need these kids need to know how to swim. In fact I went to one of my employees has a baby or something. I say you get that child in a pool as fast as possible. I don't want to end up like me at 60 years old deathly afraid to walk near a body of water. So but again you can't have somebody that doesn't know what they're doing Teaching your kids.

[00:27:26] I'd like to interject something there too a lot of parents think that they have to wait till their kid can verbalize stand up walk talk you know run and run the bases on a baseball field. But the actual reality of it is the brain is designed to protect you at all costs. It's a microprocessor. And after 18 months the brain starts to think too much. But up to 18 months and so I tell moms the best time to teach your child to swim is starting at home using the kitchen sink, the mattress and bathtub. I taught my triplet boys that are 46 years old now. But they all learned in the bathtub and they said Wow I said so two to 18 months old that's the time you start doing the freestyle the kicking on the mattress and all that stuff.

[00:28:06] There's no fear at that point. And so you can be relaxed because the one of the biggest things from my perspective which is a pitiful perspective but it's more accurate because I'm the one that lived through that fear. I'm the one that you know you get me in water over my head. I go into a tense you know one hunk of tense muscle that's going to drop right to the bottom. And after 60 years it's hard to break those habits. But when they have no fear they have no reason to be tense. That's the perfect time to get them like little fish in there.

[00:28:39] Well and that's exactly what I did with you. I recognized that problem immediately and that's why one of my teaching methods is mind control because if you're standing your kitchen sink in your tense you don't get to move to the next step. You've got to learn to open your mouth and keep your mouth open without blowing bubbles or inhaling certainly. But you see kids riding tricycles underwater giggling and laughing you know and their mouths are always open because you make a better air lock with your nose you don't get that water sniffling up your nose which tells the brain to the little hairs in your nose even a three month old has that. you're an idiot. You're trying to drone me get my computer up out of the water. So the more your head goes up the feet go down then you go down it's sad.

[00:29:18] The only problem I had is that I made the mistake to. You said stand in front of the kitchen sink with your mouth open and I thought it was the refrigerator. So I gained a lot of weight until I reread that.

[00:29:38] So anyway thanks so much for visiting with us then. We know you're doing great work out there. Everybody check the show notes to find the contact for Dr. Pete and check out his products. You know first of all just from an economic point of view it'll save you loads of money. You know 400 bucks to learn how to blow bubbles. I mean for 250 I teach you how to blow bubbles. So save yourself a lot of money and learn the new science of this by going to the show notes and checking at all Dr. Pete's products. So thanks so much for visiting with Dr. Pete. Please subscribe everybody. And yeah any closing comments for the folks.

[00:30:20] One of the things that I do because you taught me this it's an ethical bribe but importantly there's an 88 page e-book that they can download on my Website if they just subscribe to it and of course I'll capture their e-mail and I'll try to sell the whole set the four DVD set of course. But it's learntoswimprogram.com and scroll down the page and then subscribe to get that free eBook. And if they're going to print anything out I suggest they only print out the last four chapters to save some printer ink. But there I have the pictures of sequences illustrating how to do each of the steps there's 29 easy to master steps at home without a pool. Then of course you take and transfer the same identical familiar elements to the shallow end of a pool or lake where you can stand up. But no it's been a joy. You're just a great guy and gosh I love what you do and you're helping people and that's what I'm all about to.

[00:31:15] Check out and relisten to this if you want to hear a lot of Dr. Pete' s tips. Check out the show notes and please subscribe and leave us a review and we'll catch you on the next episode.

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