Dr. Pete Andersen has written a book that encompasses the wealth of knowledge, experience, and wisdom gained from a lifetime of learning. The child of a non-swimming mother who feared the water, he saw the kids in the big pool and took control of his life and learned how to swim so he could get out of the kiddie pool. From that point on, Pete observed people doing things he wanted to do and made it his mission to achieve those things. As a father of six and grandfather of 15, he has taken all that experience and knowledge and put it into a book. Learn from one of The Luckiest People in the World. www.theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com
Dr. Peter Andersen: http://TheBehavioristView.com
TRANSCRIPT
Diane Dayton 0:02
This is Changing the Rules. A podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.
KC Dempster 0:12
Good morning, everybody. This is KC Dempster. And you're listening to Changing the Rules, a podcast about building, designing the life you want, and then living it to the fullest. And in a few minutes, we're going to talk with our guest, Dr. Pete Andersen, who has done just that. But first, I have to say good morning to Ray Loewe.
Ray Loewe 0:33
Hi, everybody. So we're here in the wonderful Wildfire Studios, I think we're gonna have to put that on your logo Taylor at the beginning of Wonderful, but but it is a wonderful place. And we have started a podcast we started about a year ago, and we had no idea of what we were doing. And the great people at Wildfire were able to lead us along. And we're still here. So that's a good thing. Yeah. And if you have the need to do a podcast at some point in time, get some help. And the people at Wildfire are wonderful people to work with. So we're talking today about one of the luckiest people in the world. And let me remind everybody that the luckiest people in the world are people who design their own lives, and then step into them and live them to the max. And you're going to find our person of the day is interesting, for several reasons. One, because he's my foe.
KC Dempster 1:35
Yes, he's Ray's arch nemesis.
Ray Loewe 1:37
So let's bring on Dr. Pete Anderson. Peter, are you there?
Peter Andersen 1:42
Yes, I am Ray.
Ray Loewe 1:43
Okay, so why I have to say to begin with that, I'm a swimming competitor. And I have three, I have two other true competitors. And fortunately, they don't live in the northeast part of the country. So I get I get some freedom here. But if ever we get to a national conference, or I go west, I have Dr. Peter Anderson, who actually is one of the best breaststroke swimmers in the world. And we're going to talk a little bit about that in a minute. And and then if we go south, we have another one in Florida. And Pete and I both have to have to work really hard under those circumstances. Is that correct? Peter?
Peter Andersen 2:24
That's correct. Yeah.
Ray Loewe 2:26
Okay, so So tell us a little bit about your early history and. I think it's going to lead to where we want to go, which is the brand new book that you're writing. But But you grew up in a working class family, and what was your What was your first experience when it came to the swimming world?
Peter Andersen 2:47
Well, strangely enough, great, my mother did not know how to swim. And so she might have been a little over protective. The other factor was, of course, when I was 10 years old, it was 1953. And the polio epidemic was going on, and we're kind of familiar with what viruses cause. So she thought that the virus can be transmitted through swimming pools, well, she didn't want me to go swimming, obviously. And, and so I didn't really learn to swim until I was about eight, I had to put my foot down. I said, Mom, all my buddies are up there in the big pool, and I'm down here in the kiddie pool. I'm fed up not doing that anymore. And so she got me into some lessons. And I learned to swim. And I remember one time, after I learned to swim, I think around between eight and 10, that I wanted to see how far I could go without even touching the wall. So I remember something 500 yards, but I was only like 10 or 11 years old. Yeah, I just didn't want to touch the bottom, because I didn't want to drown. But then again, I nearly had a drowning experience. Because I jumped in water. That was the time four and a half feet tall, and I jumped in water five feet deep. Underneath the guard chair in the guard didn't see me so I had to just thrash my way back to the wall. save myself. But anyway, yeah, it was a good Good, good life. And
Ray Loewe 4:05
yeah, and yet swimming became such an important part of your life. And and we're gonna see that it had such a big impact on where you're going to with your new book and the help that you're trying to give to other people. So let me go a little history here. Dr. Pete went to perhaps the best swimming school in the country, if maybe not the world. That was a it was Indiana University. Right. And you were surrounded there with some of the best in the world, weren't you?
Peter Andersen 4:39
Yes, I was Ray. And, you know, I will actually what was happening, we moved from this Northwest suburb of Chicago. My mother had graduated from Evanston Township High School, where Northwestern University is, so it was a very good High School. And I had really, really great coaches, that'd be burden, taskmaster, and the strange part of it was When we did a little age group workout when I was still in Arlington Heights, the suburb, a workout was something like 200 yards. So I go, I joined the high school swim team. And the first thing we did as freshmen we swim 500 yards. And then we kick 500 yards and we pulled five hundred yards. Wow. So 1500 yards, and that was our just our warmup. So it was a rude introduction to the world of competitive something. But I stuck it out. And to those coaches, the they instilled a work ethic in me. And I had wanted to be a good coach. I admired my coaches so much that I thought I could be a coach. And my mom said, because you know, high school kids get to the point. What am I going to study? What am I going to do? Who am I going to be? Hmm. And my mother said, you know, your mom's know you. I mean, they know you better than you know yourself at times. And she suggested maybe I'd become a physical education teacher because I was good know, a lot of sports, you know, things so I decided with my coaches, and my coaches helped me get into Indiana University. I was kind of a dunce. I didn't really know what was there. But later, I learned that there were nine world record holders there. Wow, And I was swimming in lanes as a freshman with right next to the world record holder and the guy who would have been the world record holder if he wasn't there. Wow. And, and I'm keeping up with them. And of course, the other part of the story is that I graduated from high school, I was five foot 6, 125 pounds, I was considered to be a runt. And so I got picked on my freshman year in college unmercifully. And, of course, I felt bad because I'm swimming lanes with all these world record holders. And I went on to become a five time all American. But I felt bad because I wasn't a world record holder. So the the level of expectation was so high that we just live with it. We just did it. And in fact, they gave me a nickname. Petey do because I was a doer. I just kinda bulled and did it. I didn't think about it. So I mean, that's kind of how all this evolved.
KC Dempster 7:02
So So when did you hit your growth spurt? Because I know you're more than five, six now? Oh, yes.
Peter Andersen 7:09
Well, I, we had a swim log. We were encouraged to do that. Keep track of your times and workouts and stuff so that you have a goal to know what you want to beat in the next practice. And I recall looking at that, I was five foot 6, 125 pounds in June of 61. When I graduated 10 months later, we're at the National AAU championships in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in April 10 months later, we had a Toledo scales in the locker room I got on it. Gee whiz, I've gained 32 pounds. And when I got home, I took my height. I had grown five and a half inches in 10 months. Wow. Wow, I do recall a message I asked my parents, Hey, can I have 20 bucks to go get a pair of jeans and flannel shirts? Cuz, you know, they were up to my arms? You know?
KC Dempster 7:54
Yeah, you were wearing floods, and you didn't even choose that.
Ray Loewe 7:58
So without going into the specifics, right now, swimming had a major impact on where you are today. And it had to do with your work ethic, I think. And it had to do with your goal setting and what you saw that you wanted, was there anything else that came out of that, that you can think of?
Peter Andersen 8:18
Well, that's pretty much it, Ray. You know, when you go to high school, I didn't get a chance to swim in that state championship meet. And I remember waiting for the getting a ride home from our pools custodian because he drove right by my house, I didn't have to take the public transportation I'd get home about same amount of time. And we had a big balcony. 1200 seat natatorium and I remember sitting up there the coach instilled in us this you gotta wanna, you gotta want to, and I remember up there time crying my eyes out because I wanted to be a champion. I wanted it so badly. It just brought tears to my eyes, it's sometimes still does, because I remember that moment. And so then I go to Indiana and then become this person. And, you know, it's, it's kind of a fulfillment almost to a prayer. And, and, and I've always had that face within me that you know that there's opportunities, but a lot of people blow by the opportunities, they don't take advantage of them. I tried to take advantage of as many opportunities as I was given.
Ray Loewe 9:20
Mm hmm. Okay, so so we graduated from Indiana, the swimming career at that time contended right. And now we have a degree and we have to go to work and we become an educator, right?
Peter Andersen 9:34
That's correct. Yes.
Ray Loewe 9:36
And, and talk a little bit about, you know, what you learned from swimming, what you learned from college and how it apply to your educational career, because you just weren't, I mean, you were a teacher at one point, but you were actually an administrator and you had to influence other people. So, talk about your education experience a little bit here.
Peter Andersen 9:59
Yes, I I think the main thing, Ray is that you've learned discipline and personal accountability. I don't think you can achieve any top performance without those two, and you become self reliant. But as a leader, I was never an assistant coach, I was always the head coach, and then the director of aquatics for a city of 80,000 people in Des Plaines, just north of the terminal of O'Hare Airport. And so I train kids and how to teach swimming. And by doing that, of course, you become a better instructor. And my teams went from last in the conference, to second in the conference in a couple of years. So, I mean, you know, I had a good good staff to work with the Physical Education Department. But I made the mistake of resigning in my fourth year saying I'm going back get my PhD, I had hoped that I would be the coach that replaced my great coach at Indiana Council. And so I went back to my PhD at the University of Toledo. And that's where things started to formulate in my whole career.
Ray Loewe 11:03
Okay, so you came back to swimming? Much to my chagrin. Okay. And I think one of the questions I asked you, when we did our pre interview is, why did you come back? You know, you had all the successes of swimmer, and now you came back and you're swimming with us old people a Masters swimmer. So why did you come back?
Peter Andersen 11:25
Well, the major reason re was because when you're somebody behind the world record holder, and the guy who would have been the world record holder, you're always taking, you're always taking third in the meets. And it just ticked me off. I always wanted to be a national champion, because I never remember I said, I never got the chance to swim in the Illinois High School state championships. So I never had a chance to compete in on the world stage, like that are a big stage. And so this time, I thought, well, you know, I was, I was third in the country, actually third in the world in 1963. And I thought, well, you know, maybe it's time to put my suit on and see what I can do. At age 56, after coaching some all Americans and doing stuff, I decided to get in shape and do it for myself. And it took me a couple years to win my first national championship.
Ray Loewe 12:15
So you are going to do that regardless what you you are going to change the venue and make it work weren't you?
Peter Andersen 12:21
Absolutely. You have to bring it up. But But the beauty of masters swimming is I've gotten to meet wonderful people like yourself and Mike Freshly our other nemesis. And he and I are like brothers. In fact, I'm going to go visit him. You're in early December in Orlando. But no, it's it's a wonderful life. And it's good for your health. I can't tell you how many times that it's helped me become a better person.
Ray Loewe 12:49
Yeah. And I and I think it helped you build kind of where we're going to. So I want to get one other segment of your life in here because I think it's important too you have six kids, and how many grandchildren?
Peter Andersen 13:02
Oh, the beautiful thing is, yeah, our daughter is now expecting so it'll be my 15th grandchild. But Wow, great. The other part of the story, I always wanted a big family. But the other part of the story I need to tell you is that it's taken me three wives to get it done. But I had triplets in the first marriage, three months into my Ph. D program. So I had to complete a three year program. And two years it was I felt like a zombie. I only got four hours of sleep at a stretch. But the kids are wonderful. They live out here in San Diego with me. And I live out here with them I should say. And our daughter is married to a Marine who is a major and stationed at the 29 Palms. And so we're close to them as well. They're only three hours away. So I believe in family, you know relationships are what makes your life you know, all the other things can be said and done. But when in the end, when it's all said and done. It's all about your relationships with the friends you have and your family. Mm hmm.
Ray Loewe 14:06
Yeah, now now we're getting to the culmination over here and and you know, it's it's, it fascinates me how people's lives affect what they do. And of course, in your case, I think you had a lot to do with structuring your life and the way it went. But you're in the process right now, of finishing up a book. I think it's done. When when do we expect to see it in what's it called?
Peter Andersen 14:33
Well, the title of the book, it's all about leadership. It's called The Three Secret Skills of Top Performers. And the subtitle is Powerful Lessons in Transformational Leadership. The whole idea is to help people transform how they lead, whether you're the parent or you're a manager, director, CEO, even or an educator teaching your kids in a classroom. It's traditionally people have been used In only extrinsic motives, you do this for me, and I'll reward you with this like a quid pro quo. And I'm thinking that with so many people working at home nowadays with the virus and everything, we have to have a level of trust with the people doing the work. And you can't just stand over them and beat them over the head with a stick and super manage them. So you have to understand what their personal needs and values are the people doing the performance and the work, whether you're the coach, or the teacher, or the parent. And when you do that, the person then feels like, hey, this guy, or this person, my boss cares about me, that improves the loyalty you have less turnover. And there's so many good things that come from that. And that's what leadership should be.
Ray Loewe 15:42
Okay, so you're talking about this book, you keep referring in the book to this thing called the triad so. So the triad is three. So, so, so give us an idea what these three principles are that that you're building line?
Peter Andersen 15:56
Yeah, well, at a very early age, I think it was even the fourth grade when I read biographies and encouraged by our teachers. And I started looking at some of the commonalities because I thought, well, gee whiz, these are famous people, maybe if I do what they do, I can model that. And that might help me to become a good person. And so over the 55, some years as an educator and a swimmer, and being around top performers all my life, I've kind of seen what the commonalities are, because my PhD work is in education, it's actually in person. It's an excuse me, it's in behavioral, educational and personality psychology. That's where most of my coursework is. And so I began to see what the emerged is three common factors. And here's what they are. These are nothing like an inspirational talk that says, if I can do it, you can do it or a motivational speaker that 48 hours later, you know, the usual cliches persistence, commitment, they leave you, you're back to your old habits. But when you transform somebody, it's like riding a bike. Once you learn it, never forget how so here's what the three secret skills are. They came to me through prayer. So don't kill me, I'm just the messenger. The first one is, the first one is you increase awareness. You know, even a butterfly wouldn't survive without antenna. And you've got to be aware, but so many kids today are just thumbs on their phones, and they have no idea what even the temperature of the day is. And the next one is, you've got to enhance self evaluation. There's pre performance as we do before a swim meet. During performance, if you have a bad event, you get ready for the next one or a bad golf shot, whatever it could be. And then, of course, most people wait until they screw up, and then they save, then they do the post thing. 95% of people are great at that. But you know, they didn't prepare for the interview properly, in the pre, during, and so forth. Then the last one is top performers. I've noticed, top performers tend to not do enough of the third one, you've got to connect reward with reinforcement. What makes you want to go to work, it's not just a paycheck, it's helping people. And, and I've always enjoyed that part of my life helping people. So doing those three, you learn them in into independently, but you apply them interdependently all together. And it's a very powerful message.
Ray Loewe 18:12
Okay, so when is his book going to be released? And how do we get it?
Peter Andersen 18:16
Well, I'm thinking now of releasing it on Kindle for 99 cents, I'll have to get some emails out to people to do that I've got a group of people are going to help me with that. And pass along my emails. So when it's available, I'll make that known. But right now, of course, with everybody buying Christmas, but there's a lot of online shopping with Black Friday, and so forth. I'm going to wait till that gets past maybe probably mid December, I'll do the Kindle thing. Again. The second second week in February, I'm going to sell the market the paperback version 260 pages and seven by 10. It's a good book. And I'll offer it for $7 and 95 cents,
Ray Loewe 18:58
a relative bargain of wisdom. Where else can you get wisdom for $7 and 95 cents?
KC Dempster 19:04
That's right, because it's if it's free, it's not worth That's correct.
Ray Loewe 19:08
So we're gonna post on your your website and how people get in touch with you with our podcast notes. And we're getting near the end of our time, but but I have a couple of questions I want to follow up with you on here, when I'm reading from here is that you've taken your whole life and this book is actually the culmination of all the all the learning the things you've learned about staying motivated. Peak Performance. What am I missing here? I mean, you've got it over raising kids, you apply it to swimming, you apply it to your life as an educator. Where are we going?
Peter Andersen 19:50
Well, Ray, the whole thing is, I call it the Big Four. Once you learn the triad performance improvement system, the whole design is to improve performance. in less Time, but your application is to any job. And I explained that tasks like doing your laundry, I mean, it's not fun, but you got to do it. And then you've got skills I happen to be an author, speaker and a publisher have my own publishing company. And then, you know, you have relationships, not just with mom and dad, if they're still alive, or your kids and so forth. But no matter even what religion you are, there's a higher power in your life, hopefully. And there's a relationship there. And so once you apply the triad, you get to apply it all the time in your life, but and it goes on forever. Once you learn it, you can apply it forever. And that's what makes top performers.
Ray Loewe 20:37
Okay. Dr. Peter Andersen, it's been wonderful talking with you. And we'll get you back again, probably next year after the book's out away, because I want to see where you're going with all of this. The life that you've lived here is one of being successful in a whole lot of different ways. But you're not done because the book is coming out at the later stages of, of your career here, although you kind of retired from education, didn't you?
Peter Andersen 21:08
Yes, I was a K 12 school superintendent, and as a small rural district in Southern Illinois. And, but I could see the frustration, I could see that there were teachers who were coaches, and then they would have classrooms right next to the teachers who didn't coach and yet their students in their classrooms are really highly motivated. And then the teachers right next door to them, weren't is like, Yeah, and I could not understand that. And so that's what kind of drove me to write the book in the first place
Ray Loewe 21:36
to help educators. And so we'll all read the book, and we'll master the triad and then we'll talk to you about next steps later. So again, have a great day. And thanks for being with us. And KC, where we go next.
KC Dempster 21:50
Well, I'm going home. No, we'll be back in another week and have a very interesting talk with a friend that we've known for a long time but haven't spoken to in quite a while.
Ray Loewe 22:06
That's That's, uh I have no idea where we're going. Okay, well, we'll see. We'll see in a week and, and stay tuned to meet one another one of the luckiest people in the world and Dr. Pete, Thank you and have a great day.
Diane Dayton 22:22
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules, a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want, and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us in two weeks for our next exciting topics on changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world.