“ Jeff Rouse is the classic example of the advantage of sports in providing specific, time focused and challenging goals, and how hard it can be to replace those goals in business. In 1992 he won Olympic silver in the 100 meter backstroke. In 1996 he won the gold in that event, as well as in the 4 X 100 meter relay. For eight consecutive years he was ranked number one in the world, and had two world records. He was considered by many the greatest backstroker of all time, but after the 96 Olympics he had conquered, and saw no further challenges. He resolved to move on, completely change his life, and find new challenges. He became a successful real estate agent in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Va, but found that unfulfilling. He tried golf, but found that boring. He married, then divorced, within four years. As he told Eli Saslow in a Washington Post interview, “I looked a lot of places for that concrete satisfaction that swimming fast always gave me, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So he did the only thing he really knew how to do – at age 34, he attempted to become the oldest male swimmer ever to qualify for an Olympics. “I missed the constant challenge of getting faster. I missed specific goals. In life you kind of have all these things you want to accomplish, like owning a house or something, but there’s really no timeframe for it. I like to have a sense of time. I need that urgency.” “I could swim badly and the comeback journey would still be worth it. I don’t need a gold medal. I already have that. I just needed the swimming goals again. That’s the thing I’m really going to miss. ”
