“That’s Your Grandmother”: Michael Phelps Didn’t Even Spare His Family When It Came to His Michael Jordan Like Behavior

Winning is an obsession, and the person who tastes it can’t digest a failure, no matter how small it is. Perhaps that’s what makes great players like Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps so successful. They can’t accept failures even when it’s just a card game they are playing with friends and family. For these champions, the only way forward is winning and nothing else.

The world today knows Michael Phelps as the man who won 23 Olympic golds. Or the man who holds 39 world records in swimming. However, not just swimming, but the ‘Baltimore Bullet’ is competitive as hell in everything he does. Even if it is just a simple family board or card game, he wouldn’t let anybody else win it.

Debbie Phelps reveals Michael’s obsession with winning

Well, having a mentality of a winner is what led Michael Phelps to grand success in his career. However, just like the NBA legend, Michael Jordan, he would use the same mentality in everything he does.

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According to his mother, Debbie Phelps, “Michael wouldn’t even let his grandmother win at 500 Rummy, and I’d say, Michael, that’s your grandmother. Mom, I hate to lose. Got it, I understand that but come on.”

Now that’s a little over the line, don’t you think? Who doesn’t let their grandmother win in a card game? Though he has mentioned time and again that he wanted to be as great of an athlete as Jordan, perhaps these things are self-explanatory.

What drove Michael Phelps to accomplish such greatness in his career?

The prominent reason behind Michael being a beast in the pool was that he hate losing. As per the swimming legend, “I put the pressure on myself, I wanted to win every single time I went into the pool. I don’t like to get second, I don’t like to get third, I don’t like to not make it to the podium. For me, it’s one place, winning, that’s it.”

That motivation to be the best at something is what lies at the center of Phelps’ incredible career, and perhaps this is what differentiates him from his competitors. He had the hunger and will to achieve the impossible. Hence, he is the greatest swimmer that we know of to date.

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