Around the office, at his Atlanta-based engineering job, Nic Fink’s coworkers call him “The Fish.”
It’s an apt nickname for the 30-year-old who moonlights as a swimmer on the U.S. national team and has competed at Olympic tournaments.
“I thought my swimming career was going to be sunsetting about a year and a half ago,” he tells CNBC Make It.
That was after he placed fifth in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is also part of the reason why, in 2021, he set out to get his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
But Fink recently won the 100-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Championships, surprising himself by setting a personal best at an age when the average swim career might start to wind down.
“Turns out, I was wrong, and I was able to continue to push myself past what I thought I was capable of,” he says.
And yet, Fink is also committed to continuing his engineering career. His dedication to both means that he will continue to lead a double life: partly in the pool, partly at the office.
That juggling act has become quite familiar to Fink, who balanced a rigorous swimming schedule with his academic studies for most of his life. But for the average 9-to-5 worker, adding in a professional swim training schedule might seem nearly impossible — at least, without barreling toward burnout.
Fink is managing to be successful at both pursuits while also enjoying life outside of each. Here are two tips he keeps in mind to make it happen:
‘There is time for everything’
Fink typically starts his day at 5:30 a.m. to make it to his two-hour morning swim training. He eats his breakfast — which he prepares the Sunday before for most of the week — at the Georgia Tech pool before heading straight to the office.
Some days he’ll make sure to be the last one to leave the office since he often arrives slightly after everyone else. Other days, he has afternoon swim practice as well, so he leaves work around 1:30 p.m. and goes directly back to the pool where some other Olympians also train.
He usually gets home around 5:30 p.m., eats dinner, relaxes with his wife, pro swimmer and Olympic gold-medalist Melanie Margalis, and gets to bed at around 9:30 p.m.
It’s never easy to juggle multiple commitments, especially when they each require your full focus in the moment. But Fink’s busy, yet effective, schedule proves that it is possible to pursue multiple passions at once.
“There is time for everything. It may not seem like it and it may not be easy, but there is time for everything,” Fink says.
As he ping-pongs from the pool to the office back to the pool, Fink relies on to-do lists and strict scheduling to keep himself organized. He is honest with his coaches, his co-workers and his bosses about where he needs to be and when so that he can meet all his commitments.
Surprisingly, despite the constant back-and-forth, Fink says he manages to compartmentalize the various demands of his day.
“After a really hard workout in the morning, I go to work and I’m like, ‘I’ll just think about work and not think about practice, not think about afternoon training,'” Fink says.
But, he can still only squeeze so much into each day. Fink makes sure that everyone he works with understands, while he may not be able to work longer hours, as he puts it: “When you do see me, you’re going to get 100%.” The fact that his employers and colleagues have been supportive is also part of what’s made Fink’s split schedule successful to this point.
“It helps to have an understanding company and set of co-workers,” he says.
Flexibility at the workplace is just part of why Fink has been able to avoid burning out so far. It’s also a matter of focusing on one task at a time and setting reasonable expectations with his coaches and bosses. That way, he maintains momentum and passion within both careers without feeling drained by demands that might regularly pull him in multiple directions at once.
Eventually, it becomes ‘second nature’
Figuring out how to manage two careers simultaneously came with growing pains, says Fink.
“The first few weeks, I was thinking, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I don’t know if I can balance it all,'” he recalls.
Developing the routines and habits that can support both an Olympic swimmer and an early-career engineer did not come immediately. Fink says it was “the hardest part.”
However, by sticking to his schedule, he says over time, “It started becoming second nature.”
It has been just over four months since Fink officially started his dual-career routine and so far, he says it is going well: His co-workers and bosses seem to have a good impression of his work ethic and of course, he’s still setting personal records in the pool.
For now, Fink says he’s not yet ready to retire his swim cap. His victory at the U.S. Championships qualified him for the World Championships, which take place in Japan later this month. But as he continues to train and compete, he also knows there is an end in sight.
“Swimming is not something that you can do forever,” Fink says. And he’d rather leave the professional swimming world by choice than be forced out by injury.
As for engineering, he knows he’s still learning the ropes and getting his career off the ground: “I’m not in any rush to conquer the world of engineering just yet.”
He adds, “But, once swimming is over, I’m going to have a whole lot of competitive fuel in me that will need to be redirected somewhere.”
DON’T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!
