According to the New York native, his past mistake was the push he needed to become a better version of himself.
Ryan stated, “I have been improving my self-esteem every day.” Ryan continued, “Man, I can do the same thing for the pool. Now, I can take it out of the pool. Then I got to work and met my wife. We have two amazing children. Everything that happens in life, you have to just learn from it—the goods, the bads.”
The swimming champion also shared the “biggest lesson” he learned from the 2016 Rio Olympics scandal, saying, “In life, you’re gonna get knocked down…But it’s how you get up and keep moving forward. It’s how you get up that will determine who and what you become. This is what I did. “I got up.”