Pushing Buttons
"Knowing what drives you, and your clients, is an important consideration in ALL advisory fields (finance, business, academics, athletics). To be effective teachers, we need to understand the values of our clients, and ourselves."
- Gordon Byrn, taken from http://www.gordoworld.com/gblog/2008/03/us-ppp-uk-property-and-sports-knowledge.html
I had my usual lesson with Coach Kevin yesterday, except it was unusual. Instead of getting in the water and having Kevin disect my stroke, we went and had lunch and talked about the next nine months of training. I have made through four consecutive days of workouts in the pool without and nagging shoulder pain. There are new aches and pains from lactic acid and muscle fatigue, but not the same deep ache I had been experiencing for the past several months. Kevin gave me a set of shoulder exercises to do, and I started popping heavy duty Advil after workouts. The combination of the two seems to have done the trick. So, we have achieved step one of our plan--get rid of the pain--and are now in step two of the process--build a swimming base.
So, we talked about the next nine months. All in all it took about fifteen minutes to lay out the plan, but the lesson time was invaluable. One of my favorite Hemingway quotes is, "Never mistake motion for action." Even though I wasn't swimming, we were taking action towards reaching some lofty goals. We took inventory of how far I have progressed as a swimmer, set expectations for effort and time committment for the next 9 months, and established a basic default workout to do in order to build a solid base. There wasn't a whole lot of motion going on as we ate lunch and talked, but the items that were discussed will be key over the next several months.
Maybe the thing I prize most when working with a coach or a mentor, is getting those small jewels of wisdom that aren't 100% obvious to the average practioner. One of the things Kevin told me yesterday was how important he thought kicking was to overall swimming success. Whenever we have a kick set at practice, most people seem to goof off, or end up swimming freestyle instead. The average person is missing this opportunity to really take their performance up another notch by being casual with such a set. From now on I'm going to "double down" on the kicking sets and imagine all the speed I'm building during the process. Not sure how much of an impact this will have in the immediate term, but at least it will keep my head in the game and make me feel better.
I also gained some insight into who Kevin is as a person. It turns out that Kevin started swimming in high school--which is extremely late to pick up the sport--but his coach stuck by him, and he was a solid swimmer by the time he graduated. After graduation he started to coach in swim programs while he went to college. He graduated and taught middle school math for two years, before deciding to coach swimming full time. He was able to get a job as a part-time coach, but had to work additional jobs in order to pay the bills. He worked at UPS, managed a Buffalo Wild Wings, and a slew of other random jobs so that he could continue to coach. Lastly, he defined his success as a coach by the number of swimmers he coached that have decided to be full time swim coaches after graduation from college--the count is currently at four.
What strikes me here, is how he understands what motivates him. When I think of what I want professionally my usual mental line is "To be successful." But that in and of itself really doesn't mean much. First of all you have to have a definition of success, and even before that you have to understand what motivates you to do what you do. Seemingly, the man has these two things figured out. Maybe it's simpler than I am making it out to be; maybe it's not. Hard to say......
Namaste
- Gordon Byrn, taken from http://www.gordoworld.com/gblog/2008/03/us-ppp-uk-property-and-sports-knowledge.html
I had my usual lesson with Coach Kevin yesterday, except it was unusual. Instead of getting in the water and having Kevin disect my stroke, we went and had lunch and talked about the next nine months of training. I have made through four consecutive days of workouts in the pool without and nagging shoulder pain. There are new aches and pains from lactic acid and muscle fatigue, but not the same deep ache I had been experiencing for the past several months. Kevin gave me a set of shoulder exercises to do, and I started popping heavy duty Advil after workouts. The combination of the two seems to have done the trick. So, we have achieved step one of our plan--get rid of the pain--and are now in step two of the process--build a swimming base.
So, we talked about the next nine months. All in all it took about fifteen minutes to lay out the plan, but the lesson time was invaluable. One of my favorite Hemingway quotes is, "Never mistake motion for action." Even though I wasn't swimming, we were taking action towards reaching some lofty goals. We took inventory of how far I have progressed as a swimmer, set expectations for effort and time committment for the next 9 months, and established a basic default workout to do in order to build a solid base. There wasn't a whole lot of motion going on as we ate lunch and talked, but the items that were discussed will be key over the next several months.
Maybe the thing I prize most when working with a coach or a mentor, is getting those small jewels of wisdom that aren't 100% obvious to the average practioner. One of the things Kevin told me yesterday was how important he thought kicking was to overall swimming success. Whenever we have a kick set at practice, most people seem to goof off, or end up swimming freestyle instead. The average person is missing this opportunity to really take their performance up another notch by being casual with such a set. From now on I'm going to "double down" on the kicking sets and imagine all the speed I'm building during the process. Not sure how much of an impact this will have in the immediate term, but at least it will keep my head in the game and make me feel better.
I also gained some insight into who Kevin is as a person. It turns out that Kevin started swimming in high school--which is extremely late to pick up the sport--but his coach stuck by him, and he was a solid swimmer by the time he graduated. After graduation he started to coach in swim programs while he went to college. He graduated and taught middle school math for two years, before deciding to coach swimming full time. He was able to get a job as a part-time coach, but had to work additional jobs in order to pay the bills. He worked at UPS, managed a Buffalo Wild Wings, and a slew of other random jobs so that he could continue to coach. Lastly, he defined his success as a coach by the number of swimmers he coached that have decided to be full time swim coaches after graduation from college--the count is currently at four.
What strikes me here, is how he understands what motivates him. When I think of what I want professionally my usual mental line is "To be successful." But that in and of itself really doesn't mean much. First of all you have to have a definition of success, and even before that you have to understand what motivates you to do what you do. Seemingly, the man has these two things figured out. Maybe it's simpler than I am making it out to be; maybe it's not. Hard to say......
Namaste
posted by Zen_Accountant at 1:16 PM
2 Comments:
Knowing what motivates you is not an easy thing to figure out. This is partially because there are so many things that "seem" to motivate like money, love, success, etc... But as you mentioned you can dig deeper into those things to find what really motivates. I don't think anyone would call me a glass-half-empty kind of guy but I honestly believe that there is no such thing as a selfless act. If I give all my money to a homeless person, I did it because it brings me pleasure.
I know you're good at digging deep, so I will be interested to learn what you discover motivates you.
MAD
MAD, I could spend hours on the concept of a "selfless act". You are right, it does feel good to give. My
selfless act is when I try to love someone who has hurt, rejected me.
It doesn't feel good to forgive and
forget. You just feel cheated and want to hurt back. For me, it is an act of faith to embrace the one who has caused pain.
Michael, once again you have taken something that could be ordinary
(swim workouts) and tweaked it to
become a "life lesson". Can't wait to see you at Easter. Your room is ready and the beach is calling.
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