Two lives
I've been debating about this post for a couple of weeks now, whether I want to lay bare part of my soul on a blog built to keep such instances from happening.
I will tell you my opinion, and be frank with it, and perhaps you gain some insight into the mind of a coach, or the mind of this coach, but never do we explore any further than an inch or two from the surface.
That being said, I think it's important to recognize the moments that make us coaches, and I have done that in previous posts. This would simply fall in that line, albeit with a bit more depth and insight.
So here we go.
This post has been two-ish weeks in the making, but the thought process behind it has been churning over for the last three or four years. A majority of the thoughts simply spun in place, not necessarily expanding or contracting, and not attaching themselves to form anything coherent. They were feelings, sometimes fleeting, occasionally with staying power, but nothing more.
About three weeks ago, I went down to Phoenix to reconnect with a friend I hadn't seen since high school. This friend and I don't have a history together, but it has been the subject of much discussion and debate between the two of us, and what we ultimately concluded in our own way was that she had established a life in Arizona, near Phoenix, and there wasn't any rowing in Phoenix. The trip was simply a way to reconnect face to face, enjoy some time together, and catch up.
And did we catch up. We talked nonstop for the 50+ hours I was in town. We probably spent six or more hours a day driving, and never once was the radio on. We talked about everything from high school, to our lives post high school, to dating, and relationships, and the delicate work/relationship balance.
And I began to experience an existential crisis. The thoughts that were floating around my head began snapping into place, and suddenly everything became both clear, and clouded.
We were standing in the middle of nowhere - honestly I have no idea where we were - looking after a house one of her coworkers had asked her to check in on when I realized that a change needed to be made, and that perhaps the change was that I was done coaching.
Done. Finished. Over. I'm not going to part time coach, or volunteer, or work recreationally, I am simply walking away.
Why? Why in Arizona of all places? Why in the middle of nowhere, and why now when I'd finally achieved a very small but significant career goal?
Simply put, I looked at the house, I looked at my friend deciding whether or not to water the roses or wait for the rain that was coming, I looked into the field at the two barns she was going to purchase from her friend, and I realized that I wanted this. Not the specific situation, but to have the option to pursue a similar situation. And I couldn't see how coaching, or coaching the way I have, and the way I believe I need to in order to be successful, and this life could ever mesh.
Flashback.
Spring 2004. I walk into the office of my collegiate coach, and I announce to her, "I want to be a coach." This is highly amusing to both of us because up until that point, I'd done nearly everything under the sun that indicated I was done with rowing, and that I should be removed from the team. We don't need to drag up the details, but I would have booted me off the team, and and I believe to this day that I should have been. At the very least I should have been, "benched," and told the ride in the launch till either the season ended, or my attitude improved.
She and I begin having conversations about it. Where to start, what I need to do over the remaining months to put myself in position to apply, and what programs I should and shouldn't look at.
We move forward again to spring of 2005, and I'm coaching at Pacific Rowing Club, and find myself in an enviable situation, working with Ted Murphy. I'm gaining experience, and I'm gaining confidence in myself, and at some point, I make a monumental decision.
I decide I can either be good at coaching, or I can be good at everything else. So naively, I choose coaching, and I say, out loud, that I will not let anything or anyone stand in my way of getting where I want to go. That includes relationships.
And for the next 12 years, that is the mentality I use with coaching, and with life outside of coaching. It's career first, second, and third, and life if I ever get around to it, which I won't. This belief or path is reinforced by what I retain from other coaches.
"You're single, you don't have kids, you can do anything you want, go anywhere, and become who you want to become."
They never said that, but that's what I heard. They asked if I had any obligations, and when I said no, they would say, "That's great, that means you can...." but at no point did any of them say, "Don't." I filled that in myself.
I'm going to shoehorn this detail in here so I don't forget it, because it will become crucial to where we are now. During these 13 years of coaching, I believed I had two personality sides. I had my coaching side, and I had my everyday side. My coaching persona was patient, more positive, and my daily life persona was more emotional, less patient, more frivolous. I believed in this divided personality, and I would adjust to accommodate it. For example, if you asked me questions about my personality, or how I approached problems, or choices, I would ask you, "Do you want my coaching thoughts, or do you want my general opinion?"
So now we're back in Arizona, and for the first time in 13 years, coaching is no longer exciting. In fact, it's a burden. It's one that I can't share with anyone, and it's one that is sucking all of my time and dedication, and suffocating everything else that I'd like. And I begin contemplating walking away, and starting something new. A change of scenery, let's put that UW Masters to work and get a job in athletics.
I fly home, furiously typing on my iPad. I'm writing down thoughts, and plans, but what I can't shake is this feeling that I'm overlooking something. That something has gone missing in this excitement to start a new life.
I get home, and I go out for drinks with my best friend. The enthusiasm has waned, and I want to get her opinion on why. I want her opinion on my thought process of changing careers, on my existential crisis. She has been in my corner since 2003 and has watched me chase this coaching dream, and heard my declaration about life vs. coaching, so no one knows me better, and knows my two personas better.
And the first thing she says is, "You don't have two personas. You've never had two personas." I've been under the impression that coaching brought out a different side of me, and that it injected itself into my life. Instead, my existing personality has traits that are suited for coaching, or more specifically, are suited to the type of coach I want to be, and the type of coach I've evolved into. The struggle has been me mentally dividing the two personalities, and the crisis I'm feeling isn't a crisis so much as it's the mind saying, "Enough is enough," and the wall dividing the two crumbling.
To prove this, she points out a bunch of fun quizzes we took not long ago. We took one of the more serious personality tests - online, but let's go with it - and we took a bunch of those Buzzfeed quizzes, the ones that tell you something about yourself based on what toppings you'd put on a pizza. And what she points out - she took screenshots of them - is that there isn't much difference between the more serious personality test, and the pizza personality test. I thought long and hard when answering questions on the more serious test, and I snapped off whatever came to mind for the Buzzfeed tests, and both results were basically identical.
Coaching has never required a different personality, I simply, "created" one.
Coaching has never demanded that I devote all my time and energy to it, I chose to do that.
No one has or had ever told me to forgo the pieces of life that contribute to a more rich life, I simply assumed or anticipated that would be the answer.
I wasn't having an existential life crisis so much as I was having an identity crisis where my identity wanted to be reunited with itself. It was over the idea that I had to have two personas to handle to different environments.
So here we are now. Coaching applications are going out, I'm looking forward to interviews, and hoping not to run into another highly aggressive interviewer.
I do find it ironic, yet perhaps not surprising that I went through this. One of the things that I stress to the athletes I coach is that there is, or should be life outside of rowing. Rowing will dominate their lives at times, but that shouldn't mean that it dominates it all the time. The priorities in college should be: School, rowing, social life, but that doesn't mean that every now and then those priorities shouldn't be moved around. That doesn't mean that with planning, and responsibility, that rowing can take a back seat to a social life or a social function or studying. One missed practice isn't going to destroy your season or career. Some may argue that, but I've yet to experience that.
And it's ironic that I could preach that, and truly believe that, but not allow myself the same liberties.
So I'm going to be a rowing coach for now and for the foreseeable future.
Yet, it doesn't surprise me that this is where I ended up. As I said, I felt that something was missing on that flight home. That I'd missed something completely, and that turned out to be coaching. I love coaching. I feel as though, for now, coaching is my calling. I love the athletic environment, I love the interactions, and the challenges, and stress that comes with coaching. I don't want to do anything different because I enjoy what I do, and because I believe I have the opportunity to have a truly positive impact on the lives of the athletes I work with. I want to take the lessons I've learned in my own athletic career, and from the coaches I had, and worked with and spin them into my own lessons, and my own approach.
I will tell you my opinion, and be frank with it, and perhaps you gain some insight into the mind of a coach, or the mind of this coach, but never do we explore any further than an inch or two from the surface.
That being said, I think it's important to recognize the moments that make us coaches, and I have done that in previous posts. This would simply fall in that line, albeit with a bit more depth and insight.
So here we go.
This post has been two-ish weeks in the making, but the thought process behind it has been churning over for the last three or four years. A majority of the thoughts simply spun in place, not necessarily expanding or contracting, and not attaching themselves to form anything coherent. They were feelings, sometimes fleeting, occasionally with staying power, but nothing more.
About three weeks ago, I went down to Phoenix to reconnect with a friend I hadn't seen since high school. This friend and I don't have a history together, but it has been the subject of much discussion and debate between the two of us, and what we ultimately concluded in our own way was that she had established a life in Arizona, near Phoenix, and there wasn't any rowing in Phoenix. The trip was simply a way to reconnect face to face, enjoy some time together, and catch up.
And did we catch up. We talked nonstop for the 50+ hours I was in town. We probably spent six or more hours a day driving, and never once was the radio on. We talked about everything from high school, to our lives post high school, to dating, and relationships, and the delicate work/relationship balance.
And I began to experience an existential crisis. The thoughts that were floating around my head began snapping into place, and suddenly everything became both clear, and clouded.
We were standing in the middle of nowhere - honestly I have no idea where we were - looking after a house one of her coworkers had asked her to check in on when I realized that a change needed to be made, and that perhaps the change was that I was done coaching.
Done. Finished. Over. I'm not going to part time coach, or volunteer, or work recreationally, I am simply walking away.
Why? Why in Arizona of all places? Why in the middle of nowhere, and why now when I'd finally achieved a very small but significant career goal?
Simply put, I looked at the house, I looked at my friend deciding whether or not to water the roses or wait for the rain that was coming, I looked into the field at the two barns she was going to purchase from her friend, and I realized that I wanted this. Not the specific situation, but to have the option to pursue a similar situation. And I couldn't see how coaching, or coaching the way I have, and the way I believe I need to in order to be successful, and this life could ever mesh.
Flashback.
Spring 2004. I walk into the office of my collegiate coach, and I announce to her, "I want to be a coach." This is highly amusing to both of us because up until that point, I'd done nearly everything under the sun that indicated I was done with rowing, and that I should be removed from the team. We don't need to drag up the details, but I would have booted me off the team, and and I believe to this day that I should have been. At the very least I should have been, "benched," and told the ride in the launch till either the season ended, or my attitude improved.
She and I begin having conversations about it. Where to start, what I need to do over the remaining months to put myself in position to apply, and what programs I should and shouldn't look at.
We move forward again to spring of 2005, and I'm coaching at Pacific Rowing Club, and find myself in an enviable situation, working with Ted Murphy. I'm gaining experience, and I'm gaining confidence in myself, and at some point, I make a monumental decision.
I decide I can either be good at coaching, or I can be good at everything else. So naively, I choose coaching, and I say, out loud, that I will not let anything or anyone stand in my way of getting where I want to go. That includes relationships.
And for the next 12 years, that is the mentality I use with coaching, and with life outside of coaching. It's career first, second, and third, and life if I ever get around to it, which I won't. This belief or path is reinforced by what I retain from other coaches.
"You're single, you don't have kids, you can do anything you want, go anywhere, and become who you want to become."
They never said that, but that's what I heard. They asked if I had any obligations, and when I said no, they would say, "That's great, that means you can...." but at no point did any of them say, "Don't." I filled that in myself.
I'm going to shoehorn this detail in here so I don't forget it, because it will become crucial to where we are now. During these 13 years of coaching, I believed I had two personality sides. I had my coaching side, and I had my everyday side. My coaching persona was patient, more positive, and my daily life persona was more emotional, less patient, more frivolous. I believed in this divided personality, and I would adjust to accommodate it. For example, if you asked me questions about my personality, or how I approached problems, or choices, I would ask you, "Do you want my coaching thoughts, or do you want my general opinion?"
So now we're back in Arizona, and for the first time in 13 years, coaching is no longer exciting. In fact, it's a burden. It's one that I can't share with anyone, and it's one that is sucking all of my time and dedication, and suffocating everything else that I'd like. And I begin contemplating walking away, and starting something new. A change of scenery, let's put that UW Masters to work and get a job in athletics.
I fly home, furiously typing on my iPad. I'm writing down thoughts, and plans, but what I can't shake is this feeling that I'm overlooking something. That something has gone missing in this excitement to start a new life.
I get home, and I go out for drinks with my best friend. The enthusiasm has waned, and I want to get her opinion on why. I want her opinion on my thought process of changing careers, on my existential crisis. She has been in my corner since 2003 and has watched me chase this coaching dream, and heard my declaration about life vs. coaching, so no one knows me better, and knows my two personas better.
And the first thing she says is, "You don't have two personas. You've never had two personas." I've been under the impression that coaching brought out a different side of me, and that it injected itself into my life. Instead, my existing personality has traits that are suited for coaching, or more specifically, are suited to the type of coach I want to be, and the type of coach I've evolved into. The struggle has been me mentally dividing the two personalities, and the crisis I'm feeling isn't a crisis so much as it's the mind saying, "Enough is enough," and the wall dividing the two crumbling.
To prove this, she points out a bunch of fun quizzes we took not long ago. We took one of the more serious personality tests - online, but let's go with it - and we took a bunch of those Buzzfeed quizzes, the ones that tell you something about yourself based on what toppings you'd put on a pizza. And what she points out - she took screenshots of them - is that there isn't much difference between the more serious personality test, and the pizza personality test. I thought long and hard when answering questions on the more serious test, and I snapped off whatever came to mind for the Buzzfeed tests, and both results were basically identical.
Coaching has never required a different personality, I simply, "created" one.
Coaching has never demanded that I devote all my time and energy to it, I chose to do that.
No one has or had ever told me to forgo the pieces of life that contribute to a more rich life, I simply assumed or anticipated that would be the answer.
I wasn't having an existential life crisis so much as I was having an identity crisis where my identity wanted to be reunited with itself. It was over the idea that I had to have two personas to handle to different environments.
So here we are now. Coaching applications are going out, I'm looking forward to interviews, and hoping not to run into another highly aggressive interviewer.
I do find it ironic, yet perhaps not surprising that I went through this. One of the things that I stress to the athletes I coach is that there is, or should be life outside of rowing. Rowing will dominate their lives at times, but that shouldn't mean that it dominates it all the time. The priorities in college should be: School, rowing, social life, but that doesn't mean that every now and then those priorities shouldn't be moved around. That doesn't mean that with planning, and responsibility, that rowing can take a back seat to a social life or a social function or studying. One missed practice isn't going to destroy your season or career. Some may argue that, but I've yet to experience that.
And it's ironic that I could preach that, and truly believe that, but not allow myself the same liberties.
So I'm going to be a rowing coach for now and for the foreseeable future.
Yet, it doesn't surprise me that this is where I ended up. As I said, I felt that something was missing on that flight home. That I'd missed something completely, and that turned out to be coaching. I love coaching. I feel as though, for now, coaching is my calling. I love the athletic environment, I love the interactions, and the challenges, and stress that comes with coaching. I don't want to do anything different because I enjoy what I do, and because I believe I have the opportunity to have a truly positive impact on the lives of the athletes I work with. I want to take the lessons I've learned in my own athletic career, and from the coaches I had, and worked with and spin them into my own lessons, and my own approach.
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