The lack of posting yesterday was a pity though, because yesterday was a day that was very worth posting about.
Yesterday had a couple of things that were blog worthy.
The first item of note was coaching down at Swim Smooth for the Friday threshold session. As I mentioned on Tuesday, swim coaching this week has been a bit more of a serious affair as Paul has been away and I have been helping stand in for him. On Tuesday I coached with Sal Scaffidi and yesterday I was coaching with another Swim Smoother, Marie. Just like on Tuesday, coaching yesterday were a bit more involved than the sessions I have been helping Paul with (where I am more ornamental). Yesterday Marie and I took two lanes each and worked together to move the squad though the session (which was rather a tough one). It was quite cool doing the whole session, letting people know what was going on and what they were doing, answering questions, giving updates on times, the whole bit. Heaps of fun.
Yesterday I also got a glimpse of the technology side of Swim Smooth when I had to use one of Paul's app's to note down who was attending the various sessions, essentially take a roll. If I am honest trying to figure out just who was in the pool was probably the toughest part of the morning, but I am proud to say that the number of people I had marked down on the roll and the number of people actually swimming in the pool were a perfect match. Win.
As I found on Tuesday, coaching yesterday was both a learning experience and a confidence builder. I have been learning a lot from watching Paul over the last few weeks and this week was a great opportunity to put that into practice and to find out just what it takes to make a session tick, and just how much more I have to learn (lots). This week was also a great test to show me that if coaching is something that I do want to do, then it is possible. Still loads to learn, but this week has been a great first step.
The other big event to write about yesterday was this:
Yep, that is me standing next to Steve Moneghetti. Why am I standing next to Steve Moneghetti you might ask? Well, let me tell you.
We are currently doing a fitness challenge at work, which is something we do in the office every year. The idea of the challenge is to try and encourage as many people as possible to get active for the 8 weeks of the challenge. The aim of the challenge is that some people will develop some healthy habits that persist beyond the challenge.
As part of the challenge the company tries to put on a few events to give people some encouragement. This year the organisers asked me if I had any contacts with any motivational speakers. I didn't, but I asked Raf Baugh from Front Runners and he happened to have the contact of a guy called Steve Moneghetti. You can probably guess how it went from there.
Meeting Steve was pretty cool, such a very relaxed and down to earth guy. I have met quite a few big name sports people over the years, some of them you feel a bit intimidated by and others you feel like you could sit down and chat with very easily. Steve is one of the latter. It was a real honour to shake his hand. I wasn't planning on it, but I couldn't help but do the fanboy thing and get a photo taken (hence the above shot).
His speech to the company was pretty cool too. Steve is quite an accomplished public speaker now and it shows. He spent 45 minutes telling the room his life story, throughout the story he threw in little nuggets of wisdom about things like goal setting, communication. work ethic etc. My first impression was that it was all great, but it was a little disjointed, but then right at the end he pulled all the lesson from his story together with what he called his 'Four Ls'. For Steve, the four Ls were:
- Life: deciding on what your goals in life are and working towards them
- Learning: the development period you need to work towards those goals
- Leadership: when you have achieved some of your goals, taking the time to give something back
- Legacy: What will you be remembered for.
As I said, it was a message that pulled the entire presentation together, and watching the room, I think it was a message that resonated with people too. Pretty nifty.
Plus it was just awesome to meet him.
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