Put me in, Coach

Somewhere exists a 10x12 photo of me, aged 6, gazing up to my swim coach with, what the photographer wonderfully captured, a look of raw admiration and awe.? It was awards evening at the swim club. My first.?And to my utter surprise (and horror, as I was painfully shy) I’d been called up to the podium by Coach Jerry, a teacher who stood 7-foot tall in my eyes.? This massive, imagined gap in height was also deftly captured in the photo.?

He’d already presented the awards to the star athletes, the boy and girl with the most first-place ribbons across the season, best front crawl, backstroke, butterfly, breast stroke…? What on earth did he call me for?? I was the runt of the litter. With one hand on my shoulder, he positioned me facing the audience (at 6 I’d had no idea what to do in these situations) and told the story of how I’d begged to join the swim team at barely 5, despite being below the requisite age, of how I’d never missed a practice, of how I’d finish last place in competitions over and over again but still came to the next with my 100%.? Then he reached for a massive trophy, twice the size of my head, bigger even than that of the star athletes, and announced that this was for trying the hardest.

The truth is that I tried the hardest because Coach Jerry coached the hell out of me.? He left no doubt that he believed that I had it in me, that it was only a matter of time and practice before I’d start surpassing some of the other swimmers.? As I’d hoist myself out of the pool exhausted after a race, he’d give me generous words of encouragement with pointers occasionally sprinkled in.? He didn’t give long speeches or demand extra sessions.? Rather, it was the small interactions, week in and week out, that showed he was watching, he cared and he believed in me that drove me on, especially when I was unsure if I could keep improving. Indeed, I managed to collect quite a few third-place ribbons (usually when there were only 3 or 4 swimmers competing, but let’s not dwell on the details) and a couple for second place.? And eventually that for which I’d strived so hard…my first 1st place ribbon. Yet it was that trophy for trying the hardest that remained for years my most prized possession.?

I was so fortunate to have a Coach Jerry in my life from such a young age. ?It modelled what a difference good coaching can make. ?I was to appreciate him even more when he was replaced mid-way through the next season with a new trainer who had only ‘the stick’ in his coaching arsenal.? He instituted a tradition in practices that if the swimmer behind you caught up to you, for each occasion you’d be whacked once on the backside with a kick board.? In front of everyone.? At the end of practice, so it was reinforced as the lasting take-away of every session. ?Every practice, I got whacked… a lot.? You can imagine the effect…. I may have learned to swim faster but at the same time had my love of swimming whacked right out of me. At the end of that season I quit the team, and I quit swimming.? To this day I’m still a water baby – body surfing, paddle boarding, snorkelling, cliff jumping, boogie boarding, lilo floating, splashing around- anything but swimming.? That is the power of coaching, be it negative or positive.

What does coaching have to do with being a founder?? A lot, it turns out. It's been a theme this week, so I’ve been reflecting on this.? We benefited from a 2-hour session entitled ‘Smart Thinking About Partnering: Lessons for Cofounders’ with coach, Kathryn Gordon .? We kicked off the session thinking about teams we’d worked within, situated on a continuum from earliest to present day and placed above or below the timeline, depending on whether they’d been a positive or negative experience.? Then we were encouraged to think about what made them positive.? The two swim team experiences were my earliest entries.? Considering all entries, I concluded that the positive ones were so because they’d aligned with my values, I felt supported rather than having traps set and I felt the underlying assumption that we’d win. The negative ones had in common a lack of trust and psychological safety (plus kick boards).

We were also introduced to Tim Gallwey’s famous coaching equation:

Performance = Possibility – Interference

It must be really important because we ended up being exposed twice in 2 days to this same equation, as on Friday it was also a key theme in a 2-hour workshop on ‘Confidence and Imposter Syndrome’ with Alex Whitton , who coaches start-up founders and high school students.? (We’re not that different after all.)

One point is that with coaching, whilst you may benefit from increasing your perception of what is possible, the most valuable outcome is often in reducing your interference.? We learned that by elevating or reducing that voice in your brain, you can increase possibility thinking rather than scarcity thinking. ?I found valuable the simple explanation of which parts of your brain engage under which circumstances.? If we don’t have a solid grounding (through sleep, good diet, meditation, etc.), we are prone to easily having our frontal cortex triggered, figuratively ‘flipping our lid’.?

In both sessions we worked on ways to reduce interference first in the form of our co-founder relationship floundering due to festering issues, lack of psychological safety, attributing task conflict to personal conflict.? We reviewed the keys to building trust and making the relationship a priority, whilst getting to agreement and holding each other accountable.? Then we focused on interference from within….’that’ negative voice. ?Two women I admire, Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis from Amazing If , refer to this as the ‘Confidence Gremlins’, and in their second book, You Coach You, rightly point out that you are your own best coach.

Luckily, Alex’s session gave us practical tools to coach ourselves.? Ever the simpleton, I especially like the hacks that will be easy to do and remember like asking yourself “If I was confident right now, what would I do?” (and then do it, of course!).? And breath counting 4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out, 4 seconds hold.? Repeat as needed.? I was also inspired to remind myself why I’ve chosen this path in the first place.? I mean why play life on ‘Hard’ mode at this stage in my career unless I wanted to be in the arena itself and make an impact?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

We also received really practical tips on how to connect with anyone in one of the most entertaining and inspirational sessions with Oli Barrett . Whilst he's not officially a coach, I found his recommendations super useful. Doing your homework before an event is as or more important than following up afterwards as it helps you meet the right people in the first place. He gave us great tips on how to stand out and ways to engage even with 'long shots' as he termed them. It's difficult for me to choose amongst so many good suggestions, but I have always found it really difficult finding a productive way to break away from a 1:1 conversation during networking. Now I have the perfect tool, and I even practiced it on the day! If you'd like to know what it is, just ask me in the comments.

As luck would have it, my monthly founder coaching session with Hilary Thomson also landed in my diary this week.? Because, although it’s paramount to coach yourself, it’s even nicer to have someone dedicate an hour to listening to and coaching you.? We spent most of the time with me updating her on the recent developments in my search for a co-founder (more on that later) and how to ensure that the relationship is fortified along the journey.? She foreshadowed several points I was to practice later in the week with the visiting coaches, including the importance of checking in, being transparent and having the difficult conversations for best outcomes.

Drum Roll, Please

I’m ecstatic to announce that I’ve officially matched as co-founders with my sprint partner, Govin Murugachandran .? You, dear readers, are spared from seeing this space filled with a ‘Help Wanted’ ad for a co-founder.? And I am given the opportunity to work with a talented doctor and tech founder on the business I’ve referred to here before as 'Zonder', looking to create a world where people are not limited by chronic disease.? One of the next steps is to formalize the vision, mission, values and a final brand name.? Stay tuned next week as I recount the steps in arriving at our official name.

In the meantime, there is an ask ??…

• If you or someone you know lives with a chronic illness and would be open to a 30-40 minute’ interview in the aim of improving their lives, please book at a time convenient for you here.
• If you or someone you know are a primary care clinician (doctor or nurse) or a pharmacist serving patients with chronic illness and open to a 25-30 minute’ interview in the aim of simplifying your work, please book/ask them to book at a convenient time here.

Thank you for reading!? I also really need your help in expanding readership, especially now that the posts are going to help support my impact mission.? Please subscribe if you haven’t already and consider reposting as this really helps.? Otherwise, a comment to know you’re out there would also help silence my confidence gremlins that cruelly whisper “No one is reading, Donna.”

What people are definitely reading are the blogs of my cohort colleagues, which you can find in these links:

• Marjo Palanee
• Natalia Baltazar
• Josh Piddock
• Louise Thomas NEW!- Air Aware Labs here
• Guy Naor
• Veronika Bridgman
• Pavandeep Rai
• Lisa Rickers