Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of North Shore
Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
EP #57 - Timothy Heffron: From Mental Health, Swimming Lessons, to Building a Team That Feels Like Family
Timothy Heffron transformed from a UPS driver to the owner of Swimm With Timm, a comprehensive swim instruction program serving children and adults across multiple locations in Massachusetts. His journey reflects how pursuing passion can lead to fulfillment, while his approach to swimming instruction challenges industry norms by embracing equipment use that builds student comfort and confidence faster.
• Swimm With Timm offers lessons for all ages starting from six months old through adulthood
• Tim grew his business from teaching 7 kids to 80 students before committing full-time in 2018
• Unlike competitors, Swimm With Timm embraces training tools like "bubbles," noodles, and flippers
• Swimming success depends more on psychology than physicality—relaxed bodies naturally float
• Tim openly discusses managing bipolar disorder, BPD, and ADHD while running his business
• The program prioritizes staff retention through benefits, competitive pay, and support systems
• Consistency in instructors creates a better learning environment for students
Learn more about Swimm With Timm at www.swimmwithtimm.com with locations in Peabody, Danvers, and Middleton, Massachusetts.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Yvonne Godfrey.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of introducing Tim Heffron. He is the owner and founder of Swim With Tim. Tim, we are so excited to have you with us today. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Wonderful, wonderful, so. We're thrilled to learn more about your business. Can you share with our listeners information about your business?
Speaker 3:We are a swim lesson program for children ages six months and above. We also do adult lessons for people that are trying to learn to swim at an older age. We have levels for all different you know skill levels for swimmers. Our focus is water safety through teaching you how to swim properly. All right, Everybody can learn to swim. It's really just about comfort and confidence and what we really focus on getting kids and adults to start feeling comfortable. They can really start getting to do things. As they start to feel comfortable, they start to feel confident, they start to be able to do things that even they didn't think they could do. Whether you're a kid or adult, it's always the same thing sounds great.
Speaker 2:So, tim, how did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:honestly, I was working for ups as a driver and I took a job as a split shift, working overnight, and it was not paying very well, so I was trying to figure out something I could do to supplement my income.
Speaker 3:I approached what at the time was Latitude, a club in the area, and said listen, you want to grow a swim lesson program. I know how to grow a swim lesson program. Let's work together. It took me about a year. I grew the program from seven kids to about 40 on one day, and then it took me about another six months to grow it to about 80 kids on two days. So I was working seven days a week five days for UPS, two days doing swim lessons and finally, in about spring of 2018, I had enough with UPS and took a chance to become a full-time swim lesson person, and May of 2018, I started doing swim lessons full-time. So it was a choice that I made because I found something that I really loved, and even though I had a great job at UPS that I probably could have, you know, done for the rest of my life, I gave it up because I found something that I just thought was better beautiful, wonderful.
Speaker 2:So, tim, what are some myths or misconception that you've discovered in your industry?
Speaker 3:one of the biggest myths in my industry, and one that we absolutely wholeheartedly do not believe in, is the is the belief that equipment is bad. When you're trying to see swimming, we use swim trainers. We like to refer to them as bubbles. We use barbells and noodles and flippers all these things that people say you can't do with kids because they teach them things, they make it too easy or they don't teach them the right things. But it's not true. If they are taught the right way, if the equipment is used the right way, if the skills are performed the right way, the kids learn, and they actually learn quicker because they have the advantage of getting a better feel for what they're trying to do easier. And again, as I said before, comfort and confidence is so important. They really allow the kids to get comfortable and confident more quickly, which is really the most important thing.
Speaker 2:And, of course, by them getting more comfortable and confident. It just speeds up the learning process.
Speaker 3:Exactly Because everybody, like I said, everybody can swim, everybody can float. The only reason you can't float is because you get nervous. When you get nervous, you turn into a rock. If you're relaxed, you float like a feather and that's all it is. It's about relaxed or nervous, and that's swimming.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like psychology as well.
Speaker 3:A lot of psychology yes, it sounds like psychology as well. A lot, of psychology.
Speaker 2:Yes, so Tim outside of work what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Really, work is a lot of my fun, like I enjoy what I do, so it is a lot of what I a lot of my fun. Really. All I do for fun out of work is I do a little bit of fantasy sports. So I I'm big into numbers Personally, I was always a math geek so I'm big into statistics and numbers and things like that. I enjoy playing on fantasy leagues and looking at the numbers and trying to figure out the way things are going and how they're going to predict in the future. I'm a nerd, what can I say?
Speaker 2:Okay, so changing gears. Tim, can you describe one hardship or one of life's challenge that you rose above and you can look back on it and say that you're stronger and better as a result of it? What comes to your mind?
Speaker 3:on it and say that you're stronger and better as a result of it. What comes to your mind? This is actually a question that I deal with still every day because technically, I am a disabled person. I am bipolar one with a borderline personality disorder, I have ADHD I am just a lovely cacophony of mental diagnoses and I'm on medications for them and I struggle all the time to make sure that I stay on my medications and I do the things to help myself manage my disability, because it's very easy for someone like me to fall off the path.
Speaker 3:It's very easy for someone like me to end up in a very not good place. I know a lot of people. I've met a lot of people who have similar conditions to mine, who don't have friends, are homeless, can't hold jobs. I've been lucky. I responded well to medication, I've been able to manage my disability and I still manage it. So I mean that to me is like one of the hardest things that I've ever had to overcome is just day-to-day life. Thank God, when I was 30 years old, I finally got diagnosed or started to get diagnosed. It's just an ongoing thing, like you know know, so medication management and other things are always important and just you know, self, self, self. Taking time for yourself is important. Realizing when you need to step away is important. So that's one thing that I have tried to do and surround myself with people that when the time comes and I need to step away for a little bit, that the staff is there and that the people are capable of stepping up and filling the holes or the time that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is really, really inspiring to hear the struggles and the triumph that you've had that led you to where you are today. Thank you for sharing that with our listeners.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:So, Tim, can you please tell our listeners one thing that they should remember about Swim With Tim?
Speaker 3:One thing about Swim With Tim is we believe in taking care of our, our employees and our staff and we believe that having, you know, consistent staff in this industry is very important. We don't want to see, like everyone else, instructors coming and going and not having the same instructor finish the session. That's what we want. We want to have consistent instructors that people know, that people want to come back to. So we want to take care of our employees. So we work very hard. We offer benefits to part-time employees, we offer 401k, with no hours minimum. We do a lot to take care of our employees. On top of just benefits and things like that, we have very competitive pay.
Speaker 3:We very much want people to come here and stay here and be part of the family here at Swim with Tim. I hate saying that word family, because you're still working for someone. It's still an employee-boss relationship, but we want to keep it, as you know, friendly and personable and as much like family as we can. You know, like if you need help, we're here to support you. You need a little bit of time off. We can do that. You know you need a loan. We'll get you a loan type of thing, like we'll take care of you if you need it, and that is important to us and we hope that's important to our members, because they see the same instructors and they know that we're taking care of them so that they stay here, so that they don't have to see what they see at other programs, which is new instructors all the time and a bunch of 16-year-old kids that just don't know what they're doing. So we want to find quality people, older people with experience, that stick around and can help us build a quality program.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful concept because you know, 40 hours in a week is is a lot of hours to be in one place, and the more bonded we become and work as friends and family, the better the outcome is for any company.
Speaker 3:I agree. I agree you need to have a good work environment, because if you have a good work environment, then you don't mind being at work.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Since you are at work so much, you might as well like being there.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. Sometimes being at work is just going to have fun.
Speaker 3:If you can have fun at work, it's all the better.
Speaker 2:So, Tim, can you tell our listeners how they can learn more about Swim With Tim? Do you have a website?
Speaker 3:We have a website, wwwswimwithtimcom. Two m's in swim, two m's in tim. We love our m's, lots of m's all over the place. But swimwithtimcom, you can look us up. We are in peabody, danvers and missouin. We have locations in all three spots. We offer, like I said, swim lessons for kids and adults, and you can find out all this information private group lessons on the website swim with Timcom. Just look us up. Well, you'll find us easy enough.
Speaker 2:Tim, we really appreciate you being on the show with us today. We wish you and your business all the very best moving forward.
Speaker 3:I thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthshorecom. That's GNPNorthshorecom, or call 857-703-9406.