Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I am Chris DeSantis, and welcome to an episode of the debrief where here on the swim brief we interview people. A lot of them are coaches, a lot of them are coaches in the sport of swimming, people that I meet at something, or really just want to sort of share the ideas of, and that encapsulates perfectly who we have here today. I want to welcome to the podcast Nicholas Bricks, or for American speakers, Nicholas Bricks. I can't say it's so hard to say Danish names wrong. Live from Luxembourg, where he's managing his personal investments. I didn't know that uh their, you know, that swim coaching paid that well in Denmark, Nicholas.
SPEAKER_00I wish it was Seoul. Swimming competition, and you know. Yeah, I don't know. Let me just say we have a saying in within the European Union that Luxembourg is the safe haven of all the corporate money. They have sort of like an influx of a lot of companies that uh is positioned abroad. It could be McDonald's, uh people like that, corporates like that, and then they pay a certain fixed tax and then they bring the money out of the European Union. So yeah. But no, unfortunately, I'm not there. I'm just here for a competition. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's right. You're I'm just teasing you, you're there for the the amazingly named Euromeet. Yeah. What a creative name for a swim meet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it's been around for ages, you know. It's uh one of the really like old high-level competition we have in Europe. So it's a good startup competition for the long co season. So yeah. Yeah. The perfect uh also timing of it and everything is just like really, really good.
SPEAKER_01And you're there in capacity as a coach of the Danish national team, but uh we'll get to your what you're doing day-to-day as well. You will have athletes from your club competing in the meet as well. That's that's true. All right, let's let's go back in history. Let's go back and just give because I I think always it's funny. I was in Denmark just recently. I saw you there. That's part of the inspiration for having this. Uh, and I spent a long time talking to Thomas Stupp, the Danish national could we call him the national team director? Like what I don't how do you translate it like that?
SPEAKER_00I would call it coordinator, first director. He is behind the scenes on all our national teams and all the what he called it efforts uh that goes into building the national program.
SPEAKER_01And so he was telling me he's listened to a few podcasts, but he gave me a critique. He said basically, sometimes when you bring up, you know, when you have guests on, you bring up names and this, that, and the other person. As a person who's not in the context of like American swimming or this, that, or the other thing, like I have no idea who you're talking about. So today, as we name drop people, we're going to explain who they are, but also let's explain who you are, right? Because your your name is not going to come across my podcast feed and like American coaches are gonna be like, oh my god, Nicholas Klex, I have to hear this one. Like I've been dying to hear from him, you know? 100% not. Which 100% not. They probably have never heard of you. Exactly. My argument and the reason why I'm having you on is I think they could learn a lot. Anybody listening to this could learn a lot from hearing from you. And that's why I have you here. So let's go back to the beginning, as I said, at the beginning of this question. Talk about your professional life before you became a swim coach. I was poking around on your LinkedIn and reminding myself that you were actually in the you were in the army in Denmark. It says for Svat, which translates to like defense, but that's the Army. But I I was in the army actually, as long as what you would call army.
SPEAKER_00So it was the boots of the ground. Yeah. You were a grunt, as you would say. No, I it's my I think my sort of professional life started off with a dream of becoming a Navy SEAL, actually. Uh a frogman in Denmark. Yeah, yeah. It's called Frogman. That's what I was like trying to like uh think about. We call it Frogman. It's one of the oldest, like what you would call special divisions in the military in Denmark. It started off during the Second World War with the SBS Special Boat Service. Anywho, that was the dream. And then I joined the military. I became a sergeant in the army. I was at the Academy, the Naval Academy for the the frogmen or the Navy SEALs two times. Failed both, but it was fun. It kind of put me on a track where I wanted to start with kind of going down on what made teams really excel in what they're doing. I wouldn't call it like, you know, professional and stuff like that, but really excel in what they do. And it started, yeah, I was just I got really intrigued by that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I just want to interject for people so they have some context for what you're talking about. The Danish frogmen, I was looking this up actually, because I'm a complete dork while I was on my trip. I think they've tried out something like, you know, like there's a thousand people that try out a year or something, or a few hundred people that try out. There's three hundred people that have passed the course all time. Like in the history of the program, we're talking about something that goes back decades and there's all these people trying out. So you didn't pass, but it's it's very hard to pass, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so to give you perspective, around 1200 candidates try to at least apply each year. Of those, they select around 120 to come on a week where they try you out. From that week, they select between 20 to 30. And between those 20 to 30, they started the academy, which I did two times. Out of those, it's between four and seven that graduate. The top class that ever graduated graduated 11. The bottom that ever graduated was two. So it's it's it's quite hard. But I think the Navy SEAL has the same hit ratio in the States. You're just way larger than we are.
SPEAKER_01So sure. Um, and and as you were sort of saying, this got you interested in what makes, let's say, high performing teams, maybe teams under uh a lot of pressure, teams in really competitive situations, or how they how they manage all of that. How did that transition into a career in coaching?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oddly enough, I wanted to I sat down after I was in the army and I thought about what I wanted to do. And then I thought about okay, I really want to educate myself a little bit more into stuff. So I fell upon what I you know, I I I I chose certain paths, and um I thought that coaching or at least learning people to do stuff were the road I wanted to choose. So go down and I think that what was really interested in that it opened up really a lot of windows. So initially I didn't want to become a sports coach, actually. I wanted to work with people just that was my intent. So I actually applied for different courses, but I eventually, because I also am an old swimmer uh that swam high-level swimming, I went joining like uh sports science and started there. And then I actually transitioned from sports science into anthropology, which is you know different, but it's still with people, still about learning how people they tick. And I think that you know sort of drove me through my studies. And then I worked at an NGO or two different NGOs actually. And then I sort of had coaching in swimming on the sidelines, and I also coached or did uh workshops in the NGO and made I made a couple of papers, nothing major. Um so that was kind of my drive point was to like work with people and then eventually it grew in me into being more I wanted to work more with swimming because I actually thought it was really fun, you know. But not as uh not as a swimmer's perspective, but more in engaging with teams and making them perform and making people perform. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I didn't know this part of your story. I studied anthropology as well, and I, you know, I was having this thought, you know, shower thoughts, right? The things that like you're just standing under this hot stream of water and you feel like you have like the smartest, most amazing ideas that somehow you don't have when you're not standing in the shower. So I had a shower thought yesterday, and I think it was, you know, a lot of these are about what I would like people to learn. And one of them that I'm hearing in your story is people come to coaching, and I think there's a lot of people out there, I meet them at least, maybe I'm self-selecting for them, that are like eager to learn. They want to get better at what they're doing, and they start seeking out knowledge. And what I would just say to anybody is think about what you're interested in. It's applicable to coaching. So, like anthropology, if that interests you, it will help you get better at what you're trying to do professionally. Sort of reject, there's like a lot of, especially in America, I think there's a lot of attitude like, well, why are you studying that? What kind of job are you gonna get in anthropology? I think history, I study history, I think history helps me coach a lot. You know, I've talked with people on this podcast who are musicians. You can see that the their um pursuit of music helps them in coaching. It doesn't really matter where you try to sort of learn and get more competency, it will have a crossover effect into what you're doing on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00And that's what I think about coaching in general is that it's not like uh you can't you can have a course in uni or in college where you have like let you would say coaching or uh leadership. That's also a buzzword that people use. But eventually it's more like having a broad competency field and then bringing it into play. And then that will propel you on your way to coach people or even like I would say build people, because that's also what you do in coaching. You know, you don't manage them, but you build them instead of.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. 100%. So talk about where you are now. I won't I won't subject people to the story of how you ended up. No, that's a long story. We don't want to lose. Your current job. But what are you doing now coaching-wise? Because you've actually been in the same place. Denmark, probably partially owing to me, has gotten a little bit of a bad reputation for people jumping around. You've been in your job for a minute, like a little bit more than a minute. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What are you doing? Seven years almost. Yeah. Yeah. So started with uh a transition from my uh other job or got fired and then applied for this and had really good, like, you know, connection with the board. I didn't want to head coach. And I thought that could be interesting. I actually almost I did apply for other jobs with n not in the swimming world or field, but yeah. So started head coaching, small club, not that big, uh, 60-ish people in the competitive division, and a few good swimmers, not really many. Grew the club, not on the what would you call learn to swim, but on the competitive division side. So right now we are 123 swimmers. Oh my gosh, so you've doubled the competitive size of that team in seven years. Wow. Yeah. When I got into the program, what's it called? Mean age of the first team was 14.2 years old, and now we're 19.8. Yeah. Through the club, made a good, I will call it environment or or culture that cultivates high performance or at least performance on a national high level. I wouldn't say international high performance, but performance on a national high level, with a few outliers that then, you know, goes to uh different, yeah, I would say junior events. We have some that goes to senior events, that's international, but mostly we have juniors. So that would be European juniors, Nordic championships, world juniors, yeah, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the things that I am kind of interested in in talking about because I think, you know, if I look at like strengths and weaknesses of Danish clubs, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on there was because this is something too I was trying to work on when I was coaching there. I mean, I took over a club that was very well known for basically being Denmark's best age group club. And then every level beyond that, we kind of just like disappeared, right? And it is hard because structure wise, they're they're kind of the clubs almost have a bias towards age group swimming, right? They the they they may not even be aware of it, but they they have certain structural barriers to athletes continuing on later in the sport. What were some of the things you changed, right? So if you jump from 14 to 19, that's a massive change in terms of like who are the ages up there. What were some of the kind of things you changed along the way to actually make that group truly sort of like a group for older kids and potentially even young adults?
SPEAKER_00So we had some really good strategic talks. I would think you would say that in English. We had a half a year where we did a pretty big workload on analysis coming into what would take us to the next step, what is important if we want to have, let's say, junior high level and then seniors or youth seniors on a high level. And after that, you know, analysis part, we came down to having like uh three different legs, I would say. So one was then how we learn them to swim better, other part was um how do we structure the club in the teams that needs to fit into the club so that each and every single swimmer they can see themselves progressing and becoming better and joining something not new but more like build a certain like step by step so they can see themselves becoming older and older in the swim club. And then what I thought was most important, okay, I also am an anthropologist, just so you know, yeah, the culture, how to build the culture. And we did some pretty massive things with the culture. We stopped glorifying youth swimming. They did that before.
SPEAKER_01Okay, sorry, tell me more about that because this is so okay. So what what what was described for people the scene? Like, what do you mean by the club was sort of glorifying youth swimming? And then what did you change?
SPEAKER_00So they put it up on a pedestal in that sense that if you qualify for this, you were almost an Olympian. And they said it out loud. When I came into, I was like, this puzzles me, you know, because the step from becoming a good youth swimmer into a high competitive senior is just it's not there. But yeah, in their mind it was, and they lived it out with so t-shirts was a massive thing. They printed out t-shirts with logos on the back saying qualifying for Danish youth nationals. And I was like, okay, wow, you're 13 years old. Like, come on, you know, this is just not good. And furthermore, it kind of divided the club as well because there was the good swimmers and the bad swimmers. So we said, no more t-shirts. There is one t-shirt, and that's the club jersey. That's it. And we wear it, we're proud, and that's how it is. You know, it there's nothing like that. And then we went into saying, okay, we need to build something new that is us. In the logo, we have a dolphin, so we became the dolphins. So that was a club like effort. We talked about what dolphins were in terms of values, but also in terms of how do we live being a dolphin. You know, instead of instead of talking about who was good, we talked about how we were collectively something more than just being good. Then we had some massive talks with the coaches on how we applied this into daily-day, you know, exercise and stuff like that. So we actually made day-to-day exercises. We call it daily drills, where we incorporate those things. And one of our values is courage. Use that. Dolphins, they can jump high, so they also, you know, they play around. So playfulness, we use um so we we kind of like try to go into the values of being a dolphin and then we translated that into stuff that we did. Then we had a massive uh what's it called?
SPEAKER_01Like um, I would I don't know what you call it in English, but just use the Danish word, we're gonna try we'll translate our way through it. Yeah, it's like an effort, like a massive but it's not like an effort, but more like you know, it's like an organized movement.
SPEAKER_00We have a a really like you know, comprehensive effort around changing the narrative of when you were good as a swimmer. When I came into the program, being glorifying the the youth, they had a telling that you were basically as good as you got when you were 16 years old. Then you could actually stop swimming.
SPEAKER_01So the thing is You probably had a lot of people that were stopping swimming. They were starting gymnasium, and which in Denmark you're kind of that's in your 10th grade year, or maybe you've taken a year off. You're 15 or 16 years old, you go to a brand new school. It's a massive transition. Just explain this for the American audience. And it's a transition that I think a lot of athletes feel a lot of social pressure, and it makes it definitely makes it harder, especially in the short term, to be an athlete, I think. And it is a huge drop-off point for athletes.
SPEAKER_00I think in terms of transition phases, if you can go into that instead of, it will account for the same transition phase you go through high school to college in the States, but it's not the same level, you know, but it's right, right. You know, this sort of like transition gives the same perspective, you know. But yeah. Um so talking and having that narrative going on when do you become optimal as a you know athlete? When is the natural peak of you know uh physiology parts like uh when is your muscles developed fully? Okay, when you're 25 as a go as a guy, it's like here, here, here. So we had to like make like you know, tell the storyline for um for uh for the parents actually, and not so much for the swimmers. So yeah, and then we had talks about I would say I would call it five years plans with the swimmers in the beginning, which I then stopped and then it got into three years plans that was more than sufficient for them to paint a picture of you know trying to become an athlete instead of. So yeah, right. But yeah, that those were the initiatives. We have the culture part and then the I think the culture part was the strongest, and then the step-by-step programming so they could like keep like, you know, seeing themselves grow into something bigger. I think that that's really important as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that last part. I mean, there's so many. So you and I sat in on uh a talk with another person who I desperately want to have on this podcast. I need to I need to find a better way to contact him because I I think I used his phone number off the uh Southern Danish University website. I haven't heard back from him, but uh Christoffer Henriksen, who gave this presentation that was really along the lines of what you're a lot of what you're talking about, which is, you know, the idea that of sort of long-term development, of late specialization. I know that's not really necessarily a part of what you were discussing, but but the idea that like we will have a as a generally accepted knowledge that, yeah, like your peak as an athlete, just say if that's what you want to do, which is not gonna be everybody that's gonna write, that's gonna want to uh get to that point. But if you truly sort of want to stick with this um and see just how good you are, it is probably you know 23, 24, 25 years old when you're going to realize that. And I was frustrated in there, and I know you probably are as well, because we talked about this a little bit afterwards. Because so you can do an effort like you've done. You can change all these things culturally within your club. You can have this, you can try to create something internally, but the external pressures remain, right? That is correct. The culture outside doesn't change to it. So uh just speak, I guess, a little bit briefly about like what resistance remains to the stuff that you're trying to change internally from the outside.
SPEAKER_00So it's pretty easy to come by what we would I would say, like um Instagram posts, TikTok uh things, Facebook, like uh random stuff that pops up. So people they access knowledge pretty fast and not necessarily deep knowledge, but just a lot of knowledge. And they also are pretty aware of what the clubs around us are doing. So the external pressures is definitely there. And the thing is that you can try to build something, but eventually it comes down to why aren't we doing the same as the other person are doing? And that's also I think that's what I didn't say before is that we didn't do something new, we just took what was in the science and then we applied that. So Christopher Hennixen, I got all his books. What basically what he wrote is what we did, you know, building uh uh environment that you know makes people excel. And also looked into late and early specialization. So we did what was you know in the science. So I think that helps us a little bit with the external pressure because uh pressure, because we can actually say, okay, we do this, but we actually do it because there's somebody who says this is uh I wouldn't say that it's best practice but it's this is the way to go and it's best practice in those places where people excel the best and not necessarily true but you know what I mean you know so but the external pressure is huge sometimes we have parents demanding a parent's meeting and then we have to explain ourselves why and sometimes I see myself as I haven't been good enough in telling the narrative that we want to sell to the to the parents and and the swimmers. But we also I think I talked a little bit about this with you but I see that our athletes sometimes get approached in school by other athletes and then they're like ridiculed for what we do. Yeah. And I find that when when when stuff like that happens I first my initial thought is that what the hell are they doing? But then you're pissed that maybe I'm onto something here. If I really piss people up that much they must be threatened by it a lot actually because it doesn't come from the swimmers it comes from the coaches. I noticed so you know but yeah I think a lot of people have a lot of opinions on what what we do and it's not that big actually we just follow what the science say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I was gonna say like you sort of answered it but you was going to ask what the reaction of some of the other coaches are and it took me so long to realize this. And I try to like I try to notice people now who I think are thinking differently and kind of feeling that maybe social shunning from their peers or ridicule from their peers. And I just try to like teach them what what it took me a long time to learn which is that reaction is much more about them than you. You know you're you're out there you're doing something you are trying to make things better and you think that you're doing the right thing maybe it's gonna fail right maybe it's and probably in the effort that you put forward there were multiple failure points where you went like oh gosh well that didn't work right no you're just telling the story of stuff that you eventually got through.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But at the end of the day are you going to just be somebody I think you have to make a decision as like a leader of a team are you going to just be somebody who goes I'm gonna do what everybody else is doing and it's safe and nobody's gonna make fun of me and you know I can like I can get that kind of like social calm from everybody else. I wouldn't even say it's like acceptance but just like unruffle any feathers around me or am I going to go for it and un and not give a crap. And I well the reason why I think this is really, really important and one of the things I admire about you as a coach is how many of us like want our athletes to demonstrate that same bravery, right? We want them to be willing to try something, to put themselves out there, be willing to fail. And yet we as their leaders are playing it incredibly safe and going yeah but you, you go out there and and do something.
SPEAKER_00And and touching on that point, I really think that I so when I came into the head coach position, I said to myself because I coached other people and I think some of them were stuck and that's not bad necessarily I'm I'm not gonna try and like point out like you know hamming like things that work out for you and then keep doing that hey good for you. But I just made the realization that I needed not to get stuck. And I put the the the coaching for my athletes I also needed to be maybe like one step ahead or maybe even two steps ahead of what I wanted the athlete to be able to like you know I wouldn't say like think of but more like like fantasize as a dream of maybe even you know yeah yeah and so I I said to myself okay how do I do this? So I set up uh maybe that's stupid but it works for me. I need to implement two new things each year. It could be small things or big things but two new two new new new things and the fun part is that the first year it was hard for me to like go like two new things. Okay and then you know I was sitting down making a list I was empty I was just I couldn't feel it really right like what is the new thing and then I talked with one of my co-workers like co-coworkers but like another coach from Denmark and then we start talking and then out like f flew like one thing and I was like okay I got one thing now. And now I have like maybe 20 things that I want to implement so now I have to choose. I think going down that path starts like make making your brain like you know it's sort of like it it looks for new things that could be be applicable in within your system but also within your club growing it and I think that's it it made a huge impact at least for me as a coach but also for GTI which I'm I'm a head coach of also and sometimes we go down paths which is like you know stupid but it impels new things to happen because what didn't work we can cross off you know saying okay hey that didn't work and the athletes they're on board with this they know this they also when we get new athletes in to the team we tell them this you need to be aware of that we implement stuff. Sometimes it works really good then we keep it and then we build on that for the next things and sometimes we will say okay well what we thought was good is not good so we're gonna scratch it again. And that didn't mean that we wasted time we just got really you know we get more wise we got you know better skills we got better competencies in on this field but we want to pivot towards something else you know and I think that um I think that's the strongest for me as a person that I did for myself was to make those goals to implement two new things each year.
SPEAKER_01You know yeah well I think it's you mean like I'm listening to it as you describe it and I coach coaches right one of the questions that I often ask them is I go, like what are your goals for yourself? And a lot of times when I ask that question, there's silence. They haven't really thought about they've thought about hey I, you know, have a vague idea of what I want my team to do or some of the swimmers on my team to do. Right. But part of being a leader is that you manage yourself. It's like it's like I get people looking at what I'm doing working for myself and they go to me and they say they go, ah you know what Chris I would I would love to do what you do. I would love to be out on my own. Thing is I would need somebody to organize me. And I go, that's most of the job most of my job is I have to wake up every day and go, Chris, here's what you're gonna try to accomplish today. Yeah. And and by the way also here's when you're gonna stop trying to accomplish things exactly today which is which is probably a little bit of a harder piece. I want to talk to you about some of the leadership projects because again I got this other snapshot of you but like I feel like you were everywhere at this at this clinic not only first off is it can you confirm that it's a fair characterization that at least all the talks that took place in English, I would say 90% of the questions afterwards were you, my friend Glenn and me in these things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so you were like very, very present in in everything that was going on and then there's some of these like I would say side projects that were presented on you were a part of a working group of is that a fair way to that's sort of by translation of this group of six coaches project that I sat in this is one of the talks in Danish. You want to talk a little bit about that effort, why you got involved in it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think that I'll talk about the broad perspective first of like how I reasoned and then then we can go into the group afterwards. So the thing is that it's we had the VP, the group I'm in we had a VP from uh Vistas the Vestas they're a manufacturer of the wind uh wind turbines and they have huge wind parks that they open up also in the US so they're like I would say market lead in uh wind turbines and also windmills.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I saw I was on the west coast of Denmark on my summer trips I was in Espier and they just have like a port that's just like 90% wind turbines. Like it's like insane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah but it's a it's a global you know uh big corporate we had the the VP of that who is in charge of the talent development and he put it into perspective for us for us and I think it kind of sat with me and also I couldn't put it into words before I heard him but about if you're if you have something to offer meaning that you think that you're good at something and I do think I'm good at coaching. I also think I'm good at you know leading in in somewhat way I can always learn but I'm not bad at it at least he said that if you like that and you want to become better you need to scale yourself. And for me this is sat right with me you know and this is what I've been trying to achieve for the past six years is to scale what I think and try to like I wouldn't say impose but more like you know guide the way that we do stuff because I think I have something to contribute with you know and that's also why when you see me at lectures I am present and it's not that I wanna I don't sit down and then write a question down and go like okay now I you know it's more shut off the box I used to question right you know it's more that I am I'm actually I get really passionate about stuff you know uh because I I I really want to drive an impact. So yeah I'm pretty much all over uh that is true. Uh coming into that uh group that you were uh talking about it's called the next gen uh coaching group in Denmark it it's a fancy you know it's not like that it's just we were um we could apply for a program in Denmark it was made by the federation that stipulated that if you want to uh be even better as a coach but also wanna develop other coaches and also the Danish swimming community, we want you to apply for it. And I think they got like 30 uh people who applied for it and we were eight that were selected. That group had really grown me as a person but also I think all the coaches in the group and it grew us as a network so we're six that's you know still meeting each other and trying to build on stuff and trying to influence the Danish swimming community but also the coaches on what we think is a good way to go for swimming in Denmark. Yeah. So we try to bring out people from other fields that I could be shipping, it could be wind turbines as I said before, it could be talent development in other sports it so we try to like you bring people in to give us more ideas, competencies, this like just to disturb us in a in a good way yeah yeah and I think it's it it's really lifting as me as a person but also I think that it's starting to grow something in Denmark which is really unique. People are starting to actually speak together a lot more than they've been doing in ages.
SPEAKER_01Well it's interesting that it really as I look at it it capitalizes it capitalizes on a strength that I see from both the inside having been on the inside on the outside looking at Danish swimming and also addresses I think a huge weakness and I'll explain what I mean. I think I'm curious it capitalizes on a strength in terms of you actually swimming overall in the world is an incredibly small community. When you just think about coaches worldwide the thing and this really struck me when I brought my friend Glenn like you know I brought this guy random guy from America to a coaching clinic in Denmark it was very easy for him to connect with other coaches there and find some person in common that they knew and like build something from there. And so you know Danish swimming community of like full-time swim coaches we're talking about 150 maybe I think the Thomas Stoop told me 160 coaches it's actually a strength that it's such a small community basically you can know everybody else. Yeah um and you should be able to draw upon that small tight knit community but it doesn't always work that way right sometimes despite the fact that it's small and despite the fact that that you in some shape or form know everybody there's not necessarily like an organized movement around doing something. Right. So I I love I love that that's capitalizing on that strength. Let's take this familiarity we have and not just have it be like gosh I'm at nationals there's Nicholas again hey how's it going? You know let's have a 15 minute conversation about what's going on at at GTI, whatever, right? And the thing that the weakness that I think it really addresses is because swimming is so small and so insular, we can start to just like I'm gonna use a uh a a bad word, but it can start to become a bit of a circle jerk, right? Where we're all just sharing knowledge within swimming. Yeah. And we have come up with frankly idiotic ideas because we've just not been exposed to ideas outside of our tiny little community.
SPEAKER_00I think you could go as far as saying we could do flatter theory and then actually say yes everybody. Yeah we could come up with some flat earth exactly and if you were somebody that came from outside and looking in they would be like what the hell are they doing? Right. So yeah I I do see that point and that's I think I didn't see it that much but you actually addressed it at the clinic as well. And Kim also addressed it at the clinic and I was like yeah I can kind of see where you're going from but I I think my so I have a few friends in swimming. It's not that I don't like swimming coaches it's just that I have a a huge network from outside swimming which I draw upon instead of I would say uh I think a lot of them a lot of what they do give me like things that I wanna address and try to like not uh replicate but more like what can we do that they're doing and I have friends that uh have like you know corporate positions pretty high up so yeah so but I I totally understand you know that we could be all flat flat earthers and then go like we know what what we're doing you know you've gave me a perfect segue let's get into another probably the most fired up that I got in the whole conference was under this effort Hilz um or sorry was that even the name of it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah what was the name okay it was Husk thank you yeah was just the first letter yeah which is Danish for remember and it was a it was a whole thing around athlete well-being and here's what I'm hoping Nicholas you know because you appeared on a podcast so now I'm nominating you as somebody who was more involved than an average coach probably and the people that were that were involved in this help me help me be less critical and less judgmental of this effort. And first off just describe to people what it is because again we don't want people to feel left out.
SPEAKER_00So it's uh what do you call play with letters so H I S K is the letter combination but it actually goes as far as just saying hello to people making them feeling welcome and then being able to say that's the next letter has nothing to do with English but it you need to say whoops you know stuff happens it's okay to fail and then smile and then always cheer when you know things are happening. Cheer for each other or show excitement. So I think that I it's really important to understand that I think this like laydown of how you build people I think that will be the outline for all coaches you know be happy smile recognize people when what they're doing but always be patient and you know we are meant to fail. Clap as it goes and that's it basically that's the gist of it and I think it becomes almost like you know I don't know the English word for it so I'm gonna say it in Danish letterly ridiculous. Yeah ridiculous thank you it almost becomes ridiculous because it's so like easy but I will still say that when I look upon coaches today we still see coaches who struggle in those simple things so I think it's smart for the there's it's the governing body that made this like sort of like it let's try to see if we can start there. So yeah it's almost like three skills for a coach like it's almost like being able to walk but a lot of people say a lot of coaches can't even walk but that's that's a bit too dark man that's a bit too dark. A lot of coaches tend to say I think they they tend to go like yeah but I also need to do this because I want them to you know excel in this so they skip past the basics and go straight to yeah and I think I saw saw uh Instagram real I also I'm instagram haha um with uh Kobe and there was this guy who well he was like doing I think he was doing a master thesis or something about a basketball and he was looking at Kobe and he would always finish the practice going with the basic basic basic level of skills building and then he asked Kobe I've been looking at you for three weeks now I why are you doing this? And he goes like because it matters that basic matters and then he then translated into he doesn't you know get bored with basics that's why he's one of the best so I think as a coach so let's be less critical to what's the those likings is that it never becomes old for us coaches to really be aware of that we we are in charge of cultivating people on a personal level. They have dreams that they spread under our feet and we often trot upon them like completely and be like you know we know what is correct but they actually just want to be seen and heard as a human being and I think that's really important to recognize and also like um you know using those skills. So I think it's actually a really good thing because I think there's a lot of coaches that's that just not doing it basically. And even on a high level you know I see it I see it.
SPEAKER_01I mean it was interesting so I went straight to Switzerland afterwards and I was working with this swim club Uster and uh which is traditionally actually there's a Danish man who coached there for a little while. Uh so it's a probably the most familiar Swiss uh swimming club to a lot of also the best swimming cut in Switzerland yes the best swimming club in Switzerland. Um I met their age group coach so like this is uh when I say age group coach you're talking about the person that introduces kids in their club these nine ten year old athletes to competitive swimming and I just got a snapshot yeah go ahead I got a snapshot of her and I was like oh my gosh this this woman is amazing and what's amazing about her was not that like I went and saw her and go oh she has this amazing technical skill at like teaching strokes and fundamentals. She was good at that don't get me wrong she she had skills in that but it's her personality this was a person who you could see that the kids were excited to see her like they were happy to see her on a daily basis and I talk about a lot on this podcast I think that's one of the most underrated things is that when you look at this sport and kids progressing through it and it's a ton of commitment that's expected from them in a long in the long term, it makes a gigantic difference in their experience of the sport the character the personality that is shown by the person on the other end.
SPEAKER_00But come on we all know this in school the best classes that we have the best subjects that we teach in is because the teacher is excellent. It's not because that the teacher is you know has abundant knowledge it's because they can convey that that knowledge they know into something that's either playfulness, that is interesting, that they give passion for is not because they know more than the next uh teacher but they're really just at conveying what they know and also making people seen heard understood and so forth. So we all know this in school because we had all you know been to school.
SPEAKER_01So we all know this. Yeah I was in tears a couple days ago because I started thinking again and I was looking for information in online my high school math teacher who I mean I had some teachers that I got along really well with but this guy was heads and shoulders the best teacher I ever had. And actually when I think back to him personality wise he was a veteran he was a Vietnam veteran. He was kind of a scary guy in some ways right but you knew that he cared about you. Like so I'm gonna be in tears just talking about him because he really really cared about you and I was like a shitty little kid who wouldn't do his homework. And he just did not he did not let me fail. Like I don't know I don't know how to even describe it but he took me from a kid that was just like oh whatever I you know it's math it's stupid I don't give a shit until all of a sudden like a month or two into it every day I was like oh God I got to show Mr. Tiberio that I'm learning. You know like I was like dying to to show this guy and you know he was the type of teacher that I ran into him must have been five years. I had him as in one class for one year. And I ran into him five years later and he was playing basketball at the gym and he was like Chris how are you? How was you know how was college? Like he had all these questions like it was like I had just seen him the day before right and I I think that's kind of getting to the core of like an initiative like this I can see it. They're they're trying to look out for the well being of athletes and I think the most important factor is the way that the coach is towards the athletes in the program. Now here's my here's my and I challenge this the one question I asked in Danish and the whole thing. I get frustrated is I feel like there's been a lot of resources put into this. But when I look at my peers in the coaching world, and I uh did this two podcasts ago, my guest Matt Sprang asked this, right? If coaches are the heart of the sport, and I truly believe that, who's the cardiologist? Who is looking out for coaches? Who is looking out for coaches' well-being? And that to me always seems to be the missing piece.
SPEAKER_00But actually, what they tried to do, Chris, and because I actually think they realize this as well on the governing body. Like, you know, there's like two governing bodies in Denmark. That but like there's like once you do like I would say more kids, kids stuff, and then there's the governing body who I'm talking about diff and yeah, yeah. So but but they actually thought this into it. So if you go into the website, it's in Danish, so I would if you have Google Translate, go for it. Yeah, it'd be fine. But it's in the right corner, there's actually uh where you can choose if you're a coach, if you're a parent, or if you're a board member. Because they realize that they need to create the right circumstances as leaders for coaches. So I think your like, you know, um metaphor for a cardiologist is like they actually try to incorporate this. Is it good? I don't know. But it's a start that they actually acknowledge that we need to have better management and leaders for coaches. So I think structural, they try to say that you can actually apply stuff and take some talks within the board, trying to make better grounds for us as coaches. You know, yeah, if that makes any sense. Now we just need to get the board members. I'm just saying that they tried to incorporate it in somewhat way. Yeah. Now we just need to get the board members to attend. Yeah, and that's see, we I talked with them about this. But the thing is that yeah. I br I brought it up to my board and we have a discussion, a small discussion. It takes five to ten minutes for each board meeting, which is around um yeah, five percent of the time uh we use on touching upon this. But it's uh I think it's yeah, it it's it's gonna be a process, let us just say like this, but I think that all uh head coaches or club directors should put it into uh a like, you know, a loop feedback that goes in.
SPEAKER_01No, and you know, now that you say it like that, Nicholas too, I can see how if this sort of higher, this is something that we talked about with regards to the specialization long-term development piece of it as well. If we as coaches can cite, okay, here's this higher authority that has actually produced information about how to be a good board member, how to be a good parent on the team. It's not it takes it away from us, you know, like lecturing our board or lecturing the parents on our team, being like, here's what I think you should do. No, no, here's what this sort of higher authority is recommending is best practice for you with regards to me and your kids.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's coming back to some the thing that was discussed about upon before that you said I'm everywhere. If you as a coach or a head coach or club director or college director n I think we need to realize that we can not push the government bodies, but we can actually push agendas and keep like, you know, I'm only in the it's not that I go everywhere, but the things that I think will drive an impact towards better coach lives, better holistic views, better work. Um I think my co-prof I don't like the terminology, but you know, the the what do they call it? They call it work life balance, and I hate that term because everything that kind of like you know puts that agenda on, I'm pushing as well, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we all did that, I think we'll be a we'd we would be a way better place as coaches and also as a swimming community, actually. You know? Yeah. Because it's often a governing body level that things need to happen like this, people go like, well, I can do it. It's way past my uh way about my pay pay grade, way past what I can in my fear of uh sphere, it's called in English, of interest, but it's really not, you know, it's really not.
SPEAKER_01I mean, especially like look, you you talk about um Danish swimming. I mean, you're at these gatherings, Thomas Stubb, who we referenced earlier. Yeah, you could just go up and tell him, tell them what you think. And by the way, I I this has taken me kind of a long time to realize because I've been somebody, right, who's been criticizing federations in the United States. I don't think I did very much in in Denmark, to be honest, when I was there. But uh, you know, and I would do all of it again, but it's also uh what I hear in it is like to realize we are the Federation. Yes, that is correct.
SPEAKER_00Yes. But that it's not I really feel this, like, you know, yeah, because they're just human beings. If you find out what agenda they're pushing or what they're solving for, if you can move the rocks uh uh you know away from from that and go like why aren't we going towards this you know point or why aren't we doing that direction? And they will go like, well, it's this, this, and that. If I can remove those stones, there's no more like okay, let's do it then. You know, so I think that I think we need to know as a swimming community that we can bring stuff together, and I'm talking not on a Danish level, but also international level. I think the the past three years I really grew my, I would say, my I'm very doing Danish, sorry, Chris. Uh, begun to hand sturst in social sphere, and also coaches. Yeah. You translate that for me.
SPEAKER_01That was a long sentence for me to translate. You're this we're in the silly part. It's okay. This is in the last 10 minutes of the podcast, yeah. You know, where the listenership drops off. But you you have attempted, I mean, I think you sort of already said it, you've attempted to build your sphere out beyond Danish swimming, beyond swimming, but also to coaches around the world.
SPEAKER_00And it's weird for me to just write up people, what which I do, but people always write back, which is a stunned me in the beginning. I was like, what the fuck? They're writing me back, you know, and uh I think it's really nice, and you have some really good talks, and then eventually it grows into relationships. And I think the more that we go together and the more that we drive stuff, we can also push for new agendas or influence what we wanna uh you know have happen uh we want to happen or want to have happen, or what what would you say?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I'm feeling the same thing. I mean, I've talked on this podcast a bit about I've had Greg Meehan, the US national team director, on a couple times. And um, I think it took my mind a little while to catch up to like Chris, like instead of just like, you know, throwing rocks from a distance, get into the fucking conversation with this guy and tell him what you think. Because as I come back to something you said, you know you have something to contribute. And so, like, it's not just about, you know, critiquing from the sidelines, but actually try to make it so that you are also accountable for what is happening. And so it's not just you asking somebody else to put themselves out there or have them be responsible for all the decisions, but that you are in the fight for whatever it is you want to change and you want them to be with you. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And I think you have an obligation, you know, if you're a swim nerd like you and me, I think you have an obligation actually to contribute. I think you it's way too easy to just sit back and just critique, you know, contribute and find out what you want to contribute and then you know, go for it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, amazing. Okay, I think that's that's a good that's a good conclusion point for this, Nicholas. It's been amazing. Even better than I thought it was gonna be. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Um do you have anything like I know you said you had an Instagram sort of joking, but like, do you have social media stuff you want to point people towards?
SPEAKER_00Well, I have an Instagram, it's just my name, Nicholas Briggs, but I don't use it that often. And you most I mostly look into people instead of. In general, I'm you know, text me. I'm always there. And we can find your phone number on the GTI website. Actually, it's there. I'd always pick up when people call me, but you know, write me an email, it's N-I-K-L-L-S and then B-R-I-X. My name is down at the bottom. You can see here at gtisfin.k. So pretty easy forward, nothing major. But you know, I would always be happy to help out. You know, I had this and I would maybe close on this. My friend who worked at McKinsey, which is a big consulting firm. Uh consulting firm, probably the best in the world, if you could say it like that.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, I don't know. But my Boston consulting group friends might be offended by that one. Yeah. Okay, but go on.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, go on. They are indoctrinated with if there's somebody who reaches out and asks for a coffee, you always say yes. And the thought behind it is that it may be right now a student of economics, but maybe in five years he's the head of something. So taking those coffee meetings actually translates into having, you know, uh a core set of people that always know that you want to help them out if there's anything. And it eventually grows into partnerships and also into really good relations. And probably you can always learn from people. So yeah, I would always say yes to people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The best part of doing this podcast um and moving to an inner interview format is on one level, I just interview one person like this per week year round. It's an incredible learning experience for me. I mean, it's like I it's it's it beats the shit out of uh any clinic attendance, and I don't pay for it. I mean, I pay a little bit for my software and this, that, and the other thing. If people want to get in contact with me, CR DeSantis, my CR and my last name at gmail.com. You can go to my website, chrisdcoach.com, and fill out a contact form if you want to be a little bit more circumspect about it. Instagram, Chris D underscore coach. And Nicholas, you are gonna have to like cross-post clips of us chatting on this podcast to your social media accounts, but we'll we'll deal with that later. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you, Nicholas, for being a guest, and I'll be back with you guys again in a week.