Crossover Pod: IDGI and the Swim Brief

Big shout out to the IDGI Podcast with Nate McKay and Kyle Johnson for helping me out with this week’s pod. Listen to hear me get interviewed by the guys, plus some thoughts on the top about the Loser Olympics.

riverside_christopher_swim_brief

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Hello and welcome to the Swim Brief. I'm Chris DeSantis, and this week we've got something a little bit different for you guys. I'm going to give you a peek behind the scenes and talk about why this week's episode is a little bit different. Then I just want to comment on some breaking stuff. I'm actually recording this on Memorial Day. I'm sneaking away. My, you know, my kids have been home the whole day. We've been out and about doing chores and this kind of stuff. So I'm I'm just sneaking in a little bit of talk. I want to talk about the Loser Olympics, aka the Enhanced Games. I'm just going to call it the Loser Olympics from this point forward. So hopefully you guys can follow along. This week's podcast is actually going to be a crossover episode. So it's going to be an episode of the I Don't Get It podcast. And that's uh just a few weeks ago, I had Kyle Johnson on here, longtime supporter of this podcast. And unbeknownst to me, he had started one of his own. And uh so I suggested we do a home and home. And uh so I recorded one with him. I went over to them, and it's actually Kyle Johnson and Nate McKay. I met Nate for the first time. Guys, he's a real one. He's one of us. So I had a really, really good time recording it. And my appearance on the I Don't Get It podcast is actually going to be this week's swim brief. I had a guest that I was meant to record with. At the end of last week, my guest got sick. The realities of producing this podcast and the goal that I set for myself 52 weeks a year. It is very challenging, especially when I am traveling around as much as I have been the last few weeks, working away from home, all that piece of it. It can be, I I had I had recorded podcasts ahead, but I hadn't recorded that far ahead to account for that. So I'm really grateful for Nate and Kyle for being willing to do that. I hope you guys enjoy the episode that I did with them. And honestly, I hope you guys listen. Uh some of you make your way over there and listen to them as well. Kyle is somebody that, you know, I have known for a long time. It's been a it's been a minute since we did some stuff together, but he is an extremely knowledgeable coach. And like a lot of people from a different era of the swim brief, he's somebody who definitely thinks very differently. And I think you will get a lot from listening to him. Uh Nate asked me some amazing questions on this. So anyway, look forward to all that. Okay, on to the Loser Olympics. So I'm recording this the day after. They the the much hyped event has finally happened. And uh, you know, I just want to say to everybody involved that I told you so. I told you so. I told you this was gonna be a big fat-nothing burger. I have been saying that for months, and lo and behold, the event happened, and it is a big fat-nothing burger. Now, I wish that that it failing was enough of sort of a consequence for what these losers have done to our sport. Unfortunately, it's not. So I am planning on recording a bonus episode. You can look for that probably sometime within the next week. Let's see how well my schedule clears here to put put that up. But I have a lot of stuff that I want to discuss now, now that we're now that we're past it, now that we're hopefully all in agreement of what a gigantic waste of time and money this was. And and worse. Honestly, it's worse than nothing. It's worse than a failure. And uh, and I think it's really important that we get together uh and and talk about how we're going to deal with the aftermath of this event, because this kind of thing is very dangerous, and we cannot just let it pass. Uh, so anyway, I want to talk about that. I want to give you guys the heads up. If you're somebody who's in the audience who also has thought a lot about the enhanced games, and for some reason you want to join me on that, you've got like 24 hours basically to reach out to me. DM me Christy Christ D underscore coach on Instagram, crdesantis at gmail.com and be like, I'm your man. Let me come on and tee off on the enhanced games with you. I'm sorry, the loser Olympics, see? I couldn't even hold it for my own thing. Anyway, that's all I'm putting at the top of this. Up next, my podcast with the I don't get it crowd. And I hope you guys enjoy. See you soon.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

All right, all right, all right. Welcome back, everyone, to a very special episode of the I Don't Get It Podcast with myself, Nate McKay, and as always, my co-host, Kyle Johnson. Kyle, it is great to see you. How are you, my friend?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Great to see you, and and I'm uh I'm kind of nervous here because this is our our inaugural, our first venture into a video podcast. So um I'm just checking the mirror here. I hope I'm looking good. You're looking good. Got your trimmed beard there, and uh our guest is looking dapper as usual. So this is gonna be fun. I'm uh excited to get into uh into this podcast with uh arguably the pioneer of swim podcasts. So I'll let you uh bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Well, I think our listeners may be terrified to be seeing us for the first time, but they will not be terrified to see our guest. Our guest today is a swim coach, consultant, and educator focused on the intersection of performance, psychology, and coaching culture. Through his popular podcast, the Swim Brief Podcast, coach development work and athlete consulting, he explores how psychological skills, leadership, and team environments shape both performance and well-being in our sport. His work centers on helping coaches build healthier, more sustainable, and higher performing programs. Welcome to the I Don't Get It podcast, Chris DeSantis.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Hey guys, thanks for having me. And by the way, do you say that with every guest? Do you say very special, or is that did you really mean that?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

No, I'm the very special one. Oh no, usually.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

You may have to be. I'm just trying to see if you were flattering me. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Yeah, we're flattering definitely.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Okay. I'm ready. I love flattery, so keep it up the whole way through.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Chris, it's so it's so good to see you, man. It's it's great to have you here. This feels like the the team up that the public has been clamoring for for some amount of time.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited. I I love being a guest on a podcast, you know, having a podcast of your own, it's it's uh it's a rare treat, right, to to go the other way, just kind of flex those muscles in another direction. So I really appreciate you guys inviting me. I'm I'm pumped.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Well, as I mentioned earlier, uh, you know, you are in my mind the pioneer of the swim podcast. Uh I there's uh as we mentioned in our in your podcast when I was on, we've talked about our history and how I came on about eight years ago and and uh and you're still doing it. And I think um for me, it you've been before uh AI, you've been my resource for all things swimming. So I I'd go in and I go, I wonder what Chris is thinking about on uh NCAA or NIL or you know WADA or USA Swimming. The service I think you've provided for me for sure has been just a resource of some fairly unbiased perspectives, but I know that you um you you take strong stands on things, and that's what I appreciate about you, but you do present both sides, and so that's what's been really fun for me to follow you over the years, and and as we discovered a couple weeks ago, we're in the same space now. So yeah, happy to be here with hanging out with you guys.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

Thanks, and I think we'll talk. I I see in the outline that you guys sent over, we're gonna talk a little bit more later about some of what I think I'm trying to accomplish with the podcast. But just from you saying it back to me, it it feels really good to hear from a listener, you know, like, oh gosh, I'm actually doing what I'm trying to do with it, right? Um, so I appreciate the compliment.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Well, let's go all the way back to your history as an athlete. I know, of course, you're an athlete now, still still a master swimmer, but take us back to when you started as an age group swimmer and how you progressed to a coach and to what you do now.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Yeah, thanks. I, you know, I do think that my athlete origin story, as we might put it, has a lot to do with where I am now uh in the sport. I started swimming when I was nine years old. My best friend, who was like the kid who was good at every sport, came up to me on the playground and he was like, let's go, let's join a swim team. And I was like, Yeah, whatever, like I'll do whatever you're doing because you're my best friend and like I want to you know be on the team with you. My mom tried to sign me up. My my town had had a recreational team that ran year-round, it's actually pretty unique, uh, one time a week. And she called them up and she said, like, hey, my son's nine, I want to bring him in for a tryout. And they I I I can remember sitting there, you know, that you have these core memories that stick with you on the phone, listening to her on the on the phone grow like even you know, like ever more disappointed in what was on the other end. And essentially what they said to her, they they screened me. They were like, Hey, can he do butterfly? And she was she she turned to me, she's like, Can you do butterfly? I said, No, I have no idea how to do butterfly. And they said, Don't bother bringing him in because like he won't he won't make the tryout. And you can picture like my mom, right? You know, she's got this little boy, he's like, I want to be on a swim team, I want to do this, and she was determined to find something. So she actually ended up signing me up for a year-round USA swimming program. Uh, and I joined, and I was, I mean, talk about like fish out of water, uh, whatever the reverse of that is, like a land animal in water, I was struggling. I I really, really had a hard time when I started in the sport. Um, you know, by my own recollection, I cannot prove this because it was the early 90s, but I think I got last in you know, pretty much every race that I entered for uh for that entire first year. Um, I was not a natural, you know, sort of talent in the sport. And I got to the end of that first year, and I said to my mom, I said, Mom, this is embarrassing. Like, I I don't want to keep doing this, I don't want to continue on. I'm getting my butt kicked. And I always tear up when I tell this story because she had she had kept a little book, you know. This again, no, no electronic uh tallying of results, and she'd just been like a book where it was like, hey, 50 free, and she'd like logged my times, you know, at all the meets I'd gone to, 50 breast, all the stuff that I was racing as a kind of beginner, nine and ten-year-old. And she handed me that book and she just said, You do whatever you want, continue on in the sport. But I want you to look at this and I want you to see where you started and see where you are now. And if you're not proud of yourself, you can stop. And I opened the book, I looked at it, and yeah, I was slow, but I'd made a lot of progress. I was just I was just given a speaking engagement up over in Switzerland. I was so bad, guys. I won most improved on my teams twice. Do you know how bad you have to be to win twice? Do you know you even know anybody that's won twice? I mean, I came a long, long way in the sport. Um, and something really interesting happened to me because obviously, on the back of like all that improvement, at some point I was like pretty good in comparison to my peers. Actually, I kind of peaked in relation to my peers at age 14. It was a wild ride from like the worst to like you know good in comparison to my peers, and then kind of like leveling off from there. What was really interesting was when I got good was when I really started to struggle psychologically with the sport. Like I started to have a really hard time. I felt so much pressure almost instantaneously, like everything became very, very performance focused, and all of a sudden I was kind of grinding it out. You know, it was a very quick transition from like I get better every time I get into the water to me being like so overwrought about it. And um, I swam all the way through college, and the enduring memory that I have in college is I mean, like you you referenced this in the intro. I'm still competing now. I'm 42 years old. I won a lifetime best in the 53 in the last 12 months.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Yeah, let's go. Yeah. But when I finished college swimming, so I love swimming. Like I love, I hope everybody already, if you've been listening for like a few minutes, you get it. Like this guy freaking loves. You're into it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, I'm in it again with some geeks here.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah. But I when I was 22 years old and I was a senior in college, and I swam my last college swim meet, I was struggling so hard psychologically with being an athlete in the sport that I remember very distinctly what my thought was. I thought to myself, thank God I never have to do that again. That's like I wanted to run as far away as I possibly could from the sport in that moment. And I'll never forget that because you know, I think for me it's just emblematic of that something that you love, something that you're passionate about, something that you, you know, build an identity around can very easily turn into something that you cannot wait to get as far, you know, as far as you possibly can from. I I started turning my mind towards coaching at an absurdly young age. Um, I was 14 years old. And I switched teams. Um, I had really been never really enjoyed even even all those years and and the the inspirational stuff that my mom did with me, notwithstanding. I had never really truly enjoyed swimming up till age 14. And uh by chance I switched teams. I got just a phenomenal coach, you know, somebody who uh I was so excited to see every day. His name's uh Chris Woodard. He's actually currently the head coach of swimming and diving at Colorado State. And uh I had him only as a coach for a year because, you know, of the transient nature of uh of swim coaching. I think I think he was like, you know, making, I think he later told me like $20,000 a year and living in a you know upstairs like room in somebody's apartment. It was just completely unsustainable. But he he totally transformed swimming for me to where I was so excited to come to practice and it changed my life. Like it well beyond swimming, I started to get good grades in school. I was more confident like socially, I was starting to come out like to you know to to people and show up in like a confident way uh in in other environments, and so when I had that experience, I thought like this is what I want to do, right? This is amazing. The impact that a great coach has on somebody, what could be better than that, right? And so I started setting my mind to it, and I was like a nerd, like I was thinking not just about like me and my own swimming and you know what I could do to get better, but I wanted to know why the coaches were doing what they're doing, how they were thinking strategically about things. When I was a swimmer in high school, I was scouting you know the other teams that we were gonna do a dual meet against. I was building lineups, bringing them to my coach and being like, here's the lineup I think that you know, you can listen to my podcast. I have my high school coach on here. She will validate this story and tell you 100% that I was I was all in on that because I thought like this is what I'm gonna do. And and so, you know, it's very easy for me to direct my attention that way.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Man, that's such a great story. Thank you for sharing all this.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah. Yeah, I just uh we can get into, you know, when we when we were talking about uh the grassroots coaches, the farmers, and that just brought that back to me when you were saying that, you know, we like uh Nate Nate and I have our little cohort cohort of swim geeks we kind of meet with every two weeks, and we we all have this agenda that we're gonna talk about, you know, uh you know, um cycle counts and stroke, you know, and all these technical stuff and underwater travel and stuff. And then within about five minutes, we're talking about what you just represented, the psychology and the and the conversations and the impact of of that we're having on the athletes and and the you know the challenges that are involved with that in their psychology. And um yeah, so that's uh we can we can dive into that a little further as we get through your story, but I just uh I just wanted to jump in on that one because it it hits you right away when as soon as you come into coaching, like you said, and just you want to do great things and you want to take it all in from the people that are influential in your life at that time as you're growing up.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Yeah, and I think I think if I could uh you're offering me a nice pivot point into sort of a week, if we can make our way into the present day, right? So I start my coaching career, and like I think like anybody, I I I can I can guess. If I'm in a group of coaches, you guys can validate whether this is true being coaches sitting in the room. Like, I think coaches start from a point of really true selflessness, they want to help other people. I genuinely I wanted to help other, I wanted to help athletes, I wanted them to have that great experience that I had. Um, and so I embarked on that. I was a I was a college coach. Uh actually the last year is that I was a prep prep school boys coach for one year. But you know, to skip past that, I went on to coach uh University of Pennsylvania. I did my master's there as well. I think we'll probably talk about that in in the middle. Um Georgia Tech, uh I went to go coach in Denmark as well. But there was a turning point in coaching as and and really how I would sum it up is I think that you know you you come in with that real selfless attitude and you think, now I'm a coach, now I'm on the other side, now I can help other people. And the I would say the number one thing that I didn't realize when I started was how important what I did for myself was for everybody else. I I often say to a lot of coaches, you know, when they're talking about like where their frustration point is in their coaching, I think we're we're we're meant to almost be haunted by stuff that we did not get past as an athlete. Like we were the coaching just gives us more opportunities to learn lessons that you know it's more intense, yeah, that that we ran away from. And and for me, like yeah, I entered coaching on the heels of that experience, right? Where where things had psychologically like my mental health was not good, and I just replicated that in coaching, you know. I dri I drove myself straight into the same deep dark hole that I that I had uh as an athlete. I know you guys are raising your hands, so like, good, we're we're in an audience where we understand exactly what I'm talking about. Um and it culminated again with me taking this thing, right? That like from 14 I had been all in on this was my dream, this is what I wanted to do more than anything else, to where I had to step away from coaching day to day because it was I was doing harm. I mean, I was doing real harm to myself, and I had to confront the fact that like if the the process by which I was coaching was ultimately just doing harm to me, then I wasn't really doing what I intended for the athletes either, right? I was I was not setting the example that I wanted to set for them, I was telling them, do as I say, but not as I do, right? And I think that's a really, really hard lesson for coaches to learn. It's still one that I'm being humbled by every day because I just like everybody else, I just want it to be like, yeah, but do I have to grow too, or can't I just be the person that tells other people what to do to grow? And I can just stay comfortable where I am, you know? Yeah, but uh I love that. But I've got Gotten there. And so, you know, that sort of brings us to the present, the the present day, what I'm doing now. Um the I am again trying to build something for myself in the past in a certain way, right? I I look, I reflect back on those moments that I had as an athlete. I reflect back on the moments I've had as a coach as well, and I try to think about like what would what would have been great for me to have in those situations. Um and I got awesome feedback on the podcast just in this past week, uh, similar to the the feedback that Kyle gave earlier. I have a coach that I'm communicating with, um, and maybe we're gonna do some work together in the future. But he's he's been listening to the podcast, and he's like, you know, I just listen to it every week and realize like I'm not alone. You know, I'm not alone with the stuff that I'm thinking about, I'm not alone with the stuff that I'm struggling with. And uh I was reading his text message and just crying on my sofa downstairs because I know that you know, when I reached that low point for me coaching-wise, and it was it was on the end of my time in Denmark. Um, I've discussed that story quite a bit on my on my own podcast. We can get into details if you're if you're curious, but um, you know, I I felt very alone. I felt very alone, and I was struggling, I was doing that, you know manly, as I say, manly in quotes, silent yeah, suck it up, silent struggle. And boy, was it not working at all. Um because the the more I the more I turned inwards, the worse it got.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah, when it it it works until it doesn't, you know, that suck it up, put on yeah, and and it and unfortunately kind of ate away at a lot of you in the process.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

And you have to kind of work your way back out of that. So that I I really identify with what you were just saying. Um so thank you.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Well, and I I want to highlight the willingness to share that too, Chris, because there's a lot of people who've been exactly where you're talking about. I much, you know, Kyle and I both had our hands up. I know both you and I have experienced similar moments in our careers. And I think it takes a lot of bravery and and willingness to just be authentically vulnerable to share that on a platform like the one that you have. And I'm glad that you do because people do need to hear that, that it is something that can happen and that hopefully through the project I think you're referencing, now working on, people will have better tools to work on themselves before they're getting to that point. And and hopefully coaches just in general having having more support, having better tools, not only for their coaching career, but for themselves. Because this is a a really weird, demanding job that we all do.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Yeah. Yeah, and I think I love your point about vulnerability. One of the one of the concepts that I find myself returning to a lot in coaching is I think that there are sometimes, I don't know how to put it, but but maybe irresistible forces where you're better off just figuring out how you're gonna make it work for you than than trying to change it. And for me, like I'm a big sense, I I say this all the time, I'm a big sensitive boy. Like I I feel things really, really hard. I take things super personally when they don't go well. Um, and I am vulnerable. Like, that's who I am. And so I have been, instead of trying to fix that about myself, instead of trying to go like, how do I get tougher, you know, and how do I try try not to be so sensitive and all that things, I start to think about, okay, how can I make that work for me? How can that, how can I take that thing that's just maybe a quality of who I am and turn it into a strength, turn it into something that, you know, is gonna give me honestly, like I don't love to like spin everything into a competitive metaphor, but like give me a competitive edge, right? How can I change the game? If I don't like uh I look around at the coaching landscape and I am frustrated sometimes by people at the top, and I've I've probably provoked them sometimes because I on the basis of this, I think they are not willing to uh show that same vulnerability, but I understand that's the game. So, okay, well, I'm gonna try to change the game. Let's let's let's change it. And then um then I think that kind of stuff will be. I hope, I hope, if I bring this to this thought to a conclusion, I hope we can get to a place where that's not brave, right? That's just the that's just the default where we're able to talk about things, yeah, yeah, and and and process them together and and keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

That's what's required now. Yeah, the way I look at it. And yeah, uh with changing the game, that's your superpower now. You you have uh introspection and you have empathy, and um we can model that to our athletes and other coaches.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

I think the difficulty that we have as coaches is we're we have to be all of these strange roles, and we have to do them all really well without always having the background or the the education or the degree for each of them, right? So, like just right off the top of my head, psychology, uh, sports psychology, which are two completely different things at times, nutrition, we have to be uh phys ed specialists, we have to be great communicators, and and then there's all this admin stuff that we have to do. And I think where we can get kind of stuck is that we sit around and we watch all of those systems, and we're trying to build things that can solve some of these problems, but we're watching societal stuff play out with our athletes. We're seeing what parent expectations are looking like and changing, we're seeing athlete expectation of themselves, how they're starting to respond to shifting goals or how they compare themselves via social media. Now we have AI, whatever that means, uh also impacting how people are getting information or seeking information. So that's a lot of noise. That's a lot for us to sit there and go, what is what is happening in this world and how can we best help our athletes do it? So, two questions for you. How can we as coaches start to get better at managing that noise? And then how can we start to create better systems or give better tools to our athletes as they're going through that same landscape? And I'm thinking mostly through the the lens of positive psychology within our programs here.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah. So, you know, I think first of all, I you're asking questions that I've spent a lot of time thinking about, and the danger for me, and I think you guys will recognize this in answering anything, is like the more time and more knowledge you accumulate in an area, the less certain you become, right? So so I'm aware that I want to give an answer here that doesn't convey like even more kind of stress and panic to the audience to go like, oh shit, this guy doesn't know what to do, what are we gonna do? Right? So I'm gonna lay out like a little bit just conceptually how I look at things, and then maybe that'll start to move us closer to some solutions on the end. Uh, because I ultimately think it's more, and I try to do this all the time when I'm interviewing people, like I want to know what is the process you used to get up to making the decision, because that's what I would actually like to know about, because I don't think I'll probably end up doing the same thing that you will do in the end, but if I understand your process and I can recreate the process, then you know, then I can iterate in my own direction. So, you know, particularly on the field of sort of psychology, I think there's a couple of things that I am trying to shift in the way that people approach it around athletics. And I'll just the first one I'll just frame in terms of what I've seen basically over the last 20 years of coaching and the way psychology, mental health, etc., are discussed in the context. First off, they they're a way bigger part of the conversation than they used to be. I think every coach recognizes that. That like, Nate, if you'd given that intro that you'd given, like all the hats we have to wear, I don't know, like 30 years ago, I'm not sure psychologists would have been included, you know, like on the list. It just like it didn't occupy as much space as it does now. And overall, I actually think that's a positive. I think it's a positive that it is it is given its like it's given its due in this moment because it is and is it is as important as we're making it out to be. But I think uh the intrusion, if I could, like that's such an ominous word, intrusion, the intrusion has been uh mainly kind of uh fueled, I would say, like on the back of the traditional psychology or the sort of modern uh rehabilitative psychological model. And I think that has that has a lot of issues for us as coaches, the that being sort of the the predominant way for discussing things. And let me explain what I mean. You know, as coaches, right, maybe some of us are knowledgeable in a rehabilitative environment. Maybe we have a PT background, or you know, maybe you're just like an orthopedic surgeon and you got into coaching swimming. But for the most part, like the work we do is always very forward-looking and very we're trying to be proactive about a thing, right? So our goal is not to be the person that rehabs your shoulder. We want to teach you how to swim right so that your shoulder never gets hurt in the first place. And where I've seen the sort of poor application of that traditional rehabilitative psychological model is okay, so all of a sudden we're realizing, like, gosh, when people get like my story, right? When people get up to a high level, when they get up to a high level of engagement, all of a sudden there's there's a risk that the way that they engage in the sport could be really bad for their mental health. And the reaction then is very much like I think the eternal frustration that like a million swim coaches or coaches in general have had with like the PT person, right? Which is they go into the PT office, they go, Ah, you know, my shoulder's a little bit sore, got something going on in here. And the PT person who's just thinking narrowly, like within their own lens, they go, Well, you should just take like two weeks off. And that that's that's what we'll do to get better. And as a coach, you're going, like, yeah, okay, if the only thing we're worried about is the shoulder not hurting anymore, that's great advice, but that's terrible advice systemically, right? As we're looking at it. And I think a lot of the stuff psychologically that's come in has become reactive in that way. We've started to try to like take things out of the system, go, oh, well, we've got to figure out a way to bring the pressure down because it's the pressure that is, you know, having all these deleterious effects on the athletes. This brings me to like conceptually how I view all this stuff. I don't agree with that. Okay. I think what we should be doing, if we see, like, hey, as you say, like there's all this, there's all these external factors, there's all this noise. What can we do to prepare young people for the environment that they're operating in? And so we don't need to artificially, I have a great quote in a book I just read, and I had a podcast on it with Corey Manley from USA Swimming. We were talking about it. All you need to know about talent development, there's a great section on there, a couple sports psychologists from Denmark. I might be a little biased, right? But they're saying, like, in terms of adversity, you don't need to create artificial adversity, but you also don't need to like take adversity out of the system. The adversity that's inside systems is enough, but start to think about how you can level up support for the athletes that you're working to such that they can thrive in the environment that they're going to find themselves in anyway. So, you know, again, for me, when I even look back at myself, was the problem that there was like too much competitive pressure? No, like I genuinely wanted to be really, really fast. I had great, like big aspirations, but I didn't necessarily have the support underneath me to manage all of that pressure that and the and the expectations that I was putting on myself. So put even more, we're gonna we're gonna drill down finally to the concrete step of it. I love it. Scope. Scope down to the to to the nitty-gritty so that like your audience can actually be like, okay, Chris, but like that was so love your, you know, hey, they they listen to me every week. They listen to me every week. Exactly. Or try to, anyways. How about you give me something I might actually be able to use? Okay. So where I think what I think this actually looks like, and where I have focused a lot of my attention is in terms of the psychological side of the sport, it needs to be integrated into whatever else you're doing. You need to have a coherent philosophy, you need to understand how it is, how it can be a part of like how you describe a set, how you um give feedback to an athlete in various situations, how you have a conversation about goals. Like, to the extent that it is embedded in all that piece of it, and you have a coherent idea of like, here is what I am trying to create with athletes, here's here's how I'm measuring progress on this. Here are my goals, right? Just in the same way that you would write a training plan to and and measure, like, hey, is my training plan working? Are these athletes getting fit? Are they getting ready to compete? Integrate it on that level. You may need to take some time, just like with anything else, to explain some concepts outside of you know, that like 60 seconds to you know two minutes where you're describing something in practice, but the bulk of the work is is in is how it's embedded. How is it a part of everything else? And do you have a coherent vision for what you're trying to accomplish and a way to like measure to yourself, are we actually accomplishing that? Are we actually making progress in that regard?

SPEAKER_01 38:37

That's a that's a hard question because I'm sitting here thinking about that. How would I answer that if you asked me?

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Do I have a plan for that? Well, that's that's yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

You've just keyed on in on the most challenging part of this, which is that and and it is that psychology is subjective. You you can't, it's not like it's not like uh DO2 Max, where where we can more or less like come to uh you know, or lactate, blood lactate, you know, we poke the finger, we smush a finger down on the little like test strip, and then you know, we have a uh we can at least kind of come closer to an objective measurement of these things. And I think in swimming, we have focused on those other things really hard because we can measure them. Because, like, why are we all so obsessed with how many yards practices? Because we can measure it. Like, you know, the intervals, because we can measure it. When we get to psychology, it's like, how do we know? How do we know? What I would say though, is and I'll I'll use another story to elucidate this. And I think maybe we even talked about this when we got together. Um, I'm gonna pick on the Australians, you know, because I have I've pissed off enough American coaches, and now I want to make all the Australian coaches hate me too. And just go international. International meeting here. I love it. I love it. Bring it.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:13

2016, they they as a country came in with like really high expectations at the Olympics. They had a lot of athletes that were ranked first going into the meet, right? If the expectation then, if you're ranked first, is you win a gold medal for better or worse, right? We can discuss the merits of that. But that was that was the circumstance they found themselves in, and they fell short of that expectation. And I was reading the quotes, you know, like media quotes, because you know, Australia has a rabid media that forces these guys to ask questions about swimming stuff in a way that we don't necessarily always see in the United States. And a lot of them were sort of going, like, yeah, you know, these athletes they just weren't mentally prepared. And I I thought to myself, do they know that they're kind of telling on themselves with these answers? Yeah. That's your job. That's your job. And and so I think a lot of coaches know you have athletes that you're watching and you're going, like, gosh, this person is crushing it in training. They're so fit, they're super skilled, and the performance end is just not matching what I'm seeing in a practice environment. So you know, you know that something is not cohering together. And for me, it's a little bit of humility on your end to not just be like, not distance yourself in that way and just go like, oh, well, you know, that athlete just mentally, they they don't have it, right? That's something you say as a coach when you're trying to protect your own ego. You start to you start to say, oh, they're just not that talented. You know, they there's something about them that means that they're not gonna do well.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

They're a head case.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, they're a head case. Not that that can't be true. There could be stuff that's beyond your control, but why focus on it? Right? You you're you should try to do what you can and be, I guess I said, have some humility about it. Think about okay, what can I do to actually move this? Try some things, try to, and then ask yourself, okay, is it working? Right? Are we making any progress? I'll tell you one story about it. Okay, because you guys have enjoyed my stories thus far. I was coaching in Denmark, and I had an athlete over there. Uh, if you were to ask me, you know, to rank various athletes that I've coached in in categories, I would be able to give you like top five in all sorts of various different this one. Uh her name was Amelia, and she's probably the most athletic kid I've ever coached. Like she could do a one-legged Turkish getup with weight, with ease. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. She's hyper mobile, like just gumby, all over the place, crushing practice. We do, you know, we do sets where we're doing 200 pace, right? And she's holding like 32, 33 PB is north of 220. So like she's just doing stuff in practice that you think like, oh my gosh, this girl's gonna be a world beater. And I would go to meets and she would completely unravel. And meanwhile, here I'm sitting there, I got my big fancy positive psychology degree. I've told everybody, I'm the man, I can help any athlete, you know, to to to get out of a psychological tailspin. And we're just going to meets, and she is not, she is not pulling out of that psychological tailspin, right? And we get to all the way to Danish short course championships. Now they're much more rational in Europe. They do their short course championships in December so they can, you know, pivot to long course season in January and not have like a three-month long course season. Although maybe you guys don't agree. Anyway, let's not get into that. We have that short course championship meet. She swam really poorly again. And I'm trying to rack my why, you know, everything I'm trying, it's not working. It's not working. And so I just kind of threw a Hail Mary. And the Hail Mary looked like this. I just walked up to her. I said, Hey, I I'm trying to help you with this, but I just have the sense that it's not working. And I'm just gonna throw a theory out there and you tell me whether or not it's true. I said, I you know, I just became your coach four months ago. Is it possible you just don't really trust me at all? You don't know me, you don't trust me, and so I just started in with all this stuff, and you know, but you and she said, Yeah, I don't really trust you. And I said, Okay, well, at least we know what we gotta work on. Right? At least we gotta know what we work on because nothing else matters, right? It i i it gets to something that I spend a lot of time in in the work that I do, you know, on the relationship end of coaching, it doesn't really matter how much you know. Most coaches know so much that could help the athletes that are in front of them, way more than they'll ever communicate. But if the relationship is strong, very, very little of that information is likely to make it through to the other end.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Man, what comes to mind for me, I'm thinking about athletes who are very outcome-oriented. And and I can think of a lot of a lot of athletes I've worked with who are like most of the athletes who've ever had.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Exactly, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:59

Right? Yeah, yeah, that's a swimmer characteristics. And again, that's cultural, right? Like we're talking about all the noise. Well, what what are they hearing at home? And this is the the conversation we referenced having at this coach's think tank. You know, parents are talking about, well, are you gonna get into an Ivy? Well, is it a real Ivy? Like they're you know, well, you have a you have a 4.0, but that's before AP classes. Like, that's unfortunately the world that a lot of these kids live in, is that just constant kind of leveling up. And they, to their credit, they rise those expectations really well for the most part. I worry a lot about culturally what ends up happening or or where those athletes are mentally or physically going to be a couple years after we see them reach those goals. But but that's what they're living with is outcome, outcome, outcome. The goalpost is always moving. And then we sit them down and we go, well, let's talk about process, right? And and I have athletes uh now, and and I have as well before, like Amelia, where they're just cooking every day, but then they get to that point to realize it, and then it maybe doesn't happen. And then they're then they get discouraged. So, what do you do to help athletes, or in this case, I'm asking you as a coach, how can you help me as a coach help these kids start to realize really what that process-oriented approach looks like? Because I think athletes will often hear process, process, process, and they're going, Well, I'm here every day. I'm working on my cycle count, I'm working on my underwater count, I'm doing what my coach has asked me to do, but I think in a way it still can feel like a series of outcome goals that are disguised as process goals. It's it's not becoming a process-oriented mindset. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah. I mean, awesome question. I'll do my best to answer it in this in this context. Again, it's something that I've thought a lot about, so you know, I'll approach it with the a proper humility. Um but I I'll I'll tell you what has worked for me and what I try to teach. I know I have a course uh that I do with coaches, and it's a it's a course in applying positive psychology, right? So I try to take the stuff that I have honed and developed that has worked for me, uh, and and try to teach other people how to do it. Um and I was I was actually piloting this course, was working with uh the College of New Jersey local school. I'm I'm down here in South Jersey, and you know, I'm working my way through the program, and I there's a there's a coach um there named Webb, and Webb says to me in the middle of me teaching this course, he goes, you know, what you're doing, it's kind of like Socratic coaching. Right? And I said, like, what do you mean? He's like, well, there's like all these, you know, all these slides where you're meant to be telling us, you know, what to do, they're just filled with questions to ask athletes. That's Socratic coaching. I'd so I give Webb credit forever because he he he helped me with branding that I never could have figured out myself. Um I think at the core of it, right, like you you asked a question like, how can we get the athletes to you know focus on on process? I think the the answer is you've got to really dig in and interrogate how they came to believe that the result is the most important thing. Um because a lot oftentimes people are defaulting to believing something, they're defaulting to thinking a certain way, and they have not interrogated the the internal logic that they have below that. And so I get a lot, and and just also to add, athletes are people, sorry, swimming athletes are generally people with rich internal dialogues. So they're thinking a lot, they may not have really organized that thinking or been forced to externalize some of that thinking. So a lot of that could just be ping-ponging around in their mind. And very, very often, completely incoherent stuff makes sense to you inside your own mind. If you never externalize it, you know, like all the mean stuff that we say to ourselves sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, right? But inside your own mind, you're like, yeah, no, I God, I am ugly. Like I'm the worst, right? But then you when you say it out loud, you all of a sudden feel like ashamed. You're like, no, I'm being way too hard on myself. Like, why would I why would I do something like that? So um I've had an athlete once call me um the human can opener. And I take that with pride, right? Because I just kind of like grind with these questions around the around the the edge until I pop open and actually find out like what is underlying that. What is what is the infrastructure that they have started to build that ladders up to gosh, everything depends on how well I do in this hundred butterfly at the next meet. And then from that vantage point, like I can start to interrogate some of those sort of sub-layers, right? And in doing so, and I mean this very honestly, uh, in doing so, what I'm really trying to get them to do is to start building something else, right? So you I again I'm mostly asking questions. It's not me saying, like, well, you really should think more about process. If you just think about moments where you've been convinced in life, have you ever really been convinced by somebody just telling you what to think? Like human beings don't enjoy that. We don't like that. Um and I think what we often forget as coaches is because we're in a position of power and because we can kind of like dictate to a certain degree what is happening, we're really we lose that skill that we use in other contexts for managing upwards, right? If you've ever had a boss in your life and you've had like a completely dictatorial, irrational boss, you know, okay, do I want to change things around here? I can't just overpower my boss. I can't just be like, do it my way. You know, I have to make them think that the thing that I want to change is their idea, actually, not my idea. And I go, when they bring it up, I go, oh my God, great idea, boss. I'm like, let's do it, right? And I think you can do the same thing down to the athletes. If you start to view them as people that you're you know responsible to in a certain extent, and you start to ask them enough questions, get them to start creating. And I I have techniques for that as well. I don't know how how how deep you want to go in this question, but um, there are ways to unearth some different ways of of thinking in them and get them to start building up an infrastructure to a different belief set, right? What we will ultimately we want them to believe is that not just uh you know, not just like blindly follow, oh yeah, well, process thinking is better. Coach said that. We want them to believe that that is what they should be doing. Like that them, that that's their will is like, no, I I think that you know, focusing on the process is what would be best for me, and that's why I'm doing it, right? Not because a coach told me to.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

And as we talked earlier about this, the the perception of pressure or you know, um, you know, the the feeling of overwhelmed with success, even sometimes. Um we we they think or we think that we should avoid that or we should eliminate all these triggers. I don't even know what that, you know, that's the new word now, right? So um uh and so we're trying to insulate them from triggers, or but it's actually important to get to learn how to be responsive to that in a healthy way, and as as coaches, we can uh foster that conversation as you're suggesting, and uh instead of just trying to insulate them from that because it's bad, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:52

Right, because that's a potential bad outcome, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Right, right. And so yeah, it's important in the process, we have to we have to go through those moments. Um, and it's you know, it's it's not the Vince Lombardi way, but it's uh yeah, it's that's uh it's it's the new culture, it's the new way.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

Do you guys want to hear one example of of how you provoke that thinking? You have talking about okay. It's fresh on my mind because I've just been back, I've just been over to Switzerland, and it's so funny. This is a story I tell with another coach involved, something another coach taught me. In case you guys haven't clued in at this point, like I learn uh if you're talking to me, you better watch out because I'm trying to pick up your tricks, okay? Um I am I am trying to make myself better by listening uh to what's going on with you. And I I just had a chance to see him for the first time. So I've been telling this story about him, you know, in all these contexts, and this is the first time he was in the room. And I, you know, it's always like, oh, is this story actually legit? Does this guy remember it the same way that I did? We more or less we we coalesced to agreeing the same thing. I'm coaching in the in the US, I'm coaching at Georgia Tech, and I recruit this Swiss guy. And uh before he came to me, he actually was their long course record holder in the 100 fly. It was a different era, pre-Noah Ponty. Okay. Don't, you know, once I start throwing the times out there, you're gonna be like, that was the Swiss record. Listen, yeah, you know, that's swimming progresses and goes on. So he'd set so. Yeah. He'd set the record before he came to me, and uh he he joined in the fall of 2011, right? So 2012 is the next summer. What do you think this guy's goal is? He's the national record holder. What's his big goal? Somebody throw it. Go for gold. Yeah, he wants to go to the Olympics. He wants to be an Olympian, he wants to qualify. Now he has to swim way faster than his record, even. Like he's the fastest guy in the history of the country, but he has to be that much faster to do it. So he's got a big task ahead of him. And I told you I have all sorts of rankings. I'm not afraid to draw a line anywhere. This guy's the most conscientious athlete I've ever coached in my life. I just I actually had dinner with him as well while I was there. He was special. Um, he did, he not only did everything that I asked him to do, but he was like creative in the way that he figured out to do more than I was asking him to do. It was probably um his his coach in Switzerland said this, probably the only athlete that he had ever coached where he had to say, hey, listen, you know, like the way I described the set, that was for the other guys who are not gonna like do honestly what I told them to do. You you have to do it in a different way because he would actually do, you would set some impossible like thing for him, and he would run himself in the ground. So this guy was like so incredible. And I go through this whole season and we do, you know, ACC championships, swims quite well in there, and we're doing that long course invite, Olympic year long course invite. This is his first chance to like test himself, you know. And he's got an Olympic qualification meet in a month out from it, and he goes and races it. His his national record PB was like a 53, I think I want to say it was like a 53-8 at that time. He steps up in the trime trial, and I think he went 54-9. And I'm standing, like, I'm standing over there, and I'm like, oh shit. Like, I am so to to say what the kids say these days, I'm so cooked.

unknown 58:36

I'm cooked.

SPEAKER_03 58:37

Like this guy's gonna come back and he's gonna be so dejected. He he's gonna question everything that we did for the entire year because he did everything that I asked him to do and more, and you know, and then this is the result at the other end. And then I see him, and as he's approaching me, I go, like, gosh, he doesn't look that pissed. Like, he looks all right. And you know, so I do the classic coach move when you're like scared to say something. I go, So what do you think? What do you think, right? I put it on him, like, let's let him talk first. Yeah, and he goes, Ah, man, that was that was frustrating. You know, I think I'm so prepared to do a better swim than I ever had, I just didn't do it today. And I was like, All right, I sorry, I gotta ask, where did that come from? Because that's not what I was expecting, you know, on the other end of it. And he described to me, his coach back in Switzerland and him had always had a conversation to say, like, you know, you're training, you're preparing, and all the stuff that you're doing, you don't create a result, you create a range. You create a uh, like if everything goes the worst case it can on the day, there's a bottom of that range. And if you have the swim of your life, you know, the there's a top end of the range of what's possible on that day. And so his coach had asked him after he had set the national record the previous summer, he'd got he'd been like, How do you think you did on the day? And he was like, I swam the best I possibly could, you know, like he so and and in that context of that, you know, invitational uh time, he was like, I think I really improved, but I didn't swim well today. And I tell that story because one of the things that I found a lot of success with, I mentioned earlier, swimmers are thoughtful athletes, they are often very analytical people. We have an opportunity to teach them ways to use those like thoughtful analytical properties for their own benefit. His coach had taken a brilliant kid, right, and given him an analytical framework for thinking about his race as more than did I go uh best time or not, right? Like the way most bonehead swimmers just look at the clock, me go slow time, oh not good, right? Like right. He he had given him a framework, he had given him a way to think about it, and that actually gave him a layer to regulate his own emotions. Do you think this kid wasn't disappointed to go 54? I mean, probably wasn't the most disappointed person I ever coached, given the level of commitment that I had. But he had a way of of building that, like his thought process in afterwards that allowed him to move forward positively. And he went back, he, you know, we went to a meeting two months and he went a 53-0 and just obliterated his record. And I think about that all the time because like the other that ability to bounce back. How many times have we coached an athlete that they have that disappointing swim and then they can't get out of the tailspin, right? They can't get out of their own way. The way that they behave and think going from that point forward sort of sabotages them, and and there was none of that. You know, he he was just he was honest about how he was feeling, but he was also able to move forward in the moment and because of that analytical layer on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Yeah, and that's process. That's actually getting back to what was exactly that's that's process, and and it wasn't wasn't uh just kind of something that's just kind of um status quo, you know, of a checkbox process. It was he had to go work through one because of the great relationship he had with his coach and you to be able to have that space to be able to look at his results and process it to move forward, not just sort of giving him an excuse, but giving him inspiration to go, uh, this is part of the process. Yep, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Chris, that's an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing that. I I want to shift a little bit to the future of the sport. And I know that I know that you, yeah, small topic, small topic, of course. And I know that you are uh a mutual appreciator of a guest we've had here, and hopefully a guest that you'll have soon, Alex DeKeaton. Yeah, and and Alex has this great analogy of farmer coaches versus executive chefs. And I think in both of our podcasts, we're trying to talk to the farmers, the developers of all this talent. And I'm curious about what direction you think we're going. What direction is USA swimming going? What direction are farmers' coaches going? I'm also really interested in your perspective in particular because we've talked about the Norwegian method a lot on this podcast. We've looked at how these other countries that are smaller, that have far less athletes, have to be so much more intentional about developing athletes and with these centralized development models. And over here, we just have this glut of resources, this massive decentralized model where we're kind of throwing paint at the wall and it still works out. Um, so with that perspective, where do you see us heading in in this next three to five years and and what's our role to help farmer coaches do better?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:18

I I want to start with the first question you asked, which is all about like where do I think USA swimming is headed? Because I actually think that's the most interesting question. I don't have a completely satisfying answer. Um obviously I'm not in charge of USA swimming, but uh Kyle and I talked about this as well. I think it's actually quite unclear. And I mean that's actually a positive because for many years the direction, in my opinion, and I've been very vocal about it, has been poor. Um it has not been headed in the right direction. I don't think their priorities have been oriented in the right place. Um, and right now there's an opportunity for things to turn into turn in a different direction. And so it gives me guarded optimism, I would say, is the state that I'm in when I look at like where is you know USA swimming very specifically as a national governing body um headed in. And uh, like I referenced uh to you guys off uh recording before we started, I'm gonna have the opportunity to bring on the CEO of USA Swimming pretty soon. Uh and I've just sent him my outline. He will be asked some questions about where the direction is headed because he he made a very interesting comment. I I had a chance to see him a couple weeks ago at the college swim coaches convention. Uh, and he first off, I found him to be very open. I found him to be much more humble than any uh USA swimming CEO that I've experienced. In my lifetime, much more approachable. And he was talking about his previous roles. He's somebody who's coming from outside of the sport. And he worked in the PGA in an executive role for some time. And he said, you know, like a lot of people focus on the PGA being, you know, this professional tour, and like we're giving out big prize money, and you know, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy. And, you know, I'm not I'm not fully up to date on my pro golf knowledge, but you know, you guys get the picture. Um but in reality, what the PGA is, is 16,000 teaching professionals. You know, your local golf club has probably a PGA teaching pro. And he's like, those people are the engine of all that other stuff we're talking about. Those are the people that get people into the sport of golf and therefore create revenue for you know ball manufacturers and club manufacturers and all the sponsors that mean that there is prize money, you know, for the PGA tour. And for me, I was like, in reference to your asking this question about Alex and and you know uh farmers and and uh harvesters, this is a guy who actually signaled to me, like, oh my god, maybe he gets it, maybe he understands the fundamental thing that I want somebody to understand in that role, which is that the coaches, we're the engine of the sport, right? So people often talk about like, oh, we got to change, you know, the revenue model, we got to change this and that and the other thing. It's almost to bring it back to our previous discussion, they're focused on an outcome and they don't understand the process to get there. And to me, the process is if we can find a way to help those coaches, and I'll I'll get to that in a second because I I think uh I I I think I have um to borrow from our illustrious president, I think I have the outlines of a plan. Um the concept, the concept of a plan, the concept or the concepts of a plan for how to get it in two weeks for how to do that. And I promise, yes, I promise to give you guys all the details in two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

Um once that trade opens up, swim coaching's gonna get a lot better.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

That's like that's by the way, two two podcasts in a row uh for me where we're discussing Iraq on a podcast. It's it's coming into the swimming podcast. Okay, but if I get back to it, like he he actually seems to he actually seems to understand that piece of it. And what I think like uh if I you asked me what I would like to see in the future is I would like to see organizations like USA swimming move to reorient themselves around incentivizing coaches to be uh farmers, to be developers, to like invest in that part. Because right now, with the tools that they have from an organization, that's not what they're incentivizing, right? They have things like club excellence. Okay, club excellence is measuring performance at the uh summer junior, which is a very high level of swimming in USA swimming, level and beyond. That's that's you need to be have swimmers at that level to even accumulate points in club excellence. And so what has that incentivized? It's I incentivized, in my opinion, it's incentivized club consolidation to where you have early specialization. Yeah, early specialization, giant mega clubs where um where frankly we have a downscaled model of exactly everything you just said, Nate, is kind of our problem in the US, right? Where you go, well, I mean, if you have a thousand athletes on the team, you're gonna end up with a few summer juniors qualifiers, even if you're doing an atrocious job at talent development. Like you can't almost can't mess it up. And you'll you'll accumulate some points, and maybe you'll at least get like bronze level status, you know, and that'll be like the thing from USA swimming you can beat your chest on. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

Yeah, yeah, the banner you can hang out at the pool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:43

And I'm I'm as guilty of as anyone. The last club that I worked with, Jersey Wahoos, um, we were a gold medal club, and I use that in in marketing sometimes to tell people like, hey, I was a good coach. I worked for a gold medal club, right? So, like that's that's I think what they're contributing on from high. When you look at like uh Norway and the Norwegian model, which you reference as well, and I happen to be somebody that coached in Scandinavia, um, so I have like a little bit more of like an on the ground perspective of it, but that's that that emphasis has come from the top down in Norway. Like they they have emphasized that, um, those those concepts and ideals. And frankly, they were willing to look a little bit ridiculous for a while because there's no like immediate you know performance thing you can you can point to. And I I remember when they were shifting a lot of things, because it was during my time coaching over there. I mean, their swimming results were atrocious. And so we we in Denmark, which by the way, in it's specifically in the sport of swimming, does not really ascribe to the Scandinavian model. They do a lot of things, uh, honestly, like more American style and and to their own detriment. Uh, but we were looking at them like, oh, look at those nor you know, dorks in Norway, you know, think all this anti-competitive stuff is gonna work for them. Now we're seeing the payoff of it, right? But it's it's 10 years, 10 years down the line. The last thing that I will I will point out that I would love to do for the future, and it, I mean, this is where I'm just kind of like, well, I can't wait for USA swimming to create this. I just have to do my best to create it on my own. And I I think you guys are in the same vein on this. Is um Norway has a has a program, I don't know if you're familiar with you guys have talked about it on here called Olympia Topin. Have you have you talked about that at all? Yeah. They're knowledge sharing. They're knowledge sharing. Um and I've had Greg Meehan on my podcast a couple of times. This is probably the number one thing I'm up you know, like up his butt about because I think we do a very, very poor job, really knowledge sharing. Um, the the the big advantage that we should have in the US is we have all these people, we have all this diversity, we have so many, you know, really good ideas out there about how to do things, and yet, you know, very little of that knowledge is is making its way around in an in an efficient way. And there's not that sense of of what I see, what I do see in a lot of Scandinavian countries where they go, we gotta help each other out. Like we're if if if Olympic sports is our thing, if our thing is, you know, we're America and we want to be the best swimming country in a world, well, then all of us have to be invested in not just like I get my athletes on the Olympic team and I get to the top, but like trying to make the country better by helping the people around us. Um, helping, you know, if you're the best team in your LSC, I think you should be trying to make other teams in your LSC better. And I don't know that that's always the case because it will make you better in the long term.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Yeah, that long-term, long-term thinking is is lacking, I think, at least for sure. Yeah. You're right. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:26

I appreciate that. Yeah. I I can't think of the last time I've been in three different LSCs, and I can't think of any time I've been in an LSC where you see the team at the top, whether it's the mega team or the team that is is getting the most out of, you know, maybe a smaller number of athletes. I've never seen those teams knowledge share or they may be buddy buddy with a particular cohort of coaches and invite people into there. But another thing I would add too, I think strengthening what you're talking about, Chris, is oftentimes those teams that are at the top are getting there because they again, lack of long-term thinking, they're coaching in ways where those athletes are going to break down. Those athletes are gonna get left behind. Like, is it and I might be about to start a whole other conversation here, but is it is it ethical to be pushing these athletes to go and be peaking at age 16, 17, 18? Like, that's what I think about so much with what's happening overseas, Norway, Scandinavian countries, they're they're realizing what we all know intrinsically that the athlete is going to peak somewhere around age 22 to 28. That's you know, all this talk about building the aerobic base, building out the the technical motor learning proficiency, that's what we should be building the athlete towards. And because we're decentralized, we end up trying to maximize the output of a child. And I don't think you look at the way technique is taught and you look at, you know, for every 10 kids on the thousand athlete team that are finally at summer juniors, there's 600 kids whose scapular plane is just getting destroyed on a daily basis. And it's like, well, what what are we doing? This this coach, this team isn't gonna necessarily get credit five, six years from now when this kid completes their college degree and hopefully is still able to swim, is hopefully competing on an international stage. So now we do have to incentivize maximizing their performance here. And I don't know, I I agree with what you're saying. I I do have some faith that maybe things are about to change a little bit, and I I see the listening campaign and the messaging, and I think it's awesome that you're having Kevin Ring on the on the podcast, right? Is that okay to say?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:51

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:52

But I wonder what kind of grassroots movement it would take to impact that. How could we start to shift that? Because it until that happens, I think we're just gonna we can get really, really good at identifying these symptoms and treating them, but it's not gonna solve that problem in our sport.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

No, I think I mean to bring it back to another like the to the conversation we're having earlier about process versus outcome. We are not going to be able to brute force, like convince coaches in the US to abandon the strategy that you just described. If they're if they're already feeling that pressure, right? If they're feeling that, and like I I'm not unempathetic to like there's probably a coach listening to this. I mean, you guys to a certain extent have a self-selecting audience, so maybe not as many coaches, but there's maybe one listening to this who's like, Chris, you know, Nate, Kyle, like you guys don't understand, like you don't understand the pressure that I'm under. Like, I would love to do things the way that you're suggesting, but like that's just not reality. That's not the environment that I lead in. If I start chasing all this like pie in the sky stuff that you're talking about, I might not have a job. You know, like the parents are gonna come with their pitchforks and go, like, well, you know, this guy isn't helping our kids to to swim fast, and like, let's get them out of here, you know. Let's get somebody in here who's gonna make sure my kid gets a gets a scholarship to UCLA or whatever. Um I think that's that's realistic on the other end. So what do we do? Uh I think there's like we have to have a way to convince coaches that it's actually in their best interest to coach in a in a different way. And this stuff with like, you know, the the ground down scapular planes, to me, that is a result of coaches doubling down on a strategy for development where they're like, okay, well, I know if I get the athlete in a better physical condition, they're gonna swim a little bit faster. Well, let's see, you know, let's see how much we can maximize that. And they get to a point of diminishing returns, but they they don't know what else to do, right? In that situation. So they're just doubling down on that strategy eventually to the detriment of people. And I think something that you you guys are contributing, I know Kyle, uh, you know, I give you a lot of credit for, is often in those situations, there's huge opportunities to not only set kids up for development long in the future, but they could be better right now if you just simply knew how to help them develop their skills better. So actually become more skilled. And on the the plane that I'm working on, actually like had their psychological development in line with where they are physically, because most of those athletes, um honestly, most of the athletes that are going on to swim in in college in the U.S., and I think this is a huge frustration point for college coaches. A lot of them are are people that I work with. We're we're basically sending athletes up there. Um the analogy that I use is like like a 15-year-old who's never driven, but that we gave him a Lamborghini. Like they can go really fast, but they have no, like, you know, you're you're you're clutching your hands like this, watching them drive, because you're like, oh God, you know, something could go wrong any moment. Like they've got these beautiful, you know, big engines, they don't know how to drive the car. And so there's like, there's such a missed developmental opportunity. And so to the extent that we could convince coaches that they're not putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage, even now. I mean, I really believe that. Even now, um, even in the short term, by focusing on some other things, that that's what I'm focused on. Uh, I'm not sure in my own little corner of the world that I'm gonna be able to, you know, change the whole thing, but I'm trying. And you guys are too, I gather. So, you know, yeah, that's the worst thing that we can do in this situation, and not to go political again, but we we had the is like right is for us to think, oh god, this problem's too big, we just can't, you know. Uh, the country's so big, and you know, there's just so much momentum in the other direction, and all this like stuff, there's nothing we can do. We start pulling in another direction, we start influencing people who influence people who influence people, and things when things change, we'll only know in retrospect. We'll only like look back and go, wow, actually, things are a lot different than they used to be. And so we just have to stay focused on the part of the process that we can control and and influence and and keep trying to move it that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:00

Man, what a what a way to put it. Yeah, I yeah, you summed it up incredibly well. And it if I could just voice something that Kyle always says when we talk about this and we talk about the way people respond to ideas like those, Chris, is what's the worst thing that could happen? You could get better, you could go a lot faster. I mean, Kyle, didn't Milt have some anecdote he used to always pull out? He was talking about some world record holder and and how they could swim differently, and people would go, Well, you know, this is a I'll just throw an over there. This is like a 4600 freestyler, and Milt would be like, Well, I'm trying to think about how we can get to 42. Why are we talking about 46?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

Like, let's Yeah, yeah, let's go 46.9. No, I'm gonna go 42. Yeah, and how do we get there in in a in an obviously in a healthy way and a more efficient way to do it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:54

Because someday somebody will probably go 42, and you know, the difference between us and and that person then is that that person will like things will have evolved to the point where that person is just like, oh yeah, 42 is my goal. That's a reasonable goal for me to have.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

Yeah. Well, Chris, this has been absolutely amazing. Where can people find you? I know this is kind of funny to ask given that this will also be up on your feed, but plug plug yourself for for our audience.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:27

Uh, I'm gonna give out my personal email. Everybody listening to this, if you just want to email me, I love to hear from people, uh, especially an audience like the one that you guys have. Um crdesantis at gmail.com d-e-s-a-n-t-i-s. Uh if that for some reason doesn't uh strike you, you know, you can go to chrisdcoach.com. I'm I'm maybe by the time this is coming out and and you go there, there'll be a brand new website. I don't know. It's like it's a little behind-the-scenes process that's coming. If you want to follow me on Instagram, Chris D underscore coach, um, I try to make my way around and be at some conferences. I think the next one that I have in my plans is actually Gain, uh, their summer conference in Carmel, Indiana. Um, I think they've just put that one up on the schedule. It's August 28th to 30th. Um, and I've been doing some work with them as well on their online platform, uh, sharing some stuff. So those are all places where, you know, depending on how you want to engage with me, you can you can find me there. Oh, um, and I'm gonna be at the Indianapolis Pro Series. So if anybody's at that meet, if you're coaching, if you got athletes, um against maybe their better judgment, I don't know. Again, they're being very open right now. USA swimming is giving me an all-access pass to that event. Right. So uh come find me. I'll be on deck. I'll uh and I would love, like I just say this to people all the time. Um, I I'm not I'm not at all famous in real life. So it I love it when people walk up to me and just say, like, you know, hey, I heard you on this, that, or the other thing, and and use that as a conversation starter. Um, those are those are moments that I look forward to uh and meeting new people in the in the swimming community.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:22

That's awesome. Well, you can drop our names, you know, the I Don't Get It podcast. That's probably what what they're gonna come up and go, weren't you that guy talking to that old coach? And and uh yeah, at least I didn't you're that guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:35

At least I didn't drop any opinions like Joel Rowling's uh don't see why you know on here, right? Joel's gonna be so mad at me. I I included that on the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

Nice. Oh, nice. Let's see if let's see if he looks yeah. The Joel dig. Gotta finish with that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:51

Why is that Marquette coach against Streamlines? I don't know. Keep asking him.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:57

Well, Chris, thank you again. An absolute pleasure, and we look forward to working with you in the future. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:04

Thank you so much, guys. Thank you so much for having me. Um, this was this was a blast.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:11

As always, you can follow the podcast on Instagram and Substack at IDGIpodcast. You can follow Kyle on Instagram at coach.kj and myself at NateJ McKay. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week.