the dizzying, terrifying leap
It took me a while to work out what on earth the universe was trying to tell me when it flung me at the pavement last month.
Or rather, I figured out right away that the message was, slow the fuck down, but it took a bit longer to work out how to actually do that in my life. Because suddenly realizing that I am spreading myself too thin doesn't remove any of the responsibilities that are holding me hostage to stress. I still have a family, both including all the ones that sleep in my bed and the ones that are scattered throughout the world; I still have a job, one that I love but have thrown myself into around the clock; I am still training for my own season as an athlete, my next ironman, not to mention the one after that; I still have friends that I'd like to spend time with when none of us are sweating in spandex. And the answer is not to quit training, or working, or having a family, or friends, or getting enough sleep, but something needed to give, to change.
So I spent some time thinking, in all the places where I do it best, which are out on the road getting dirty or in the water finding my zen. And really, despite however much thinking I did (and talking things over with the poet until he puts a pillow over his head), it came down to a pretty simple decision about the business I have grown over the past couple of years. Either I needed to find a way to make my commitment smaller, or I needed to find a way to expand. Trying to make the decision as to which, that hurt my heart for a little while. Because the family that exists now, I can't imagine being without them. But how do I grow?
Hopefully it's obvious that I've figured it out or I wouldn't be scrapping together a blog post about it. And it's fortunate that the answer was quite literally in my own backyard (of our rental home in Erie but that detail makes it a bit less fairytale). That answer is to bring on another coach into the community I've created, team amazing day, and I am stoked to announce that as of July 1, that coach is Jenni Keil (she sent over an ass shot completely unprompted, this is my GIRL).
If you click through on some of the links in that paragraph, you can take a look at the simple but straight up awesome website that the poet has built over the last few weeks, and read more about Jenni and why I'm pumped to join forces with her particular brand of awesome. In essence, she is a talented athlete and experienced coach, she believes strongly in the power of MAF, and the one blurry and dark photo that I was able to dig up of us from over a year ago is concrete evidence that she shares my intense love for lululemon hoodies.
Thanks to Jenni, we will be opening up a limited number of spots for athletes starting in July. For my current athletes, the only changes that they will see will be the result of me having another great brain to pick about how to continue making them stronger, healthier, fitter, and faster. Although anytime I make change in my own life, it is my hope that the better version of myself I am continually chasing leads to being a better support system for my athletes, a better friend, wife, and puppy-mama as well. This also means that I will hopefully have time to get around to some of the exciting items that have been lingering on my professional to-do list for months as I've simply been too busy to make space for anything extra in the day.
Change is hard. It's scary, I've been vacillating between excitement and fear for the past few weeks while figuring out if I wanted to do this, how I wanted to do it, and the biggest piece, who the heck could be the right person. One of the many personality tics that comes along with being a type-A perfectionist is a tendency to want to micromanage, to work all the hours that exist in the day, to keep the world small in order to keep control high. Heading this direction is going to be a challenge, a stretch, it is going to force me into uncomfortable growth and I know that won't be easy. But my gut instinct tells me that this is the right step (which I'm sure Jenni is thrilled to read out here on the public internet that everyone can see) for me, for my life, my business, for where I am at and the journey that I myself am on as a coach. Because when given the chance between keeping things comfortably the same or taking a crazy chance in a new direction, no matter how frightening it may be, I want to be the kind of person that chooses the dizzying, terrifying leap.
Or rather, I figured out right away that the message was, slow the fuck down, but it took a bit longer to work out how to actually do that in my life. Because suddenly realizing that I am spreading myself too thin doesn't remove any of the responsibilities that are holding me hostage to stress. I still have a family, both including all the ones that sleep in my bed and the ones that are scattered throughout the world; I still have a job, one that I love but have thrown myself into around the clock; I am still training for my own season as an athlete, my next ironman, not to mention the one after that; I still have friends that I'd like to spend time with when none of us are sweating in spandex. And the answer is not to quit training, or working, or having a family, or friends, or getting enough sleep, but something needed to give, to change.