Chris DeSantis
Election Reflection

I can’t remember when I first heard the phrase “voting against their own interest”. I believe that politics are incepted at a formative age, such that unless you have some dramatic reversal in your adult life it is hard to know where things began.

Chris DeSantis
Something is Better Than Nothing

Which brings me to the topic of today’s blog. It’s wonderful to know what is ideal. What you would do if you could isolate one variable in your life? Decisions never actually fall so neatly where you can simply elect to do the optimal thing.

Chris DeSantis
USA Swimming Hiring Backwards

What does strike me as strange is that before this announcement USA Swimming had three crucial roles they were hiring for. One is the CEO, with Tim Hinchey’s long awaited sacking. Then there is the National Team Director who will oversee that entirety of the “wet” side of the operation. Finally there is the National Junior Team coach.

Chris DeSantis
Harmony, Not Balance

Earlier this week I posted a podcast with three-time US Olympic coach Greg Meehan. It’s worth listening to. There’s two things I want to comment with regards to the podcast.

Chris DeSantis
What I'm Up To

One of the many advantages of working for yourself is that you can change directions fast. Last spring, I reached a point where it was time to make a change. One of the reasons that I work for myself is because it allows me the latitude to spend time engaging more with people in all corners of the swimming world.

Cougars

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You Need Your Own Expectations

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My entree into the world of “elite” swimming was the 2008 Olympic Trials. It was the first national level swim meet of any kind that I had been to. I was accredited media along with Garrett McCaffrey, my friend and then the man behind floswimming.

The meet was eight days of blowing my mind, interspersed by Garrett and I talk swimming, life and the future. One argument we had early on was about the process for the best athletes at the meet. Garrett frequently noticed how much the top swimmers, like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, would comment that they were dutifully following the instructions of their coaches.

He wasn’t wrong, it is what they were saying. But in my ears it felt deeply wrong. There had to be a better way than “coach says, swimmer does”. And yet I have seen this manifest itself across many more conversations with coaches and swimmers. The swimmer that does exactly what you ask of them is bound to be pleasing to a coach. I have definitely fallen prey more than once to the ego boost that such a swimmer gave me.

Given some time for deeper reflection, I think that most coaches actually don’t want to have this kind of relationship. Because a swimmer who follows instructions to the T is missing the autonomy and motivation that really leads to them assuming their true potential.

This past weekend, I had almost too much fun working with Washington State University just a few days away from their conference championship. One thing we talked about was self-evaluation, and very specifically having expectations for yourself that are firmly divorced from results or the expectations others place on you.

Being able to look at a list at the end of the day and say “I did these things” is very powerful. Some of them may even (gasp) involve not following the precise instructions of your coach. Where I see athletes often feel trapped is that they disagree with the expectations set for them, but don’t form a clear idea of what they think would be better, go after it and actually prove their case.

Instead they often complain about the coaches, chafe against the expectations stay in their corner. This only makes coaches want to tighten their grip a little more.

You also need your own expectations because when you’re trying something really hard, you need to force some perspective. On your way to achieving something ambitious you will fail a lot and quite naturally lose sight of progress, or the base of good things that you’ve already accomplished.

Naturally self-critical people can get pretty far by being extremely tough on themselves, but at some point they need to acknowledge their own strengths and small accomplishments, or their self-criticism will make everything they attempt into a soulless grind.

I’m looking forward to seeing the team compete this weekend at PAC-12s, and may be filing another blog from the meet any insights I get from my new “don’t watch the swimming” perspective.