Swim, Forrest, Swim!
Chris Harding writes: -
SWIM, FORREST, SWIM!
In just over 6 weeks, I’m going to be doing a 10 kilometre sponsored swim for a fabulous charity, After Adoption.
This equates to 400 lengths of my local pool and I hope to complete this in around the 5 hour mark.
Why Swimming?
When I was a boy, I wanted to do one of 3 things: -
- Run a marathon
- Play in the football World Cup
- Swim the Channel
Now, I’m not saying I’m going to do any of the above and I have little chance of doing any of them anyway as I have trouble running (which isn’t down to laziness!) and I’ve always been, at best, average at football.
However, and this is a very big however, I have a long shot at completing the latter.
Growing Up
Learning to swim took time.
When I was 11, I swam for the county in breaststroke.
At 16, I found the joys of alcohol and ladies far more interesting and swimming fell by the wayside.
Priorities change as you grow up and responsibilities are added to your life as you mature.
Let me use Telemarketing as an example.
Communicating Timeline
Growing up, it took time to form sentences and basic opinion.
When I was 11, I’d ask anything without shame or fear of consequence.
At 16, I encountered rejection and started learning how to deal with it.
Since then, I’ve encountered many objections and learnt to negotiate these considerably better than at 16 albeit in a professional capacity.
Time Changes But The Principles Don’t
When I was 11, I could do anything, in my mind at least and that was because the challenges placed in front of you were all you needed to worry about.
At 16, I was suddenly aware that there were more challenges that lay in wait and it was daunting.
Through hard work and experience, I’ve subsequently found that you can’t win them all and you have to focus on achieving the best results possible.
With a proper briefing and working with a client, I give us the best chance to deliver a return on investment.
If I can replicate that in my swimming, then the Channel may be a possibility but there are many small steps, as in life, that need to be overcome if I want to gain an ROI on the time that I’ve put in.