What was the best coxing/rowing advice you’ve ever gotten? And the best lesson you’ve learned?

Hmm, best advice I’ve gotten … it’s been a long time since someone’s given me good rowing-related advice. I think the one thing I’ve consistently heard from all the coaches I’ve had and worked with in the twenty years I’ve been playing sports is to never doubt yourself or your abilities. It’s cliche, I know, but the coaches who really mean it wouldn’t keep saying it if it weren’t true. It’s easy to let something insignificant crush your self-esteem and once you’re in that hole it takes way longer to get out than it did to get in. If you’re just starting out, it’s going to take time to learn how to do everything proficiently so you’ve got to trust the process and have the courage to be persistent. Once you’ve been at it for awhile you’ve got to remain confident in knowing that if you weren’t skilled, talented, etc. you wouldn’t have made it as far as you have. That’s the most basic fact there is when it comes to being an athlete.

The best lesson I’ve learned probably has to do with looking for coaching jobs (which I know doesn’t really apply to many people that read this). Without going into too many details, I’ve learned that if I have doubts about something, don’t say yes to it because I will end up bored and/or hating it. I’m definitely one of those people that needs to always be on the go and have active responsibilities or be in charge of something. For some reason people think I’m like, joking, when I say to pile on the work. The more work I have to do (that isn’t stupid trivial stuff), the better. I’m a very hands-on learner/worker so just sitting around watching stuff happen doesn’t work for me. I get bored very easily and once I get bored, I lose interest, regardless of how hard I try to stay engaged. It’s incredibly frustrating (indescribably so) when you’re given the impression that you’re going to get to do or be doing all of the things and then you end up doing none of the things. Consistently asking if there’s something I can do gets pretty old after awhile too.

Think of it like going to school where you expect to always be doing work, learning new concepts, etc. and instead you end up sitting in a quiet, empty room staring at the chalkboard day in and day out. Every so often the teacher will give you menial busy work to do but that takes ten minutes to complete and then you’re right back where you started. Going forwards, as more than one person has told me in the last several months, I need to just not be afraid to speak up and say exactly what I want and if that job can’t give it to me or I have doubts about whether or not it will, I have to pass it up because I know exactly how it’s going to turn out (even if that means turning down a really good opportunity or a paycheck).