I Had Reached A Low Point In My Life
I recently retired from the head coach position of the Tulsa Youth Rowing Association in May of 2016.
There were many reasons that I stepped down, but the two most important ones were my declining health (two heart operations for atrial fibrillation) and the fact that by the time I had pulled the launches from the water, closed the boathouse, and driven home I was seeing my child and wife very little, and things were out of balance.
At the time, I thought my career as a coach was over. No possible future lay ahead, and that was challenging to think about.
However, after my second operation, I recovered, and once rowing is in your blood, it is always in your blood.
I wondered how to stay connected to rowing without the six-day-a-week commitment after school. (I teach at a local school in Tulsa).
I decided to start a blog. I had almost twenty years of experience as a coach and decided to start documenting some things I had learned. The goal was to support other young coaches in their first few years of coaching.
The hardest part when starting a blog is the fear factor. Questions and doubts passed through my mind, like “Who will read my articles?” Or “Who am I to start a blog about rowing? I don’t consider myself an expert.”
Luckily, I had been listening to podcasts by Gary Vaynerchuck, who helped me to understand that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. As long as you are sharing your truth and not communicating negatively, and you can’t control what other people think. It gave me the courage to hit the “publish” button on the first few of my articles.
So in the Fall of 2016, I brought www.coachbergenroth.com to life online.
The Birth Of CoachBergenroth.com
The idea was to blog every month about some topic related to coaching or rowing. It was a schedule I could keep and balance with my commitments to my family and teaching job. The first few months in the Fall of 2016 were some lonely moments. I was producing content that might be interesting to other athletes and coaches. When I reviewed the site logs, I was lucky if ten people visited the site in a day. It was frustrating initially to start from virtually nothing and hope that Google would index your site, and your articles would be listed higher up the search rankings.
However, here is the thing that rowing has taught me. Never give up. It doesn’t matter how far behind you are in a race; you must always give your best. Additionally, the discipline required to prepare for a race is just like saving for retirement. You must learn the discipline of saving a little each day or month and be ready to put it in the bank for a point in the future of your life. It’s possible that it can be tempting to give up because you don’t see initial progress. It’s like a steam train leaving the station. At the first point, the train moves very slowly. The pressure has started to build, but it’s small, so the train initially leaves the station very slowly. The discipline is to keep going toward your goal, even if it feels like progress is slow at first.
That Fall, I had about 600 visitors during www.coachbergenroth.com’s first three months. It was a start.
My First Online Client
Somewhere along the line that Fall, the thought of working with a couple of remote clients came to mind.
I met a lovely gentleman called Mike Mayzak, who I had met during an indoor ergometer competition in Dallas one year. I recall talking to him and giving him a few technique tips during the event. Mike was also very supportive of the Tulsa Youth Rowing Association. He was often liking and supporting our posts about community rowing.
I don’t recall if I called him or he called me, but I remember sitting in a parking lot outside a mall in midtown Tulsa. I asked if he would allow me to work with him for free. It would be an excellent way for me to try remote coaching and for him to benefit from my knowledge. Mike was keen to become more competitive and improve his time on Concept2.
He accepted my help, and my online coaching career started. The train was beginning to move, and I was on my way.
In part 2 of this series, I discuss the development of various coaching tools and technology I have developed to aid me in more effective online coaching and the blog’s growth over the first few years of existence.
