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According to research from Harvard Business Review, in 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes, driving higher levels of change fatigue. So, how can you lead a change management strategy that helps reps navigate these shifts while maintaining GTM efficiency? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Megan Backus, director of MarComm and Sales Enablement at Culligan Quench. Thank you so much for joining us, Megan. We’re super excited to have you here today. As we’re getting started, I’d love if you could just kick us off by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Megan Backus: Yeah, so Megan Backus. I am based outside Philadelphia, so you might pick up a little bit of my Philly accent. I can’t help it. So I’ve been with Quench now Culligan Quench for about 12 years, the last two in this MarComm sales enablement role. Prior to that it was marketing and I like to joke that I’ve probably touched a little bit of every single aspect of marketing in that time. So always kind of. In the role of creating the content as part of our customer’s buying journey. Another way of looking at it is the content that our sales team needs to close deals. So currently the best way to describe it is it’s kind of this weird crossroads between marketing and sales enablement, where I think with a marketer’s hat on making sure our reps have. The tools, the collateral, and the talking points that they need to combat any sort of questions or objections that they might get in the field? You know, the easiest way of saying, and my wonderful team, and we are a very small but mighty team of five women, we create all the collateral that our sales team uses. So everything from items for prospects at the very top of the sales funnel, everything to lead ’em through the sales funnel, and then even some items for after the sale is closed. RR: Amazing. Well, I think one of my favorite things about talking to folks working at enablement is all of the different weird ways that you come to enablement as a function, and everybody always has a different slant on how the function works and how it operates in their organization. So super excited to get that kind of marketing slant on it today. Got kind of a big question to start us off. I saw on LinkedIn that you mentioned being driven by impossible problems. So what are some of those impossible problems and maybe some of the key initiatives? That you’re focused last year? MB: Yeah, so it’s actually a misnomer. It’s that marketing hat that I wear, but in my view, there is no impossible problems. It’s in a belief in life that I have, whether it’s at work or outside of work, nothing is really impossible. Everything is actually figureoutable and I will be trademarking that. But, so I don’t necessarily view ’em as impossible problems, but I guess the best way, you know, kind of think of it is those problems where you’re just like, I don’t know how I’m gonna tackle this. So this year’s quote unquote impossible problem is finding the time management and the time to accomplish everything that we want to accomplish this year. Quench calling and quench, if you will, we like to have lots of key initiatives happening at the exact same time. My poor customer success manager with Highspot, I feel I always give her like anxiety attacks when we meet. ’cause I’m like, all right. I know we talked about this two weeks ago. We’ve moved on and we’re doing something else. But so some of the things that we’re working on this year, so this past January, we kind of ripped off the bandaid, if you will, and moved our sales team from being very territorial focused in their selling to more, we call it domains, but more brand focused and brand selling. So a lot of this year has been evaluating our newly rebranded content to make sure. It aligns with that focus and realigning it where necessary to support that transition. And like I said, we like to do multiple things at the same time. So last year we did our US rebrand. This year we’re also focusing on finishing up that rebrand, supporting our friends to the North and Canada with their rebrand and our friends to the South and Puerto Rico with their rebrand. While ever supporting our ever-growing sales team, so a lot of things all at the same time. So being the impossible problem, if you will for this year has been being able to juggle all of those key initiatives while maintaining my team. I’m gonna call it sanity, but making sure no one gets burned out or frustrated or just getting to a point of like, no, I don’t wanna do this. Because, you know, with that, we, you know, kind of ask the team to walk through fire. So every once in a while you gotta make sure you’re, you’re not getting burned. RR: Yeah, absolutely. It seems like you guys are no strangers to being agile and being asked to being agile. That is a lot on your plate, so I love that you have that. There’s no impossible problem perspective. ’cause I think you can’t approach this work without it. Especially, and you touched on a little bit on this, knowing just the volume of work that’s been going into the rebrand process, both in the US and in Canada and Puerto Rico, as you mentioned, for one, congratulations. Just knowing how much change that a rebrand like that tends to bring to sales teams. I’d love to know what some of your best practices for helping those teams effectively navigate those transitions are. MB: Yeah, I think, I don’t know whether it’s taking it back to the basics or best practice, but I think the best way of thinking about these big changes in, in our case, these rebrands is. They’re not thinking of them as anxiety inducing events, but thinking of them reframing it in our minds, which helps us reframe it for our sales team of growing opportunities. They’re just opportunities to grow, to learn, to do more, to do more exciting things. And I think that’s kind of really, I guess if I had to put a best practice on something, is recognizing that big change. You know, whatever it is, is just an opportunity to grow and adapt. So with our sales team, we do have some, uh, I affectionately call them nervous Nellie, but those who their first reaction to is not to embrace change, to help those people and they can, you know, hurt your momentum and hurt the morale. But having them kind of come on board and recognize that it’s not as big as it looks. It’s not as daunting or scary as it looks. And we do that by reiterating what’s staying the same. What support they’ll continue to get. And we break down this, these big overarching changes into more bite size and manageable bites to kind of ease those anxieties of like, alright, we have over a thousand pieces of collateral. You know, we have 200 and some odd sales reps and we have to rebrand everything on, you know, new colors, new ev, let’s backtrack it. Let’s do our product sheets first. Sales reps, the products aren’t changing. You can still sell the products. We’re just gonna have different colors. So kind of just breaking it down for them to be like, oh, this isn’t really as big of a change as I thought it was. RR: I feel like I’m getting a philosophy lesson here from you. Nothing is impossible. Change is an opportunity, not a scary thing. I’d like to switch gears a little bit. So we’ve talked about the rebrand, but I also know that as a part of that rebrand and maybe as a. Result of that rebrand, you guys have also experienced like hyper growth over the past year sales team headcount has increased significantly, which again, never an easy problem to tackle, but also a great opportunity. So what challenges have you kind of noticed that came with this growth, and then how have you overcome them or maybe reframed those challenges into opportunities? MB: Yeah. So yeah, hypergrowth, I wouldn’t classify a hypergrowth happen with the rebrand, but it’s one of those things we’re like, we’re gonna do lots of things at the same time. But yeah, we hired 50 reps in a three month period. As with any sort of hiring process, especially, uh, at the hypergrowth. Level, it was the onboarding. How quickly can we get these new reps talking about our machines, understanding our sales process, understanding our customers, and we have a very incredible training team who took on a lot of that, those sort of challenges of how do we get them onboarded as quickly as possible. But I think having Highspot as our content management system. Was incredibly helpful in that regard because it new and tenured reps, so whether the new rep was still in the training class or whether they’re sitting next to Joe Schmo and Joe Schmo needed to help them find an answer, any question, they could go to Highspot. And you know, one of our favorite features at Collagen Quench is. Using the search bar to ask questions, adding that little question mark in that search bar, and it allows the rep, whether they’re new or tenured, to be more empowered to find the answers themselves. Because with onboarding, what we find is there’s a million questions and they can be as minute as, I don’t know what the to price this as, or as big and philosophical as I have no idea how to put in a sale into Salesforce. So by having everything in one spot and. Really honing in with our sales team, our tenured reps, that everything they need is in Highspot. They can help each other. And so for our small Mighty training team, our small mighty sales enablement team is not bogged down in, Hey, I don’t know how to do this. Hey, they can kind of work together. And you have peer leaders to really get them. Using Highspot, finding the answers themselves. And if they do have that, that issue of legitimate issue, then the training team and the sales and need movement team can really focus on the bigger issues, bigger questions that we’re getting from these onboarding teams. But it kinda helps with. Empowering the rep to find the answers, I think is the biggest challenge that we had is onboarding. It’s, it’s a million questions and we have a very wide product line, and having Highspot allows them to find the answers themselves, or at least find enough of the answers that last little bit, the last little 10 yards or whatever. They can come to us and we can help them in that regard. RR: So we’ve heard a little bit about you know how you’re enabling new sellers to deal with coming into the organization and doing so at scale. When you have a bunch of folks coming in new, I’d be curious to know then how the platform kind of helps you during these change heavy moments and how it helps you orchestrate the entire organization. So if you could talk to us a little bit about that, that would be great. MB: The way that we and if for every one of our meetings, reiterate all the time, Highspot is where you’re gonna find your answers. Highspot is where you’re gonna find your collateral. Highspot is going to be where you find your best practices, your recorded trainings. Highspot is where you need to go. So we have a weekly newsletter that goes out to our sales team and everything that we reference in there, we go to Highspot it. We kind of. Drill into them often that any sort of question that they have, any sort of concern that start at Highspot. If Highspot doesn’t have it, then come back to us. We’ll work on it and then get it into Highspot by having Highspot as our one source of truth, if you will. It really enables them to not have to worry about, you know, all the noise prior to having Highspot. There was a point where I was sitting and there was, I think it was like 20 emails all about one topic and sitting there and putting on, you know, well, if I’m a sales rep and I got 20 emails and it’s all in one topic, which email is the correct information? Because this one over here hits one thing this. So, and by having it in one spot and allowing our reps to really recognize that it’s their one source of truth, it forces us who create, you know, the content to make sure we’re all on the same page because we’re only gonna put it once in Highspot to really kinda help the reps steer them in the right direction. RR: I kind of wanna dig into that a little bit more, which is, I know, like you said, you and a small and mighty team of five women, it’s all on you with content. So I’d really like to know how you’re equipping using the platform reps with the content and the messaging that you’re creating all of it in there to help them effectively sell to commercial and workplace buyers. So what is your approach there? How are you making that happen in the platform? MB: So I think we’re making it happen within the platform by being incredibly organized, I think is the best way of putting it, and not being organized in the way that makes the most sense from a marketing perspective, but making it make the most sense from a sales perspective. So oftentimes, you know, with that marketing hat on, you run marketing campaigns and the point of the campaign is to, you know, talk about this feature or talk about that feature. But from a sales rep perspective, it’s not necessarily breaking it out by features. And you know, we do bottles water coolers. So we have seven machines that all feature, and I’m making up seven. We have more, but we have seven machines that all feature touchless dispensing. Well, from a rep’s perspective. It. Have a touchless dispensing spot, not have a spot for that machine, this machine and that machine, and then tell them, Hey, we have seven spots for seven different machines and they all have touchless. We kind of take a point of making sure. Everything that we put in Highspot, the spots make sense from a sales perspective and not necessarily from a marketing or a content subject matter. If I were a rep, where am I going to find this? If I’m a rep, how am I going to ask the question to find this, versus this is our Spring 2024 campaign on, you know, this machine. No, no, no, no, no. This is an ice machine. It’s going in the ice machine spot because from a rep’s perspective, I’m gonna find it in ice machines. It’s an ice machine. RR: I think that’s so key of your reps are your customers and you kind of need to serve them in the way that makes sense to them. Otherwise, you’re not gonna see the usage that you’re looking for, which is what you’re aiming to accomplish there from one marketer to another. I know that a big part of your day-to-day is probably that organization piece governing managing your content just to keep reps on brand accurate, up to date, all of that fun stuff. So could you walk me through your strategy for managing and governing content? So those reps are not only aligned, but also informed and up to date. MB: Yeah, so I don’t really have a very complicated answer to this. It’s actually quite simple of. First, we think all of our content that we create, we’re trying to create it from a perspective of what questions or what objections our sales reps are receiving. And then when we are creating from that perspective, then it allows us to make sure we’re creating the collateral that they want to use. And then, you know, back to, it’s a small but mighty team. We have the advantage of having very few people. Adding new content into Highspot, kind of limit that to I think six people. I think we have one person from the training team. We limit that in the way that to make sure, and we have very clear rules, I guess you could say, that we’ve imparted on what goes in what spot. How it’s tagged, how you upload it, what’s your file name process, so that there’s not too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will. There’s a lot of, you know, pros and cons of having a small team, but that I really think is one of our pros is we can keep it very limited as to who is uploading so that we can make sure the structure stays the way that we’ve decided that that’s the structure we want. We take a point of when we’re creating content to be as evergreen as possible. So when there are changes, we’re not constantly having to update everything. We also evaluate all of our content twice a year. So we put, I guess you could say an alarm in Highspot where after six months, Hey, take a look at this, make sure it’s still accurate, because to our earlier point of. Colligan Quench does a lot at the same time. So it’s important from my perspective to take, and if you’re doing it regularly, it doesn’t take that long, but take that moment to make sure the content that’s available is still answering the questions and the objections that you might get from your customers. And it is still being used by the sales team. If it’s not being used, there’s a reason and reevaluate the content on a regular basis, and I think that’s how we kind of keep our governance in check. We did just recently, I think we’re at like 44% or something, which seems low, but given that we have thousands of pieces of content, our content is being used, it’s accurate, and I think that’s really what we, we strive for. Make sure it’s, it’s being used and make sure it’s accurate. And then the rest will kind of just follow, RR: you know, you started your answer there by saying it’s not a complicated process. And you’re right, but also it’s those core foundationals that are gonna get you where you need to go. So I think you guys are doing all of the right things and you’re doing them on the right cadence. I think oftentimes as marketers we have that intention of like, I will govern my content, and then a month goes by and maybe another. So I love that you guys are sticking to that cadence, and I think this goes back to that LinkedIn deep dive that we started with, which is that you’ve mentioned that effective communication is one of your strengths. But beyond good content management and governance, do you have any best practices that you could share for marketing teams looking to improve how they communicate? Big changes like rebrands or smaller updates, like newly published content to reps? MB: Yeah, so I always frame everything on how it helps the reps. You have to take a moment. ’cause as a marketer you’re like, well, I’m doing this for this marketing reason. Well, if that marketing reason doesn’t resonate with the sales rep, as you express it in a marketing way, the sales rep isn’t necessarily going to use it. But if you can reframe that in a way that allows the rep to understand the benefit to themselves, they’re more than likely to use it. So it’s a very simple thing. As creators, we can kind of get wrapped up in. Well, this is a really cool piece of content because I finally learned how to insert a GIF into a PDF, making that up. But if that doesn’t really help the rep in the objection that you’re actually trying to write the content for, and they don’t put two and two together, it’s just gonna sit on a shelf and high spy and get dusty. It’s always about showing them the benefits of this piece, showing them the benefits of the rebrand and how it helps them specifically as a sales rep, not necessarily how it helps the brand or the marketing team or that product line, how it’s going to help them. RR: And then the rest kind of just follows. I think that’s great advice, and it’s obviously coming from somebody who’s, who’s doing the work, looking at the data, we’ve seen that you’ve achieved a really impressive 94% adoption rate in Highspot. So what are your tips and tricks for driving such like consistently high adoption? Because that is an impressive number. MB: Yeah, we want to be at 97 to reach it and sustain it. Again, I don’t think there’s really any big secret. We kind of base it on like three main tenets. So one, and I’ve mentioned it before, make sure your content is aligned with the needs of the customer. Which will allow you to align with the needs of the sales rep. The sales rep is the person who’s getting all those questions from the customer. So if you’re making sure your content aligns there and it’s accurate, then the sales rep is going to use it. And if you’re using Highspot as we do of your one source of truth, the only place that they’re gonna be able to get to that content so they can use it is with Highspot. And then, you know. Back to that framing, Highspot as the one source of truth. Everything that the rep needs, wants, or possibly wants is in Highspot. Getting them in that habit of using Highspot as that one source of truth is really what helps us get that adoption rate. And the way that we got there, I basically used, uh, sales reps competitive nature to my advantage. So we had early adoption when we launched Highspot because the day we launched it, we actually had a scavenger hunt. In Highspot where we came up with, you know, using our marketing brains, you know, the puns and the brain teasers. We came up with a four item brain teaser scavenger hunt that then had the reps find those pieces of content in Highspot, send a pitch, and this was before digital room. So send a pitch. To myself to A, make sure they have the right content. B sent the pitch correctly. C made sure that part of the scavenger hunt is setting up their profiles and all that. And then the top, the fastest five got prizes. Now the prizes weren’t anything. To write home about. It was very, you know, I think one of the prizes was amok. The prize wasn’t necessarily the goal, but using that competitive nature among reps, we had a crazy high adoption rate. I think our first week we had close to 70% of our sales team in the first week. Something crazy like that. And then we kind of just continue to use that competitive nature. To our advantage. We stack rank our reps daily in what we call our flash report, but it’s basically their percentage to quota as it relates to where we are in the month and the hype of hypergrowth. So we are hiring more people than we can count, basically in a very short amount of time to get to that same, you know, scavenger hunt mentality. What we did is we did another scavenger hunt, but before we launched that scavenger hunt. We actually showed a statistic that our top, and I don’t have the numbers with me, but our top quota beaters, people who are well and above their quota, were also our top super users in Highspot. So we kind of put, you know, as a new rep, I just got hired into this company, I’m getting my sea legs, and as with anyone coming into what is good, how do I get them to be the best if I’m a sales rep? Well, if someone’s telling me the best of the sales reps are also the people who are using this tool called Highspot, I probably should learn what that is. Let me learn what that is as quickly as I can. So I myself can be a top sales rep. So we kind of just take that competitive nature of our sales reps, which I think is easily replicated and use it to our advantage. We, we regularly give out prizes. We’ve done a couple other scavenger hunts and we’ve done a couple other items where, you know, adding a little bit of fun to it. And like I said, none of the prizes are anything super special, like there’s no monetary value to any of these prizes. But I think the sales reps enjoy that competitive nature. They enjoy. You know, the little bit of silliness with it and it gets ’em back in the tool and recognizing that, you know, it’s not hard. It’s not a hard tool to learn, it’s not a hard activity to send a pitch or a digital room, but if you’re. Not experienced. If they’ve never done it before, it can feel intimidating. But by adding a little bit of fun to it, it helps them recognize that, take that first step, do the first pitch, do the first digital room. It’s low stakes ’cause it’s just coming to me and I’m just gonna evaluate to make sure you have the right content in there. It takes away that intimidation factor and they’re like, oh, this took me all of 10 minutes and I got a cup out of it. I think taking that away from it, it really helps us keep that high adoption rate. We don’t do, you know, scavenger hunts for every single new hire class ’cause we’re constantly, you know, growing and hiring. But we do keep that your first pitch, your first digital room. It’s low stakes. It’s not going out to a customer, it’s going to our training team, it’s going to me, it’s going to our, our senior director of sales enablement to kind take out that intimidation factor. And put in a little bit of fun into it. And then that kind of helps them get to a point of like, oh, this is not hard. This isn’t a big change. I’m doing the same thing as I would if I’m writing an email and attaching PDFs. I’m just making it better next level. And I think that’s kind of how we, we keep that adoption rate. But like I said, we’re striving for that 97%. I would love to get to a hundred, but I, I think that might be an impossible goal, but. Who knows, maybe in a couple years we will be, but we’re aiming for 97% and we wanna sustain that. RR: I think it’s always funny chatting with folks about the things that, you know, we feel are successful and almost always the response is, that’s not good enough. We can do better. So we’ll have to check back and I hope in the next couple of months we’ll see that 97% from you. Thinking of other wins that you’ve had with the platform, I’d love to know, since implementing Highspot, what business results have you achieved? Or maybe in addition to that, what wins have you accomplished or goals that you’ve met that you and your team are really proud of? MB: Yeah, so I think the thing that we’re most proud of is we had a very quick adoption of this rebrand, Culligan Quench, and we did the. Rebrand about a year after merging with who was our oldest competitor. So within a year we had onboarded people who. Our tenured reps and I say are, and it’s giving me a trip up ’cause they’re all our reps now, but we’re onboarding people who we used to go head to head with in deals and then we’re in a year in and we’re like, Hey, guess what? We’re now Culligan Quench and everything looks different. We have a new logo. We’re gonna talk about ourselves a little bit differently, and we had a really quick adoption to that and we didn’t get too many objections from it. And I think, I don’t have hard numbers against it, but the attitude around it was very positive, and I think a lot of that stems from. High spas not going anywhere. The content’s all gonna be there on this day. All of your content that you’ve been using for years is all gonna be, it’s just gonna look different. So I think that is a crazy achievement and a win that I will. Keep talking about until the day I retire. But another one is ramping reps. So getting reps up and running quickly is something that we really pride ourselves on. We have a very big product line we have. A very wide customer base. It’s basically any workplace that needs water. Spoiler alert, it’s all of you. From a new hire perspective, it can be a little intimidating. We have over 50 products and you’re, what do you mean? I’m going after every single industry on the world in the United States, but having Highspot, it allows us to ramp our new hires pretty quickly. On average, new hires are, you know, within. Three months, they’ve had at least one of their own first deals. Within six months, we take them off of what we call ramping, where they’re owners of their commissions and their quotas. But given how wide of a customer base we have and how many products we have, it’s pretty impressive that you can go from a Joe Schmo and in six months you’re using this very awesome next level tool to pitch. To every industry over 54 machines. So that’s something that we, we hold pretty high in a win. And like I said, I don’t, and I’ve mentioned this before and I don’t have exact numbers, but the, you know, our top quota beaters, consistent quota beaters that we see month after month, year after year. There also are super users in Highspot. So not only we producing the right content for the team, but the team is adapting to using Highspot and really proving, you know what I thought when I proposed us switching to Highspot years ago, it’s gonna set us apart from our competitors. And it’s, I think that stack kind of proves it, not only do we have reps using the tool, which was a fear that senior leaders had of why are we gonna invest in this tool? And reps are gonna still send emails, they’re using the tool and they’re winning what using the tool. So I think it kind of just furthers that, you know, loop that I’ve mentioned of. Getting reps to use the tool and everything else will kind of fall in all into place. And then the biggest win that I can share and that what I kinda put my hat on is we’ve pitched, and I can’t name names, but we pitched to some. Big international organizations using digital rooms. You know, you have the PowerPoint presentation and we have, you know, links in the PowerPoint presentation to the digital room for more information and a couple of times. You know, we’re pitching to C level of these international organizations and they’re going, this is incredible, this digital room presentation, I’ve never seen something like it. This is, you know, really sets you apart and I think. Because we are one of the few in our industry who are using Highspot. I don’t, I might be the only one in our industry using it, so I don’t wanna calculate a gamble, I guess you could say, on doing something different has really worked out. I think that’s a, a big win that I like to, to hang my hat on and getting you. We had a couple of senior leaders who were very skeptical of the whole process and getting them to a point where they’re like, they get a question or someone asks, they go, I don’t know, go ask Highspot. I don’t think I could say how often people are like, I don’t know. It’s in Highspot right now. We only have our sales team on it, but we have other people in other departments going, Hey, can I get Highspot? And I have to be like, no, you’re not in sales. You wanna come over to sales? I can give you when you’re ever in sales. But I think that’s a major win of just getting everyone on board. Rowing the same direction. Through all this change, we’ve maintained that adoption rate through all this change, through all this hiring. Yeah, I think that’s the biggest win. RR: Well, I think the volume of these wins kind of speaks to that point earlier of things are always changing, there’s new priorities, but you guys are coming out successful on the other side. Time and again, so that’s incredible to hear. So thank you for sharing. Just one last question for you to close this out. If you could share one key lesson that you’ve learned from your experience as a marketer tasked with supporting teams through all of this change, what would it be? I know that’s a big question. MB: I don’t know whether it’s a lesson learned or a lesson reiterated, but it goes back to nothing is impossible. Everything is figureoutable. I guess best advice is take the time to really think it through so you can set yourself up for later success. You know, break it down into pieces and really think it through. And often when there’s a lot of change or you know, big deadlines, you immediately wanna just jump in and start running. And sometimes the fastest way to get started is to actually think it through. Take a moment, think it through, break it down into pieces, and then just keep going. Just putting one foot in front of the other through the big change through the crazy deadlines is my best advice is just break it down part by. Foot over foot, and then next thing you know, it’s 12 years later and you’re like, whoa, look at all this stuff that has changed in the past 12 years. But yeah, it, I think that’s what it is. It everything is figureoutable. You just gotta dedicate a little time to figure it out. RR: I think that’s great advice. It’s that slow down to go fast mentality. I think that’s a great approach to close us out on. So we’ll end there. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. I think we’ve learned a lot from you and we have some really great advice and some philosophical frameworks to take us forward. MB: I couldn’t help it. That philosophy just comes out every once in a while. RR: Well, it’s amazing. To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success at Highspot.

The power phase is most effective when legs drive first and back follows yet so few masters rowers do this. Why? Timestamps 00:45 Good power phase requirements The alignment of the womens double in the photo shows that the crew hasn't used their back while having legs nearly straight. Getting into this position requires having shoulders sternwards of the hips at the catch and to use their legs first in the power phase. 03:00 Pulling with arms is easy We have a lot of practice using hands and arms in daily life. We are good at this. At the catch you want to feel the oars loaded up under the water surface. If you pull with your arms you feel this earlier. By pulling with your arms and lifting the shoulders and lifting your chin you feel the workload on the spoon. Rowing is a pushing not a pulling sport in the main. Rowing legs only is 60% of the power; back swing is 25-30% of your power and so your arms add 5-10% of your power ONLY. 06:00 Small muscles v big muscles The rowing stroke uses a range of body muscles from legs, thighs and calves through to arms and hands. In daily life we use small muscles a lot - they fire quickly when we use them in daily life. We are practiced using them. The quads and glutes are slower to activate so we have to train them - we're less habituated using these. Connecting the handle of the oars through the footstretcher is unfamiliar and you have to train it. The first activation in the power phase is the calves to push the heels down onto the footstretcher. Then the quads join in to straighten your legs. When your legs are 3/4 straight you start the glute activation - hinging to connect legs to the back. Using the glutes to sustain pressure on the footstretcher while you swing your back. If you lose pressure on the footstretcher you are no longer accelerating the boat. Your feet are the only part of your body connected to the boat. As your back starts to activate you draw with your arms. 10:00 Why delaying the back is hard Connecting to the footstretcher early in the power phase is our goal. If you take the catch with the arms or swinging the shoulders/back this is a problem. When delivering power through the stroke you can only use each muscle group once per stroke. If you swing your back to take the catch you've got no back swing to use later in the power phase because you are already leaning backwards. It also prevents you from activating your leg drive - they do straighten but not as dynamically as you should. By not activating your legs this removes up to 60% of your possible total power which is a lot. And as a consequence you probably don't activate your glutes because you aren't using your legs enough. There's a correlation between the water being slower at the catch than later in the stroke. The angle of the oar spoon is also going into the slower water at an acute angle to the side of the boat. Use the slower water speed along the slower muscles to generate that early power in the stroke. 15:00 The solution to delaying your back swing Is to train yourself to use the big muscles, learn what it feels like to activate the quads and glutes early in the stroke. Then you know what it feels like to grip the water at the catch with your feet (rather than hands or shoulders). This is the beginning point to learn how to activate big muscles first and layer the smaller muscles on top as later activations. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

Could you row 2,700 miles across the Pacific Ocean fueled by nothing but fat? In episode 812 of the Savage Perspective Podcast, host Robert Sikes sits down with Virta Health CEO Sami Inkinen, a man who did just that to expose the truth about sugar and carbohydrates. Sami shares his incredible story of going from a world class triathlete to pre-diabetic, a journey that led him to question everything about nutrition. He explains how he now helps thousands reverse type 2 diabetes and achieve incredible health, proving that you don't need carbs to thrive. This conversation will challenge everything you thought you knew about diet, metabolic health, and human potential.Inspired to build a powerful physique using the right fuel? Join Robert's FREE Bodybuilding Masterclass to learn the exact strategies for building muscle and getting lean without carbohydrates. Sign up here: https://www.ketobodybuilding.com/registration-2Get Keto Brick: https://www.ketobrick.com/Subscribe to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/42cjJssghqD01bdWBxRYEg?si=1XYKmPXmR4eKw2O9gGCEuQChapters:0:00 - Rowing 2,400 Miles on ZERO Carbs?! 0:51 - The 45-Day Rowing Trip That Changed Everything 1:50 - Why He Did The Impossible 3:28 - How They Slept, Ate, and Survived at Sea 5:32 - The One Question You NEVER Answer 6:03 - The Moment They Almost Gave Up 8:15 - The Secret to Overcoming Extreme Pain 10:34 - He Did This With ZERO Experience 12:05 - What The Middle of The Ocean is REALLY Like 14:22 - From World-Class Athlete to Pre-Diabetic 16:23 - The SHOCKING Truth About Carbs 17:40 - Why "Calories In, Calories Out" is a Lie 21:45 - Are Some Carbs "Healthier" Than Others? 24:00 - The TRUTH About Long-Term Keto 27:54 - How a Top Athlete FUELS for Performance 29:34 - The Most Important Training Metric to Track 32:38 - The Mission to Reverse Diabetes in 1 BILLION People 39:10 - Why Isn't The Government Fixing This? 40:24 - The Vicious Cycle Keeping America Sick 44:06 - How The Virta Health Protocol Works 46:16 - How They Get Patients to Stick to The Plan 51:23 - Have We Lost Our Common Sense? 57:09 - The Truth About Ozempic & GLP-1s 1:00:35 - Why You SHOULDN'T Exercise for Weight Loss 1:05:08 - The Tattoo That Proves This Works

Rower Drew Ginn is one of Australia's most decorated athletes with five world championships and three Olympic gold medals to his name. From 1995 to 1998, he was also a member of the famous Oarsome Foursome coxless four, which had dominated the sport for much of the 1990s. In this interview, Ginn explains why his own upbringing was the perfect catalyst for his success, what makes a good rower, the technical and physical demands placed on top-class rowers, how rowing strength is measured, the modern tech used in rowing and why weather conditions and water temperature can play a significant role in performance. With the world championships taking place in Shanghai, China, from September 21-28, 2025, it's the perfect opportunity to understand the intricacies of this incredible sport.SHOW NOTES:Drew's dazzling career in rowingWorld Rowing Championships 2025 website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a season of Stillness, but I'm still here. ❤️‍

Indianapolis Rowing Center was like lots of other clubs, running several small Learn to Row sessions each year but struggling with retention. Then IRC rower, coach, and brand new Board member Lisa Stickley proposed something big. Really big. She wanted to develop a new type of introduction to rowing program that would get 120 registrants in the boathouse door and on the water all within the month of July. With the support of the Board and club membership, IRC's First Strokes program moved from big idea, to social media marketing campaign, to eight sessions a week for four weeks, plus three big social events. As of today, the retention rate is 40%. Find out from Lisa how she made it happen and how your club can think outside the box to truly use LTR to grow membership and create community connections. . QUICK LOOK 0:00 - Intro 05:05 - Lisa's Rowing Week was an 11! 06:57 - The Huddle 08:37 - Hot Seat Q&A 11:23 - Rowing origin story 15:05 - Transition into competitive rowing, the rower life cycle, and Lisa's “iron sharpens iron” motto 20:43 - About Indianapolis Rowing Center 23:25 - The idea that became IRC's First Strokes program 25:39 - Big goal: register 120 new rowers 30:28 - Coaches, volunteers, and operational logistic strategy 39:10 - Phase 2: retention and integration of new rowers into club programs  42:48 - Club culture shifts 47:52 - Considerations for future growth of First Strokes 49:25 - Keys to success: fun and friends 53:31 - Steady State Network news and notes . To see photos of Lisa, IRC's huge First Strokes program, and to get links to the people and events mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes on our website. . This episode was made possible in part by Breakwater Realty, RowSource, and our Supporters. . Steady State Podcast is hosted and edited by Rachel Freedman and Tara Morgan. Tara provides additional audio engineering, books show guests, and is our sponsor and donor coordinator. Rachel writes our scripts and e-newsletter, and manages the website and social media. Our theme music is by Jonas Hipper. . SHOP SSN GEAR: www.steadystatenetwork.com/shop SIGN UP FOR THE SSN NEWSLETTER: www.steadystatenetwork.com/newsletter MAKE A DIFFERENCE: www.steadystatenetwork.com/support  Check out more Steady State Network here:  FB - /SteadyStateNetwork IG - @SteadyStateNetwork BLUESKY - steadystatenetwork.bsky.social FB - /AllieswithOars IG - @AllieswithOars Connect on FB and IG with the hosts: Rachel Freedman - @RowSource Tara Morgan - @CmonBarber  

In this deeply moving and inspiring episode of the Tough Girl Podcast, we're joined by Sophie Pierce, a 32-year-old social worker from Pembrokeshire, West Wales, who made history in March 2025 as the first person with Cystic Fibrosis to row an ocean. Diagnosed at just 3 months old, Sophie has lived with the challenges of a genetic condition that affects her lungs and digestive system and once carried a life expectancy of under 30 years. But Sophie's story is not defined by limitation—it's a bold testament to resilience, courage, and the power of hope. From working in fostering services to hiking the Welsh coast with her dogs, swimming in cold water, and sleeping in her campervan—Sophie has never shied away from living life on her terms.  In this episode, she opens up about the life-changing impact of the Kaftrio drug trial, how she overcame mental health struggles, and what it truly meant to embrace life beyond the horizon by rowing across the Atlantic. She shares the highs and lows of the row: the months of preparation, team dynamics, magical moments at sea, and how it feels to return to "normal life" after an extraordinary adventure. Sophie's message is powerful and universal—you are capable of so much more than you think. If you're looking for inspiration, perspective, and an honest exploration of living—and thriving—with a life-limiting condition, this episode is not to be missed.  New episodes of the Tough Girl Podcast drop every Tuesday at 7 AM (UK time)! Make sure to subscribe so you never miss the inspiring journeys and incredible stories of tough women pushing boundaries.  Do you want to support the Tough Girl Mission to increase the amount of female role models in the media in the world of adventure and physical challenges? Support via Patreon! Join me in making a difference by signing up here: www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast.  Your support makes a difference.  Thank you x Show notes Who is Sophie 32 years old Living in Pembrokeshire, West Wales  Working as a social worker in fostering service Living with a genetic health condition - Cystic Fibrosis (CF) March 2025 - becoming the first person with CF to row an ocean What is CF Being born with it and getting diagnosed at 3 months old   Having a shorter lifespan  How CF affects her lungs and digestive system  Living with reduced lung function  Her younger years and how she was treated  Why exercise and being out in the fresh air is actively encouraged Not liking exercise as a child Growing up knowing she had CF and why it was normal Being empowered with CF and how her parents encouraged her Her mum reminding her to stay as well as she could for as long as she could, so she could benefit from treatments in the future.  Learning about her shorter life expectancy and managing those feelings  Adopting a positive attitude - being determined to live her life and not letting CF hold her back  Wanting to make the most of her time  Understanding that time is precious  Not needing a pension, savings or need to put down roots  The help and support available to help manage the mental and emotional challenges Experiencing panic attacks while her health was declining  Working with a psychologist  Using tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Feeling frightened of letting the big feelings of sadness in Feeling so sad about living with CF   The drug trial - 5 years ago  Taking the Kaftrio drug  The challenges of winter for CF patients  ‘The Purge' - coughing for 24 hrs How her life and lungs has changed  Trustee for CF Trust  Being asked to row an ocean  Forming a crew of 4 Stumbling blocks and being told no - by the World's Toughest Row Atlantic Dash  Securing the finances and managing the stress of getting to the start line Her biggest fear and worrying about staying well enough to do the row  Getting out on to the ocean. Having electrical issues with the boat  Name of the boat - The Spirit of Bluestone  Magical moments on the Atlantic Ocean  Day 46 coming to the end of the row  Rowing schedule and needing to get extra sleep during the night  The challenges of team dynamics Finding their roles within the group Being the social secretary and bringing fun to the boat The biggest lesson from rowing the ocean You can do so much more than you think you can  Being supported by the right people around you Dealing with the adventure blues How life in weird after rowing an ocean Being in a really exciting place Future challenges?! Words of advice from the CF perspective  Learning to life with CF How to connect with Sophie You are capable of so much more than you think you are Learn to reframe the negative voices in your head   Social Media Instagram @sophiefpierce  @cruisingfree2025   

3 Scottish brothers Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan who just completed a NON STOP row across the Pacific Ocean, rowing 9,000 miles from Peru to Australia, taking them 139 days to complete. Surviving on only fresh caught fish and freeze dried meals, they overcame seasickness and crazy tropical storms which threw one of them overboard one night. Superstar Mark Wahlberg caught wind of this incredible story and have been following the brothers journey for a while and now plans on making a movie about their story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unite has called a strike over its public sector pay dispute and says it comes after the Government cancelled its most recent meeting at short notice, and also didn't respond to correspondence. In response, Number Six says it will "not act irresponsibly with public money" and allow the community to be "held to ransom". Iain Triay Clarence has been covering the story.Active Travel Month begins Monday! This new community initiative invites individuals, families, clubs, schools, companies and organisations to replace short car journeys with walking, cycling, running or scooting. Stuart Hedley came up with the idea and told us how it'll work.PJI and Kusuma will be hosting workshops in response to two command papers issued by the government, they propose repealing the charity's act with a modern version, alongside new regulations covering accounting, reporting and external scrutiny. We spoke to Jose Julio Pisharello of the Gibraltar Charity Commission.Two young rowers will be taking on a 24 hour challenge to raise money for Cancer Relief. Thomas Zammit and Maia Norton represent the Calpe Rowing Club and explained how the challenge will work and why they've chosen to support Cancer Relief.And we have a chat about the announcement that the government is putting premium personalised number plates up for auction with reserve prices starting at £10,000. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special episode of Talking Politics, Tom Bradby is joined by Scotland Correspondent Peter Smith to discuss Reform, immigration and Nigel Farage's latest ‘flip-flop'.Why did Mr Farage today change his tune on his party's immigration policy for women and children, after saying at a press conference just yesterday that ‘absolutely anyone' who comes here illegally will be detained and deported? How do Reform's immigration policies in general hold up to scrutiny? And why could tackling the small boats crisis determine which party wins the next general election?You can catch up with the latest episode of Talking Politics on ITVX, YouTube, or on your favourite podcast platform.Got a question for the team? Email talkingpolitics@itv.com and we'll answer them on our Talking Politics Q&A show.

Hockey. Football. Rowing. What do each of these sports have in common? They're all team sports. Perhaps you've heard “there's no ‘i' in team.” Win together, lose together, the important thing is not the winning or losing, but the fact that you're doing it together. Similarly, the Bible calls believers to live life together, leaning on one another through good times and bad. Pastor Ken teaches on this principle today, that we weren't meant to go through life alone. We were made for a strong, supportive community.

Like plenty of other college rowers, Jordan Hanssen felt he had more to prove on the water. So after graduation he committed to training with a goal of making the National Team. But when he spotted a flier in the boathouse challenging rowers to take on an ocean, the trajectory of his rowing career – and life – changed completely. We sat down with Jordan to talk about his 2006 World Record-setting Atlantic row, and a second Atlantic crossing that ended with a  capsized boat in the Bermuda Triangle. But the story of the boat – named for his late father and outfitted with scientific instruments and satellite communications – didn't end there.    QUICK LOOK 00:00 - Episode intro and banter 02:04 - Rowing Week  03:19 - The Huddle 03:51 - Hot Seat Q&A 08:39 - Oar the Rainbow de-brief 12:21 - Rowing Origin Story: learning to row in college and a very memorable first head race  15:07 - From National team dreams to pulling together a team for a race across the Atlantic, and creating OAR Northwest 19:31 - Setting a Guinness World Record; rowing the Atlantic a second time with a new purpose 23:31 - CWF Africa to the Americas Expedition: Dakar, Senegal bound for Miami, FL capsized 72 days in 25:56 - The “10 most cowboy days” of Jordan's life searching for, finding, and retrieving, the boat 28:08 - The boat's namesake, its last mission and “funeral,” and handling grief 37:36 - Seeking to make OAR Northwest: The Film 39:47 - Connect with Jordan 40:45 - Wrapping up his pandemic project Tiny Boat Sessions 43:04 - Steady State Network news and notes 45:50 - Outtake . To see photos of Jordan, his teammates, and their boat the James Robert Hanssen, and get links to the people, organizations, and events mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes on our website. . This episode was made possible in part by Breakwater Realty, RowSource, and our Patrons. . Steady State Podcast is hosted and edited by Rachel Freedman and Tara Morgan. Tara provides additional audio engineering, books show guests, and is our sponsor and donor coordinator. Rachel writes our scripts and e-newsletter, and manages the website and social media. Our theme music is by Jonas Hipper. . SHOP SSN GEAR: www.steadystatenetwork.com/shop SIGN UP FOR THE SSN NEWSLETTER: www.steadystatenetwork.com/newsletter MAKE A DIFFERENCE: www.steadystatenetwork.com/support  Check out more Steady State Network here:  FB - /SteadyStateNetwork IG - @SteadyStateNetwork BLUESKY - steadystatenetwork.bsky.social FB - /AllieswithOars IG - @AllieswithOars Connect on FB and IG with the hosts: Rachel Freedman - @RowSource Tara Morgan - @CmonBarber  

If your knees don't bend more than 90 degrees, what can you do? Ways to get more reach in the stroke if you have knee limitations. Timestamps 00:45 A 70 year old with osteoarthritis in both knees asks how to get more reach. Recognise where your comfort zone is where you are capable of pushing your limits. As you roll forward into the catch your ankles, pelvis and lower body also need to bend. You can do a functional movement assessment to understand your mobility in those other joints - and whether they can be made more flexible using sports massage, stretching or osteopathy. Functional Movement Assessment - free - https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/functional-movement-assessment/ 03:00 3 ways to get more compression The ideal is to get shins vertical at the catch with your heels lifted, back leaning forwards so your shoulders are sternward of your hips. 1 - Measure the shoe to seat height - typically it would be 15-16 cm for a woman of your height. Increase this to over 17cm by lowering the shoes and/or raising the seat with a 1 cm high seat pad. Beware low shoes may mean your calves hit the deck of the boat which isn't comfortable. Test this out on a rowing machine first - use a mirror to see the effect it has. 2 - Change the rake or angle of the footstretcher. Most are around 42-45 degrees. Making it shallower may enable you to get more compression - but it's impacted by your ankle flexibility. Osteopaths are good at both soft tissue massage and bone manipulation - show them a photo of rowing to explain what you're trying to achieve. I brush my teeth daily squatting on the floor to improve my ankle flexibility trying to keep my feet flat on the floor. 3 - If you buy your own seat, you can unscrew the seat top from the undercarriage and insert batons of wood to raise the seat. Check the track widths on the boats you use first so you know the seat will work in multiple boats (generally small boats have narrower track widths than larger boats). 10:30 Rigging adaptations The arc the oar travels through around the oarlock can be adjusted. Move the pivot point closer to the handle (try 1 or 2 cm). This enables your handle to move further around the arc - shortening the inboard relative to the outboard. But don't increase the load (gearing) a lot = keep the ratio of the length of outboard to inboard the same. By using slightly shorter oars than your crew mates and a shorter inboard, you can increase the arc that the tip of your blade moves through each stroke. You will need to change your footstretcher too - closer to the stern. Keep the gap between your handles at the finish the same. Mike Davenport explains more on the Rigging for Masters expert webinar. https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/rigging/ You may also look at increasing your layback / back swing too. Talk this through with your coach.

Do you advocate for customers? How often? To what degree? Do customers bear witness to instances where you deliver on advocating for them, or do they just hear empty words? We all have inter-company directives, goals, and objectives, but the employees don't chip in and pay invoices for the goods and services we provide to customers. So, why don't we put the customer needs above ours? Afterall, customers pay the invoices that fuel our paychecks! Sometimes priorities can be really simple!Support the show

Ash, Luttsy and Nikki discuss how they use AI in their daily lives. The Maclean Brothers rowing team calls in from the middle of the Pacific ocean. The brothers chat about their 8,000 mile journey from Peru to raise money for clean water. Plus, the hosts crown their favourite caller of the week. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about the podcast hereLearn more about Give Him Fifteen hereSupport the show

Tonight, we settle into the slow, measured strokes of rowing—a sport that blends grace, strength, and endurance. Host Benjamin Boster guides you through the gentle world of oars, waterways, and the quiet discipline of synchronized motion. Let the steady rhythm carry you away. Happy sleeping! Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Rowing (sport), available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia - Rowing (sport). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris is a husband and father, a writer, and a former competitive rower that has competed internationally. Our conversation ranges from him stepping into his power, how he's evolved, showing up to support his wife, his experience as a competitive rower, and the crime fiction trilogy that he's written, as well as much more. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-johns-2abba12/ Other: Reach him at chris.johns2019@gmail.com

In those times when believers struggle with life, it's good to remember others alongside us. Scripture: Hebrews 11:29-12:2Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/fbcjc8-17s Worship guide: https://tinyurl.com/fbcjc8-17p

Rowing a quad, four or an eight? To get good speed and rhythm, you must have good finishes. Timestamps 00:45 Finishes for big boats You row them differently than small boats. Finish together - all the oars come out of the water at the same time. Is everyone exactly in time? If not, look at what people are doing with the handle - what happens in the water is directly affected by what is happening on the handle. Some athletes may be dragging their handles downwards to take the oars out of the water. Big boats move fast and this is one of the reasons why big boats are rowed differently than small boats. If you take the pressure off the tip of the spoon early the mound of water in front of the blade and the pocket behind the blade start to equalise. The water quickly starts to equalise in height and you may feel it's harder to get the oar out of the water. Keep pressure on the face of the blade is key to enabling a smooth extraction. 03:30 Dragging the blade Signs you may be dragging at the blade end - if the bottom edge flicks water as it comes out at the finish. Also you may be feathering the blade out of the water - if it turns in order to extract rather than extracting first and then turns in the air. If your oar is close to the surface after the finish this may be a sign that you're dragging the blade out. It should be cleanly extracted and move high above the water surface before you feather. 04:45 Improve finishes Try square blade rowing. This is a discipline which is rewarded in the long term as it helps you fix blade dragging and getting the oar out of the water cleanly. Before starting, check when sitting stationary that your foot stretcher is set up correctly (all port side parallel). Back of the seat back wheel is 58-62 cm behind the face of the pin [ask us if you don't know what this is]. When rowing square blades it's important to know where your handle should be at the finish before extraction. In sweep the outside hand position is key and in sculling, the gap between your handles. - hold onto the finish 1cm longer than before - helps acceleration and holding the oar under the water - square blade rowing 07:00 Boat not level It's hard to do a good finish if the boat isn't level at the finish. Check your handle position at the finish when the boat is stationary to find where the correct place is. In sweep, check your outside elbow pointing behind you and inside forearm at approx. 90 degrees to the oar shaft at the finish. Outside arm should not be flared over the side of the boat because this inhibits your ability to control the handle height with your outside hand. Remember inside hand square/feather and outside hand controls the handle height in sweep. In both sweep and sculling if your elbow is lower than your wrist it's hard to put downward pressure on the handle and is a sign you are rigged too high and need to adjust. 08:30 Square blade rowing When rowing square blades the height differences show up when the boat isn't level. The level finish and square blade rowing work together - if one is off the other is likely off as well. When the boat isn't level it shows up differences in your finish timing and also handle heights. Go back and fix these first as a means to improving your square blade rowing. Learn Square Blade Rowing in our online course https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/square-blades-challenge/

Originally aired on August 15, 2025   Yes, we had an awkward start. It happens to the best of us.   Topics of Discussion: The row between Steam and payment processors rages on Artists banned from using Adobe services for uploading lewd stuff Denmark zoo asks for people to donate their animals to feed the predators A bargain bin Palworld knockoff and a good, high production value one   Hosts: Jolt Noble Aeveirra

Let us know what you think! Text us!Rowing across the Pacific Ocean isn't just about endurance—it's a battle of the mind, body, and spirit. In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, we sit down with the team from Corsair Racing to uncover what it really takes to survive and thrive in one of the world's most grueling challenges: ocean rowing.From the brutal reality of day five—when exhaustion, unpredictable seas, and mental strain collide—to the unbreakable bonds forged between veterans, this conversation dives deep into teamwork, resilience, and personal growth. We explore how pushing beyond physical limits can transform lives, strengthen mental health, and inspire purpose long after the oars are put away.Discover the mission behind Corsair Racing, their vision for supporting veterans through adventure, and why community and camaraderie are essential to overcoming life's biggest waves—both on the water and off.

A boat that's not set up correctly can quietly limit your stroke, comfort, and performance. In this episode, we highlight the most frequent setup issues rowers face—from foot stretcher height to gate position, oar length, heel depth, and more. You'll learn how each adjustment affects your stroke angles and overall feel—and how to spot problems early, whether you're on land or on the water.We also explain the reasoning behind each tweak, so you're not just copying settings—you're understanding them. Decent Rowing Members can go deeper with our exclusive video collection, where we demonstrate the key concepts in action and show you how to get your setup right, step by step.www.decentrowing.com Support the show

Today on the radio show. 1 - An update on Jay 4 - Vegetable soup spill 8 - D1NZ news 9 - Nickname Ninjas vol. 9 13 - Rowing from New York to the UK 15 - A new job for you? http://bit.ly/3USCwyz 20 - VHS dating profiles - Ronnie 22 - Late mail 24 - Last drinks Must Watch - Untold: Hope Solo vs US Soccer - https://bit.ly/4oy7TfD Get in touch with us: https://linktr.ee/therockdrive

3 weather data points you need to know in advance whether you can row the next day. Timestamps 00:45 Rowing is weather-dependent Mostly we want to know in advance and apps are useful. What should you be looking out for? Easy choices are - will it be sunny or raining? However the really important data is wind speed and wind direction for the time you plan on going rowing. Also consider air temperature / water temperature plus tide if you row on a tidal waterway. 02:30 Sailing apps are useful WindFinder and WindGuru both track wind (designed for sailing). They layer information such as a map graph animated to show wind movements over time. Wind Direction Where I row if the wind is coming from the East and is above 10 knots speed we can get on the water. This direction blows straight onto our pontoon. Finding the wind shadow on our lake can enable us to row when winds are higher. Wind Speed The limits for us are about 12 knots for big boats, less for singles and doubles/pairs. The WindFinder app shows gusting wind speeds as well as the base wind speed. This enables us to interpret the data in a more nuanced way. Knowing the time of high and low tide is helpful too (for our other boathouse location) because low tide means navigation is more congested and hazardous. 05:50 YR is a new app This is a Norwegian app - using the same base data points but their own unique algorithm to forecast ahead. Where I live the weather can often move through quicker than forecast. This app is much more accurate than the others and it also gives hourly updates rather than 3 hour increments. Finally- when you thin the weather is going to be marginal, we found that deciding whether to row when you're at the rowing club is better than trying to decide the night before. Decide In The Shed; Not In Bed is our mantra. Want easy live streams like this? Instant broadcasts to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Faster Masters uses StreamYard: https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5694205242376192

Comedian Dion Owen is at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to combine his two passions, cycling and stand-up. Mark meets Dion before his show to find out more about his free bike programme for Fringe artists.Gardening expert Julie-Ann Henderson is trying to encourage more young people to consider horticulture as a career. She established the first North of Scotland garden show this year and Rachel catches up with her at her home near Keith.Ingrid Shearer is co-author of the A-Z of Rowing on the Clyde, an ebook that tells a myriad of stories about rowing, sport, Glasgow and the River Clyde. Mark meets Ingrid on the banks of the Clyde to discover more about the river that's been home to the city's rowing community for over 200 years.Our mid-week podcast excerpt this week comes from the final section of the Whithorn Way, as Rachel and Mark reach Whithorn Priory.Rachel joins a workshop organised by the North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership which is all about identifying wildflowers and harvesting their seeds. She chats to John Malster in Newtonhill close to Aberdeen on a plot which is slowly being transformed to become more nature friendly.Buglife's Paul Hetherington joins Mark and Rachel to talk about why we might be seeing more wasps this year and the importance of the insects to our environment.Mark dons his life vest and joins Pete Mowforth and Kat Kjos of Glasgow Rowing Club to learn about race rowing on the Club's training boat.For the last few years, Stonehaven's land train has been out of action. Now, it's back in business and Rachel hops aboard to find out how the Stoney Express got back on the road.

(00:00) Rowing Into Medicine(11:15) Preparing for Medical School Application Process(19:02) Deciding on Medical School Location(32:38) Navigating the Medical School Application Process(36:03) Balancing Health and Medical School(42:25) Exploring Radiology in Medical TrainingPodcast SummaryMeredith's journey to medical school is anything but ordinary. Imagine dedicating years to elite rowing, even qualifying for the Olympic trials, only to pivot back to the academic world with the same determination and discipline. This episode captures Meredith's inspiring transition from the rigors of high-intensity athletics to the equally challenging demands of medical training. Her tale is one of resilience and adaptability, providing insights that resonate with anyone contemplating a non-traditional path in their career or education.We dive into the nuances of applying to medical school as a non-traditional student, drawing from Meredith's experiences. Her story is filled with serendipitous moments, like reconnecting with a former advisor who guided her through both her biochemistry undergrad and now medical school. The conversation touches on the strategic maneuvers needed to tackle prerequisites, recommendation letters, and the MCAT, all while leveraging the persistence honed from rowing. Meredith's perspective is not only a testament to the power of pursuing one's passions but also a roadmap for navigating the complexities of medical school applications.Choosing a medical school involves more than just academics; it's about finding the right fit in terms of location, community, and opportunities. Meredith shares her thoughtful decision-making process, which included staying close to family, focusing on MD programs, and valuing research prospects. Her journey at Carle Illinois College of Medicine is a reflection of her strategic planning and genuine passion for both medicine and maintaining a balanced lifestyle. Listen as she shares her insights on balancing health with the demands of medical school, all while exploring future opportunities in radiology and beyond.

In this episode we sit down with Gosia Bieniek from Light Blue Clinic & Susie Dear former GB rower in a panel to discuss how nutrition and training around the menstrual cycle can aid the performance.Light Blue Clinic has just released a course for individuals and organisations to make the most of the information provided here and below. View the courses here: https://www.lightblue.clinic/challengesAbout Gosia: Gosia Bieniek is a Sports Performance Director and co-owner of a first cryotherapy centre called Light Blue Clinic based in Cambridge, UK. Her work focuses on female athletes, training according to menstrual cycle and screening for LEA (Low Energy Availability) and RED-S. She is a Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cambridge University Boat Club (men's side) and coaches a variety of individual clients including female master rowers. Gosia holds an MSc in Strength and Conditioning and BSc in Sport and Exercises Science plus various soft tissue and sports massage qualifications. She gained her clinical experience working at Spire Lea Hospital in Cambridge with BUPA as a health advisor. About Susie:Susie's story began back in 2012 at Oxford Brookes University, where she first learnt to row. Over the next 10 years, she went on to row with Sydney Rowing Club, Leander Club, and ultimately trained and raced with the British Rowing Team. Along the way, she had some incredible experiences, including winning a bronze medal at World Cup III and becoming a two-time Henley Royal Regatta winner. During the 2021–2022 season, Susie struggled with RED-s while training full time with the British Team (which ultimately contributed to her retirement from the sport in 2024). This challenging period opened her eyes to the importance of athlete welfare and health. Since retiring from rowing and becoming a mum, she has been dedicated to supporting the welfare needs of athletes. Susie works at Oxford Brookes University, where she provides care for student-athletes in distress. About the course:Female athletes are more prone to develop a complicated relationship with food due to the unrealistic expectations of social media, society or peer pressure. Therefore, it is essential to equip athletes with various tools that would help with early detection of undereating. It's also advisable to pay an extra attention to young athletes who are going through growth development and light weight rowers who must train with a significantly lower energy intake than open weight. Low energy availability (LEA) and relative energy deficiency in sports can impact both genders, however the sole purpose of this course is to focus on female physiology.LEA and RED-s courses for female rowers are a comprehensive guide to an early management and detection of disordered eating which can be detrimental for health. Both courses have been designed for parents, coaches, athletes or organisations who are serious about finding out more about preventative measurements or solutions to aid with an early detection of LEA or RED-S.The material covers all of the essential subjects linked with eating habits and training's energy demands. Every module contains a video, slide and a description, additionally at the bottom of the course users can find documents and other resources to download. There are two different courses to chose from one is for individuals and the second one for organisations like sports clubs or universities.

Barrie Cassidy has been a familiar and trusted voice in Australian journalism for decades. He is continuing his advocacy for Australian democracy through a new education called Democracy in a Box.

Fluent Fiction - Spanish: Rowing in Circles: A Summertime Adventure in Retiro Park Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/es/episode/2025-08-04-22-34-02-es Story Transcript:Es: El sol brillaba intensamente sobre el Parque del Retiro en Madrid.En: The sun shone intensely over Parque del Retiro in Madrid.Es: El verano estaba en todo su esplendor, y el estanque del parque estaba lleno de barcas de remo.En: Summer was in its full splendor, and the park's pond was full of rowing boats.Es: Entre las risas de niños y el canto de los pájaros, Inés y Mateo se preparaban para su carrera anual en bote.En: Amid the laughter of children and the song of the birds, Inés and Mateo were getting ready for their annual boat race.Es: Inés era una chica competitiva.En: Inés was a competitive girl.Es: Su objetivo era claro: ganarle a Mateo.En: Her goal was clear: beat Mateo.Es: Siempre había sido así desde que empezaron esta tradición.En: It had always been this way since they started this tradition.Es: Mateo, por otro lado, solo quería disfrutar del día.En: Mateo, on the other hand, just wanted to enjoy the day.Es: A él le encantaba el ambiente del parque, la frescura del verano y el placer de remar, sin preocuparse mucho por quién ganaría.En: He loved the park's atmosphere, the freshness of summer, and the pleasure of rowing, without worrying too much about who would win.Es: Cuando la carrera comenzó, Inés tomó las riendas del bote.En: When the race began, Inés took control of the boat.Es: "¡Vamos, Mateo, rema más rápido!En: "Let's go, Mateo, row faster!"Es: ", exclamaba, mientras Mateo sonreía, moviendo los remos con lentitud.En: she exclaimed, while Mateo smiled, moving the oars slowly.Es: Pero algo inesperado sucedió.En: But something unexpected happened.Es: La barca parecía tener vida propia.En: The boat seemed to have a mind of its own.Es: En lugar de avanzar, giraba en círculos.En: Instead of moving forward, it spun in circles.Es: Inés frunció el ceño y decidió que ella misma sería responsable de remar.En: Inés frowned and decided that she would be responsible for rowing herself.Es: "¡Déjame a mí!"En: "Let me do it!"Es: le dijo a Mateo, tomando ambos remos.En: she said to Mateo, taking both oars.Es: Pero la situación empeoró.En: But the situation worsened.Es: Con cada remada enérgica, el bote perdía el control y el giro se hacía más cerrado.En: With each energetic stroke, the boat lost control and the spins became tighter.Es: El clímax llegó cuando Inés, con desesperación, empujó los remos con toda su fuerza, y la barca chocó con otro bote cercano, justo cuando una pareja de turistas tomaba una foto.En: The climax came when Inés, in desperation, pushed the oars with all her might, and the boat collided with another nearby, just as a couple of tourists were taking a photo.Es: El agua salpicó por doquier, empapando a Inés, Mateo y a los sorprendidos turistas, quien por fortuna también rieron del accidente.En: Water splashed everywhere, soaking Inés, Mateo, and the surprised tourists, who fortunately also laughed at the mishap.Es: El plan de Inés para ganar se desmoronó en medio de chapoteos y risas.En: Inés' plan to win unraveled amidst splashes and laughter.Es: Viendo la situación, Mateo estalló en carcajadas.En: Seeing the situation, Mateo burst out laughing.Es: Inés, al principio molesta, no pudo evitar unirse a él.En: Inés, initially annoyed, couldn't help but join him.Es: En ese momento, entendió algo importante: a veces, el camino es más divertido que la meta.En: In that moment, she understood something important: sometimes, the journey is more fun than the destination.Es: Así, entre risas y con el reflejo del sol en el agua, la carrera se olvidó.En: Thus, with laughter and the reflection of the sun on the water, the race was forgotten.Es: Inés decidió que disfrutar del día con Mateo era mucho mejor que cualquier victoria.En: Inés decided that enjoying the day with Mateo was much better than any victory.Es: En el Parque del Retiro, ese día de verano, Inés aprendió a abrazar la diversión por encima de la competencia, al menos por un rato.En: At Parque del Retiro, that summer day, Inés learned to embrace fun over competition, at least for a while. Vocabulary Words:the pond: el estanquethe laughter: las risasthe song: el cantocompetitive: competitivathe goal: el objetivothe tradition: la tradiciónthe atmosphere: el ambientethe pleasure: el placerthe oars: los remosto spin: girarthe circles: los círculosto frown: fruncir el ceñoto worsen: empeorarthe stroke: la remadathe climax: el clímaxto collide: chocarthe couple: la parejato splash: salpicarto soak: empaparthe mishap: el accidenteto unravel: desmoronarseto burst out: estallarannoyed: molestato embrace: abrazarthe destination: la metato forget: olvidarthe victory: la victoriato enjoy: disfrutarto understand: entenderfor a while: por un rato

We would love to pray for you! Please send us your request here. --------Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible. Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org. Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

In this episode of 'Sader Stories Kevin Gehl sits down with Men's Rowing head coach Jim Barr, Jack Petrus '26, and William Ahmuty '65 to discuss the Henley Regatta.

It's one of the most common yet overlooked faults in rowing technique: rushing into the catch. From eager novices to elite athletes chasing precision, this habit creeps in—and it costs speed, rhythm, and recovery. In this episode, we unpack what “rushing the catch” really means, why it appears across various experience levels, and how it disrupts both boat feel and stroke efficiency.You'll hear coaching insights, athlete experiences, and practical techniques to restore control and timing in your recovery phase. Additionally, we've curated a companion video collection for Decent Rowing Members that visually breaks down the problem—and the solution—so you can grasp the concepts both on and off the water.www.decentrowing.com Support the show

These guys have been rowing across the Atlantic and they've had a bit of a rough time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When faced with intense physical pain and suffering including severe toothaches and swelling in her face, a practitioner in China redoubled her efforts in Fa study, and began to see the suffering as a gift. She was then able to progress in her cultivation. This and other experience-sharing from the Minghui website. Original Articles:1. Rowing […]

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Sitting down with Ash Pryor is like sitting down with burst of good energy. Brought the Peloton rowing instructor into the studio this week to talk about how she maintains a positive mindset, feels like her most strong and confident self, and the importance of staying true to your gut. She opens up about what it's like for her to teach and live as a bigger-bodied instructor, and what she hopes her presence teaches those that take her classes. IN THIS EPISODE(5:40) Ash talks about joining the rowing team at The Ohio State University(6:30) Emily and Ash define "NARP" (Non-Athletic Regular People)(8:28) What it is about rowing that brings Ash peace(11:00) What it was like for Ash to be one of three Black women on her collegiate team(14:30) How Ash navigated her mental health as a walk-on turned B1G champion(21:40) Ash shares the lessons she's learned about the importance of having grace with herself, and where she learned how to be compassionate with herself(25:55) Ash talks about her experience with Hashimoto's Disease and what her symptoms look like(31:20) Ash talks about the resiliency she's learned being an athlete(44:00) How Ash deals with negative feedback(55:00) What Ash learned running her first half-marathon earlier this year(55:22) How Ash shows up to give all she's got on the days when she's not feeling so shiny and bright.SOCIAL@ashpryor_thatsme⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@emilyabbate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hurdlepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠OFFERSLMNT | Head to DrinkLMNT.com/Hurdle to get a free sample pack of their most popular flavors with your purchaseAG1 | Go drinkAG1.com/hurdle to get 5 free travel packs of NextGen AG1, a year's supply of AG D3/K2, and a welcome kit with your purchaseJOIN: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Daily Hurdle IG Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SIGN UP: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Weekly Hurdle Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ASK ME A QUESTION: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email hello@hurdle.us to ask me a question!⁠⁠⁠

How to use your glutes in rowing. Timestamps 00:45 Are your glutes activating? David Frost (webinar speaker - Functional Movement for over 60s) said Are your glutes 'along for the ride'? https://fastermastersrowing.com/member-register/functional-strength-and-movement/ Are your glutes working - how do you know if they are working? Watch video of yourself rowing - check your legs are pressing down flat and your arms draw. But can you see your back swing? Are you starting leaning forward and do your shoulders move dynamically? Activating the back swing uses the glutes. They are the hinge that connects your legs to your back. 02:30 Legs initiate the drive The power phase starts with your legs and when you get to a point where your legs are very nearly straight, you should be beginning your back swing. If it's passive and isn't accelerating the oar through the water (if the water mound in front of the spoon reduces) you aren't using your back enough to go faster than the boat is currently going through the water. Your body has to move quicker than the blade to keep pressure on the face of the oar spoon. 03:30 Why glutes matter If your back is passive then you've probably lost connection to the foot stretcher. When you do activate your glutes you're recruiting extra muscles to power your stroke. But it's hard to activate the glutes. Strengthening the glutes is also important so we can make them really useful. Christiano Ronaldo the footballer was warming up with glute activations - this is interesting - an elite pro athlete still feels the need to activate his glutes before starting playing. 06:00 Exercises for glute strength 1 - Clamshell - lie on your side on the floor, knees bent and ankles pressed together. Raise and lower the upper knee. Swap sides. 2 - Fire Hydrant - kneeling on all fours with hands below the shoulders. Lift one knee out to the side with a bent leg. Raise and lower the knee keeping the ankle at the same height as the knee. 3 - Crab Walk - Using a gym elastic band across your thighs, crouch down a little and walk sideways 10 steps in each direction. 08:00 How to activate glutes for rowing First know how to activate the muscle and know what it feels like when it is working before trying it in the boat. When approaching the catch clench your bum (butt). You are looking for the feeling of 'holding in a fa*t and you don't want to let it out'. This activates the muscles and when you drive with your legs, the muscles are engaged. Watch the numbers on the erg first - do 10 strokes approaching the catch first. Then do normal rowing without clenching for 10 strokes. For an improved back swing, the body swing only drill is good to do - get a video of it free from the Coach Mastermind course.

The Bish Rowing Club is now managing the St. Joseph's 'The Bish' School car park as a fundraising initiative to help replace their ageing fleet of boats.  As a school-based club, they rely entirely on community support and fundraising. Formed in 1932, the club has a proud tradition in Galwya, nurturing generations of student rovers.  With the growing popularity of rowing among young people, the club hope sto expand access and improve training with updated equipment. Orla Quigley from Bish Rowing Club joined Galway Bay FM's Darren Kelly on the QFinancial.ie Saturday Sports Show to explain more. == The St. Joseph's 'The Bish' School Grounds car park (EIRCODE H91C3X5) is open from 8am-8pm, seven days per week, with parking at just €2.50 per hour.  Full day rates are also available and all proceeds go directly to the Bish Rowing Club Boat Fund. Whether you're in town for the Arts Festival, Galway Races, exploring the city, shopping, or meeting friends for coffee, lunch, or dinner — park with a purpose and support local youth sport!

Exercising with a rowing machine can be a great way to improve aerobic endurance and burn calories. But it might not be the best exercise machine for you. In this episode, Get-Fit Guy looks at 2 pros and 2 cons of using a rowing machine.This Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Dr. Jonathan Su. A transcript is available at Simplecast.Find Get-Fit Guy on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the newsletter for more fitness tips.Get-Fit Guy is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.Links:https://www.quickanddirtytips.comhttps://www.quickanddirtytips.com/get-fit-guy-newsletterhttps://www.facebook.com/GetFitGuyhttps://twitter.com/GetFitGuyhttps://sixminutefitness.com/

At 92 years of age, Richard Morgan was a four-time world champion in indoor rowing.

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Hi there! Feel free to drop us a text if you enjoy the episode.In this episode of the New England Endurance Podcast, host Art Trapotsis sits down with George Munger, the director the Tufts University rowing program and men's head coach, to explore what makes Tufts one of the most successful and admired rowing teams in the country.George shares his personal journey into the sport and offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Tufts Rowing has evolved into a championship-caliber program. From multiple national titles on both the men's and women's teams (head coach, Lily Siddall) to coaching accolades to groundbreaking use of technology and community outreach, this conversation dives into the core philosophies and practices that set Tufts apart.Listeners will learn about:* The long-term effort behind Tufts' recent dominance on the water as DIII national champs* Recruiting insights: How Tufts prioritizes athlete enthusiasm and love for movement in recruiting* The integration of strength training to prevent injury and boost performance* Innovative use of technology, like the Peach system, for real-time performance feedback* How the team strategically peaks for major races and balances data with intuition in crew selection* Meaningful community engagement, including environmental efforts like Malden River cleanups* George's goals for the future—including building a deeper team culture and increasing alumni involvementWhether you're a rower, coach, or endurance athlete looking for insights into elite team building, this episode is full of lessons from one of the top minds in the sport.Art & Eric embark on a journey to showcase and celebrate the endurance sports community in New England.

Mark visits a Moray estate to hear about the incredible rescue of 3 osprey chicks after wildfires raged through vast areas of the Highlands and neighbouring MorayCampaigner David Brown specialises in removing fishing debris from our beaches, Rachel pops along to Cairnbulg Harbour by Fraserburgh to find out about his ghost net campaignMark visits the National Museum of Flight in East Lothian as they celebrate their 50th anniversary. He speaks to curator Ian Brown about the Avro Vulcan bomber and gets himself a 1st class seat onboard Concorde.In Dundee, a new digital Whalers' Memory Bank has been launched sharing stories from folk who were involved in the industry during the 50's and 60's. One of the contributors, former whaler John Alexander shares some of his experiences with Rachel alongside Helen Balfour, assistant curator from the South Georgia Museum.The rare bordered brown lacewing, is celebrating 200 years of first being discovered in Scotland. Conservation Officer from Species on The Edge, Fiona Basford joins Mark and Rachel to tell them about a special challenge looking for volunteers to report shared sightings of the invertebrate over 200 hours.Helen Needham is in a field near Dumbarton, with Maisie the horse and her owner Josie Vallely (also known as Quinie) an artist based in Glasgow. Josie spends her free time journeying with Maisie, enjoying the countryside of Scotland at Maisie's pace.Stranraer is hosting this year's Skiffie Worlds – an international rowing competition. Rachel is in Anstruther to meet some of those involved in what will be the largest gathering ever of St Ayles Skiffs to date!

Send us a textRowing champion turned MSP payment expert? Meet Tanner Cookson.

When morale problems affect a team, some leaders choose to make a big, rousing speech. But quite often, it's the quiet leader who leads with empathy that sees a better emotional solution.Gordon Schmidt is a retired Navy SEAL with enough combat experience to understand that empathy is an operational advantage, not a weakness. After 20 years of military service, he started his second act as a high school rowing coach. According to Gordo, be it coaching rowers or leading soldiers, the emotional lessons he's learned about leadership apply just the same.In this conversation, Gordo shares with me how to move on into a new chapter in life and why emotional intelligence in high-stress situations is often a leader's only way out.This…is A Bit of Optimism.For more on Gordon and his work, check out:San Diego Rowing Club

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