Our Story
I interact with a lot of parents in and around swim meets, soccer games and other sports activities. My daughter is a competitive swimmer, not a state champ, but committed to excelling in her chosen sport. As such, I’m at a lot of meets. You go, you learn, you figure out the process, when to get there, where to sit at each venue, how to position your towel to give yourself any breathing room you can get, how to set up a canopy tent for those outdoor meets, etc. People help you, the give you their tips and it becomes more and more a habit. Habit is actually the way that your brain keeps itself from being overworked. As soon as it figures out that an activity is repetitive, it relegates it to the body’s habit-building mechanism and moves on to other things.
So there I was, in the habit at a meet. I had gotten there 30 minutes before the door opened, fed my daughter a decent breakfast, found some space on the 5 row aluminum bleacher, spread out my towel for 5 (because I had unconsciously forgotten that there were only 2 of us at this meet), gotten the heat sheet and marked up my kid. As I sat patiently awaiting my daughter’s return from warm-ups, in walked a couple of dads with their two swimmers – late. Always a bad sign. As they walked toward my end of the pool, I realized for the first time that I had way more room than I needed and the four of them needed it, so I offered them the spots next to me and the fun began. They had never really looked at a heat sheet before. Their boys were late for warm-ups, they had a heat sheet, but hadn’t put the grid on. Next thing I know, the boys are yelling at their dads to “write my events on my arm like mom does so I can go warm up.” After about 30 seconds, I calmly offered to help…pulled out the heat sheet, drew the blank grid on the cover for them, labelled the oh so familiar “E/H/L” and set about searching for their boys’ events. They marked up their boys and off they went.
As I sat back and took a deep breath, it hit how idiotic that whole process is. More over, it occurred to me that it might jut be the dumbest thing I do all the time. Everyone does dumb things “one off,” but this dumb activity I did with alarming and thoughtless regularity. As an innovation coach, a consumer experience designer and, more importantly, a human, several things occurred to me all at once.
- All I really want to do at a meet is spend time with my daughter and those I know around me
- I never get that 10 minutes with my daughter right before the meet to get her psyched up to really race
- The heat sheet isn’t made for me, it’s just what I have to use. It’s made for the coaches…the only people who really care about knowing where and when everyone is swimming.
- Taking into account the hundreds of people at the meet and thousands of people around swimming who do this every weekend, there’s a lot of stress going around.
At the next meet, I went early, got a heat sheet, designed a grid, typed in the information, printed it on a piece of tattoo paper and slapped it on my daughter’s arm. Parents at the meet began asking me “what is that and how do I get one?” The next day I made seven more for other swimmers…and that’s where Envision began.
Since then, hundreds of people have spent more quality time with their children before a meet, engaged and excited, rather than stressed and hurried. They smile rather than frown and the kids enjoy their “cool” tattoo. Parents see their kids swim, know more about the events than before and celebrate instantly when achievements happen. Joy over stress, happiness over contention and excitement instead of worry. This is why Envision exists and we are thrilled to be able to bring additional joy and focus to those we serve! Be in the moment…there’s just so few of them, you can’t afford to miss one second.