I have not truly relaxed since 1978. In fact, I hate that word! The word “relax” in the same sentence with my name seems like an oxymoron. I am wrapped tight and proud of it! So imagine my dismay when my swim coach says to me “Beth, you are going to have to relax in the water.”
What?
This makes no sense to me. How do you go fast in the water and relax at the same time? When I asked my swim coach this question, he responded, “You let the water move you. Feel it supporting you.”
Wait…what?
After some consideration and time trying to reconcile this with my logical brain, I just surrendered to the concept and we began working on relaxing in the water. Much to my surprise, my coach was right! Once I began to relax into my swimming instead of pushing my performance, I actually moved more efficiently in the water with less effort, cutting 15 seconds off my 100 yard freestyle, and 11 seconds off my 100 yard backstroke.
As this lesson in life was presented to me, it also occurred to me that if I could encourage my clients to relax during the interview process, we might have similar results. I said to one of my clients the other day that he might think about relaxing while we are in the interview process. He looked at me like I had grown a third eye but agreed to try. The result I observed was that the interview process began to truly work for us and allowed the next amazing hire to come to the table faster, just like my swimming. And when they appeared, it was much easier to identify them!
I will keep working on relaxing in the water to improve my swimming. I encourage you to relax during the interview process to increase the likelihood of finding the right people for your team. In the end, I guess Yo-Yo Ma was right. “With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.”