My unexpected path to life coaching

On a Sunday night in February 2003, my swimming career ended.

I swam my final event, the 200-yard butterfly, at the University of Pittsburgh in the East Coast Athletic Conference Championship meet. Just before my race, one of my coaches said to me, “Verser, your underwaters are the best part of your race. Use them to your advantage.”

For non-swimmers, this is the part of the race where you push off the wall and stay submerged before surfacing to swim. I had become an expert at this during my recovery from shoulder surgery the summer before, practicing endlessly, both horizontally and vertically, at my coach’s command.

The coach who gave me this advice had never, to my recollection, said it before. But that night, I heard it. I absorbed it. And I decided to trust her.

As Ashley, my training partner, and I waited behind the blocks for our respective heats, she grabbed my shoulders and said, “Oh my gosh, we’ll never get to do this again. You better make it worth it!” We laughed, and then she started to cry. I told her to knock it off or I’d start too. I looked up to the stands and gave my parents a big hug from afar, then walked up to the blocks for the final swim of my college career.

I licked my goggles, stretched my shoulders, popped my hips, and locked in.

The official called us up. We took our marks. The starter went off.

I swam the race of my life.

I can still see the side of that pool as I pushed my underwaters to the limit. I remember watching my competitors digging deep, matching my energy stroke for stroke. I don’t remember what place I finished in that heat, but I do know this: the points I scored pushed the University of New Hampshire from second to first, securing our championship title that night.

It was surreal. The kind of ending every athlete hopes for.

And yet, as I reflect on that night more than twenty years later, I don’t call it the best night of my life.

Because it wasn’t.

The following afternoon, I found out I had been accepted into a highly competitive graduate program. Just before the meet, I had traveled to Virginia, eight hours away from my team, to interview for a spot in a Marriage and Family Therapy program. Forty people interviewed. Only twelve would be accepted. And only six of us would find out that week.

I was one of the six.

While my team was celebrating our win, I was celebrating something else entirely. Something that felt like a sign. A new direction. A future coming into view.

But here’s what happened next.

I dropped out of that program after one semester.

Not because I wasn’t capable. But because I knew deep down that I wasn’t meant to sit in a room watching other people do therapy while I was in training. I wasn’t meant to observe from the sidelines. I was meant to be in it. Helping people in the messy, beautiful middle of their lives.

And that is what I have done.

First as a swim coach and teacher’s assistant. Then as a classroom teacher. Then back on the pool deck as a collegiate coach. Later, as a CrossFit coach and retail leader. In every role, I was supporting people. Guiding them. Believing in them before they fully believed in themselves.

Now I get to do that in the most aligned way yet. As a coach helping people break free from perfectionism, people-pleasing, and self-doubt so they can finally build the life they’ve been putting off.

The one that feels like theirs.

It took me a long time to get here. To trust myself. To stop doing what I was supposed to do and start doing what I was truly called to do.

But this is the work I was made for.