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Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Overcoming Water Anxiety Starts With One Present Breath With Cori Myka
What if fear isn’t a stop sign but a signal to build better safety? We sit down with adult swim educator Cori Myka to unpack how confidence in water starts in the mind. From the moment you step onto the pool deck—pulse quickening, breath tightening—Cori shows why presence, not pressure, creates real progress. Instead of chanting “just do it,” we map out what makes it safe to try, define the feeling we’re chasing, and move forward with small, repeatable steps.
Cori’s story winds from a childhood steeped in swimming to a breakthrough with adult learners who carried history and hesitation into every lesson. She explains why adults need a different approach than kids: our brains forecast risks, remember old stings, and overcorrect. The fix isn’t to ignore those signals; it’s to use them. You’ll hear practical tools like pausing on the pool deck to breathe and name what you notice, wearing a life jacket to guarantee air during chaos, and designing a routine you can actually keep—think 1% change over time, not a 180 overnight.
We also connect pool wisdom to daily life. Maria shares how she rebuilt her podcast flow with clear boundaries, rest, and energy-led scheduling. Cori talks thought downloads—messy, unedited journaling that reveals mental loops and makes room for action. The episode culminates in a powerful transformation: a retired principal who once panicked when the bottom dropped away finally snorkels in Hawaii, experiencing wonder where fear used to live. It’s a vivid reminder that safety unlocks curiosity, and curiosity sustains growth.
If you’re navigating water anxiety, rebuilding a habit, or trying to choose what you want instead of what you “should,” this conversation offers a clear map. Listen, take one small step, and tell us what safety you’ll build this week. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more listeners find us.
Connect with Cori:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cori.myka
Adult Swim Lessons:
Website: https://adultswimlesson.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@adultswimlesson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calmwithinadultswim
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calmwithinadultswim
Orca Swim School:
Website: https://orcaswimschool.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OrcaSwimSchool
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orcaswimsch
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. I am so excited for another amazing conversation today. I'm just gonna quickly introduce our guest because I am really excited to hear what she's got to say. So with over 25 years in adult swim education, Corey Micah founded Calm Within Adult Swim to help adults overcome water fears. Her innovative blend of mental and physical techniques empower students to build confidence in the water and experience personal growth. Corey also certifies instructors, spreading her mission to make swimming an accessible and transformative experience for more adults. I am so excited to hear your story and why you started this. So give us a little bit of background, Corey, on how you got started doing this and what was the motive behind it.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Well, thanks for having me. It's a yeah, the always the go back and tell the story. It's a long story. I won't tell all the details of it, but swimming is just something that's always been a part of my life. It was a part of my family culture. It was what we did. We talked beforehand that you did not come from a swimming family, and I came from a swimming family. And it makes all the difference in the world. That's what we did for summers and vacations and things like that. I can remember from very little going to our my parents' friend's pool, and I used to race their dog across the pool. The dog always won, I never won, but I would have all these experiences. That's awesome. It's just it's something that I've always innately loved to do. I also never beat the dog, and now you think about it too. I've actually never completed a swimming lesson either. I always failed out of swimming lessons or got sick out of swimming lessons because I didn't really trust the environment of the swimming lesson, but it didn't mean that I didn't love the water and I kept pursuing the water. So it was the thing that I did for my summer jobs, right? I was a lifeguard and a swim instructor. So I've just always really been in and around the water. So teaching swimming is a natural thing for me to continue doing into adulthood. What changed though was of course I mostly was teaching children. But as I had said before we started the recording, there was the one person I can remember from my high school days of teaching is an adult. All the kids blend in my mind because there were lots of kids, but there were very many adults. And the one adult, this one adult in particular that I worked with, she was so interesting to me because she had quite the story about why she didn't swim and why it was her turn to learn to swim. She was told when she was a girl that girls weren't allowed to swim, girls couldn't do physical activities. This is back in the day, her childhood is back in the day when girls got to play at most half-court basketball, or just girls were not allowed to be athletic. But she knew there were girls who were athletic and there were girls who could swim. So she was always in this outside, like on one hand, I'm not allowed to, or I can't, but yet I see that people do. And she actually had to wait until she was widowed and her parents were gone, right? For her to be able to have permission, internal permission, and maybe some external permission too, to go and learn to swim. And I found that amazing and fascinating. And I wasn't particularly good at teaching her because I didn't know you have to teach adults, particularly beginning or fearful adults, in a different way than you teach children. And I hadn't quite figured that out yet. I'm sure I wasn't terrible, but yeah, there was a lot of holes there.
SPEAKER_01:I would imagine, because I'm even with my three kids, I would imagine I'm not a super strong swimmer. We were talking about this prior. My mom is fearful, like she doesn't go in the water. She we grew up, and I don't remember too many times. I live in Florida, so there's literally water all over, and and it's hot enough for to be in the water all the time, anyways. And so I remember we barely ever went to the beach. I can maybe count, not even on one full hand, how many times we went to the beach as children in Florida. If we ever went, it was like when we went to vacation in Puerto Rico or whatever. But it was just never a thing. My mom was fearful of it. I learned how to swim in my friend's pool. And to this day, I'm just not a great swimmer, but it was just something that we weren't really exposed to. But my kids were so fearless, and I think that might be like I would imagine with as adults, we're already like our brain doesn't have that, like, I'm just gonna go do it. And and kids are so fearless in that sense that I would I wish I could just keep that kind of brain and not overthink the million things, but yeah, I would imagine that that could be a huge like situation for teaching different things.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head. This is where why you have to teach adults and children differently. And there are some adults who are fearless and carefree, and there are some children who are not fearless and carefree, right? Who are very cautious. So there is some overlap, but by and large, a child's brain is developed differently than an adult brain. It is developed in such a way so that they aren't thinking ahead too much. It's it's uh it's by design that way. Because if you were thinking ahead too much, if you were always cautious, you wouldn't take a literally your first step of walking. Yeah, that you just have to have this leap of faith and that there is something around you that is going to take care of you so you can make those wobbly first steps and then go for it. So, but an adult, it is an adult's job to take care of themselves, yeah. Right. And so we do have our brains are different that we think about the future, we remember the past, we can draw in other situations and apply it to ourselves to learn lessons without actually having to do it ourselves. So we can bring in all this information, which is very, very useful. It's useful in many, many contexts, and it gets in the way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that's why we have to flight just decides to work when you're like, man, but I really should just go for it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, and I would say we really should go for it. I'm cautious about the just do it kind of attitude and that sort of thing. It's it makes a nice slogan, it makes a nice rah-rah to go out and conquer and do things. But I like to help people set up a framework of there's a reason why you're not doing it. Yeah, and that's okay. Um, you don't want to just sit in, well, I'm not doing it, but is to look with kind curiosity to see there's not enough safety, which is why we don't move forward with things. Either it's not enough safety because we are expecting way too much, we're going from zero to a thousand, and yeah, you're like, ah, it's total overwhelm. We don't see the micro steps to get us to the place, right? Yeah. And or we don't just have enough safety situational for the children who just like, yes, I'm gonna jump right into the deep end. Okay, and be careful, yeah. And there has to be something else after you jump in, right? You do have to know how to come up and get some air, you do know how have to know how to calm down, you do know how to take your time and know how to rest in the water, right? There's a bunch of reasons why just doing it is yeah, not necessarily prudent.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, absolutely. That's awesome. So, what inspired you because this is now overcoming fears, right? What exactly inspired you to do that? And how do fear and self-doubt show up in both swimming and everyday life?
SPEAKER_02:I think what inspired me and inspires me is the people who do this. Our students are really amazing and remarkable. You don't you can go through your mother, probably has a very wonderful life without knowing how to swim. There's lots of really wonderful things, and this is true for all of us. We can all fill in the blank, we have very wonderful lives without being able to do something. There's lots of things that we don't do. But there's lots of things that we don't do, and we have a desire to do, we have a curiosity, a yearning, a longing to do it. And these are the people who actually come out and take our classes who don't know how to do it, have fear or whatnot. They don't have to do it, but they're willing to follow their curiosity and their longing. It's very inspirational to me.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that's so good.
SPEAKER_02:And to be able to be with a person doing that is inspiring. So I do have the skill of swimming, I do have the skill of breaking down fears and being able to guide people through that. So I can do that with in the water, and then I get to apply their inspiration to myself, right? Um I'm learning how to play the harmonica this year, and I that's so awesome. I'm not a musician. One of my most anxious questions when I'm going to podcast is for somebody to say, Well, what's your favorite song? Music is like where so many people find it so easy. I get like a 15-year-old or 12-year-old who's like, How does everybody know what the popular song is? And I missed it. Yeah. So yeah, I so it's music is just something that's not innate to me, where it's innate to so many people. So it's a big deal for me to learn to play the harmonica. Um, but I get to take my students with me that I help, right? To like, okay, do the process, follow the yearning. Yeah, I have a system so awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I love that because it's you help guide somebody to overcome a fear, and we have so many inside that we have not even jumped into. That was me with podcasting. I I told you before, I had it on my heart for five years, and I was just like, Oh, I want to do that. Oh, okay, maybe not now. That's no, what? Who wants to listen to me? And it was just all this chatter. And when someone finally was like, Well, listen, so you have this on your heart. I need to see like massive action towards it. What are you gonna do? And I'm like, I don't know, but that sounds like a really good idea. But it was this voice in my head, like, oh my god, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? And then but I knew what like I wanted to do in my heart, and so yeah, I would imagine that seeing other people conquer or face those fears is super inspirational for you and all the instructors, you know. That's absolutely, absolutely, yeah. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:I love how you describe that like your earn, like, oh, I just really want to. It's such a wonderful thing in life. We spend so much time focusing and doing the things that we should do and we like we need to do and have to do, and even that languaging around it. I remember I had a coach once who was like, Well, you don't actually have to feed your children. I'm like, What? Of course you have to feed your children. Well, there's consequences if you don't feed your children, yeah. But the switch of, oh no, I actually choose to feed my children because I like the results I get from feeding my children.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It like switches it to, oh, instead of being this chore, it's like, no, I actually choose this. I choose this in my life. But so many of the things fit into the box of chore to be able to lean into something that has that goodness and juiciness for you is really wonderful and super fun to see.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did two seasons and then I took a year break because I was starting a new job and sitting in front of a computer for eight plus hours a day, and then coming home and editing. I could do conversations all day long. This is my forte, but then coming in and editing and doing all those things, it drained me. So I was like, I need to take a moment, take a step back, and find that like passion again. And I decided at same mindset coach did like a free group on Facebook. He does one at least once a year, sometimes twice a year. And I was like helping him out with the other people that were doing the group. And as I'm listening to him, I was like, I need to start doing the podcast again. I feel that fire again. Okay, let's go. But it is it's finding that like passion of oh, what gets those butterflies in my belly and my heart pumping. Let's go.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Well, and I love that you bring up that it's okay to rest.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Right? That a season of rest. And maybe in that season of rest you came up with ideas of how to make it work for you in your life better. I don't know, maybe you've hired an editing team, so you don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I used to record a lot more. I made one of the things that one of the massive actions that I did this time around was I looked at the calendar and I said, okay, so I know Thursday nights, I go to my mom's after work and I spend time with her. My dad passed away, so just really trying to keep that one-on-one time. And so I spend time with her. So Thursdays are out of the question. I'm not doing anything on Thursdays. And then I'm I looked at the other days of the week and I was like, okay, so Tuesday nights and then two slots on Saturdays. And I just mapped it out so that I had healthy boundaries um and didn't allow myself to get fully overwhelmed. And then I was like, I know that I'm taking this week off in November, and I will do two recordings a day in that week so that I have enough. And so I just felt like I don't have to do this all day long every day, like it was the first or this first season, and maybe some of the second season. It doesn't have to be that way. Like I can truly look into more of what my healthy boundaries are, and and it can work around that.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Yeah, it has to. It has to work for you to keep in that joy. Yeah, and we teach some of our classes, we do retreat style classes. So people come in for a three-day weekend, they learn a ton of information, they make a huge change in what they're able to do with their swimming. And we ask them, how is this gonna fit into your life? Right, because you need to be in the practice of it, you need to actually do it. Like maybe if you went and took a seminar on how to podcast, right? You get all the things and you're all ready, but you actually you still have to execute it and do it over time. Yeah, the people that say, I'm gonna swim three times a week. I think, no way, this is never gonna work. You gotta be realistic. You have to like you do look at that calendar ahead of time. It's funny that you talk about the 1%. I talk about 1% of change over time. Yeah, that is what we're looking for. It's not a 180-degree change, it's not going from zero to everything, it's going from zero to one over time. And so the people who are like, ah, I have two days a month that I can go, or I go to the gym already on these days. I'm gonna add 20 minutes in the pool once a week, or whatever it is. Yeah, absolutely. That kind of thing, that actually makes a change.
SPEAKER_01:We don't yeah, because I think that when we overcommit and we like go all in, this is why New Year's resolutions don't work, because we're like gung-ho in January 1st. I'm gonna go to the gym every day and blah blah blah. And by January 14th, 15th, you're like, eh, I'm gonna just stop altogether because I couldn't commit to the seven days a week that I originally said. So it becomes like we start shoulding all over ourselves. That's what one of the phrases that my mindset coach uses. Stop shooting all over yourself. You don't you shouldn't have to do anything, you choose to go or you can today, perfect, make that choice instead of thinking that's what you should be doing. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's why my harmonica lessons really picked up in November because I was like, hmm, yeah, okay, these are the things I wanted to play with this year, and the year's not done. Yeah, I can, yeah. November, yep, I can still play with it in November and December, and yep, I'll play with it again next year. And love it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then if you want, add something additional, whatever, but it's not, it doesn't, it shouldn't have to be any other way. I I just I restarted in October the podcast. So normally my launch for new season, uh, the I launch. June 1st for my first season of it, and then in June again for the second, and then I was like, it's October, let's get started. And I just I immediately just I recorded like a short intro episode and then immediately had the next few. I was like, all right, I'm in it, I'm in it to win it because I can feel the the energy. And when I didn't feel that energy, I like that's when I felt burnt out, and I was like, I can't allow myself to get burnt out like that again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that's starting small. That's what I heard. Oh, I did the one little episode, did the one thing, and the rules we set for ourselves, right? You're like, normally I do it this way. Well, you only did it twice, like it was two seasons. Not to I don't want to just count.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no, but it was just those two seasons, and I usually had one episode a week, but I've already recorded enough. And I and honestly, it was more because the short episode I put it on out on like a Tuesday because I was so excited. My first interview that I did, it was with this man that his book was launching the following week. And and I originally I was like, oh, by the time that I edit and do everything, his book will be already out. And I'm like, how about if I do it like Friday? Because Friday is usually my day to upload episodes. And I'm like, I uploaded, I can upload one on Tuesday, get it all done because it was like short. I could do that, and then on Friday, okay, so I'm gonna do two a week because I have enough content for that as well. And I'm like, okay, this is I could do this. This is I have my time cut out, I know what to do, like it's it's working. And now I've had this week off, and I was like, I could get editing done ahead of time, and it was just the way it worked out.
SPEAKER_02:Nice, nice. Well, and it sounds like it has that fun energy behind it. Yeah, um, that is such a key thing, I think. As adults, we're so focused on the shoulds versus what feels good to me. Yeah, we're we worry with that kind of sentence like, oh, if I do what feels good to me, I'm just gonna eat popcorn and watch movies all day. But let me tell you, I was sick a couple weeks ago. I didn't eat a lot of popcorn, but I watched a lot of movies playing on my couch. I filled up with it and I'm done. I'm done. I don't need something already.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I watched all the things, I binged it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. Yes. Please don't tell me a new thing to watch because I need to get outside. I'm done with it, right? By and large, we've we do move on to other things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So, how does your swim program go beyond the physical technique?
SPEAKER_02:Well, so the key thing, the physical technique, I always say that learning to swim is 80% mental and only 20% physical. So the mental part, we talk about there's one of those parts is you could call it mindfulness, is learning to be in the present. Okay. So when people, for students for who don't know how to swim, you know, they might even walk onto the pool deck, and if they pause for a moment, they will notice in their body that they're already anxious, they're already holding their breath, they're already fearful about and they're thinking a hundred steps ahead. So we have to learn how to get present in the here and now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh, because the the idea is well, what if I I'm in the middle of the deep end? What am I gonna do? Well, if you're gonna do anything in the middle of the deep end, you have to be present to control your body. Yeah. To notice when you have air or when you're under the water, you have to learn how to have presence. So we do that before we even get into the water. Like we'll stop next to the pool and take a few breaths and notice things like, oh, and I smell that chlorine air, it reminds me of this other thing. Okay, great. Yeah. So we're your fear or worry or concern is maybe is coming from the past. Is that thing happening now? Yeah. Are you in danger right now? Right? Let's bring ourselves into the right now. But in the future, I might end up in the deep bed. Uh-huh. Yep. But who's gonna decide to put you in the deep end? When you were a kid, you might have had somebody push you in. Are you in that kind of situation now? If you are, maybe this isn't the time to go in, right? Even adults could be in a situation where there's randomness. If you don't feel safe, then wait until you do feel safe, right? Yeah, so so that's a big piece of it is teaching people presence, mindfulness, getting in the now. Um, and then the second piece of it is this where do I want to go? And not just where do I want to go? Like, I want to do a podcast, I want to play a harmonica, I want to swim across the pool. But that's the general goal of what you want to do. But how do you want to feel when you get there? Like, yeah, why are you doing it? You're doing it because you think you're gonna feel a particular way when you get there. So, how can I feel that way in the process?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Stay attached to what I'm feeling and what I'm noticing while I'm in the process. Yeah. So these are these two kind of mental key things. And when I go to take a physical step, I say, okay, I take a physical step that I can stay connected to the present time and how I'm feeling. If I'm still feeling calm or if I suddenly start to freak out, yeah, I want to be in charge of that. Because at the end of the day, people are worried that they're gonna panic in the deep water.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we have to know how to our emotional state connect to that physical state.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. And honestly, that's such amazing advice for everyday life because my oldest daughter suffers from anxiety a lot. And so when she calls me and mom, I'm just and I'm like, okay, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath and name three things that you could look at right now. And as she's naming them, I'm like, but describe them to me. What is the color? I have her come back to the present because the anxious is just the fearful of the future. I always say, and I don't remember where I heard it from, but it works for my brain. Depression is the past when you focus on the past. Anxiety is when you're focused so much on the future, but when you're present, that's the biggest gift because that's like that's the only thing that you have in your control right now. You can't do anything about the past or the future.
SPEAKER_02:And most of the time, I'll just interject too. Most of the time in the actual present, we're okay. Yeah. Some of the time you're not. Yeah. There can be times that you do need to get out of whatever you're in. But most of the time, the present, we're okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. And just having a little piece of that is helpful.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that that it can it all of the advice that you're giving to your students are exactly how we should live life and very present and very mindful. And I love that so much. It's so good. I love it so much. So, how do you help people see fear as an opportunity for growth?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so fear is something, it's I like to think of fear as a tool. And I'm surprised sometimes when I have a student who comes comes to me and they're like, Well, I'm not afraid of the water. I just don't know how to swim, but I'm not really afraid. And I think, okay, well, that's fine if you want to think that way, but it's useful to be afraid. It's useful if you are in the deep water where there's you can't get air when you're under the water, you're not breathing, you're in a place where you're not breathing. And if you don't know how to get to air again, it would be useful to be afraid of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, absolutely. The fear makes you take some type of action, I would imagine, because it when you're fearful, unless you like completely clam up, you're doing something to get you somewhere, right? I would imagine.
SPEAKER_02:I would want, I want us to use the fear before we're in the dangerous situation.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Right? So you want to use your sense of fear or pause or intrepidation or what however you want to state it to say, yeah, I don't know how to swim yet. So jumping into the deep end is not a good idea. Not a good idea. What is it? But now people then stop there. Then they think, well, I can never have a good time, I can't participate. It's figuring out, well, what do I need to be safe? Because that's really what fear, fear is an output of. I'm not safe, I'm not emotionally safe, I'm not physically safe, something along those lines. It could be both of those things. And so, what is it that I need to be safe? In terms of swimming, I need to be able to get air. Yeah, I need to be able to get air easily anytime I want. This is why I wear a life jacket when I jet ski. Because if I fall off a jet ski going X miles an hour or knots or whatever, however they rate it off a jet ski, but and hit my head, I need to make sure that I can still get air. Yeah, it does, it isn't about me being a good or a bad swimmer, yeah. But it's just I have to for and that then enables me to have a good time on the jet ski, and it enables me to be calm and present, zipping down the lake. Uh, because I know if and when I fall off, that even in that like chaotic, it's very chaotic when you're going at that kind of speed of falling off, that I know that I'll be at the surface where I need to be for air. I yeah, I need to figure out what I need to be safe. I swimming, I need air, and I need the ability to come back to and connect with myself. Yeah. Right. I have I've got stories of people who have fallen into the water of one guy who used to be a dragon boat racer and he fell off, has a life jacket on, but he was so completely freaked out, he's like reaching for the boat or whatever, and he tore out his shoulder. He had air, he had access to air, excuse me, but because he wasn't mentally present, he's hurt himself still.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So we have to be able to connect to ourselves as well. So we need those two things.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. So uh what transformations have you witnessed that show you show what's possible when fear is faced with courage?
SPEAKER_02:Well, that question has me go back to the very best hug that I've ever gotten in my life. I can still, I can always feel it when I think about it. Rhonda standing on the back of the boat in Hawaii after she had snorkeled in Hawaii with us for the first time. This is her life dream. She's a very smart, very loving person. She was a principal, she retired as a principal from uh school. So she shepherd lots of people into having their big powerful lives. And she had had an incident when she was in high school where she was in the water, a camp counselor kind of thing, and they were in the water, and the bottom went out, as it does sometimes. Yeah, and so she thought she was playing around in shallow water, and then suddenly the bottom was gone. And this just like transformed her experience of the world, and it was at that age and time where you're so embarrassed, like she had to have some people help her, and so that was it was just really embarrassing and difficult and traumatic for her. Yeah, and so then to be in her retirement and facing that, and then she always had this longing dream to see those fish, to see those turtles, to be in the open water in the magical space of it. So yeah, I love that.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. I love that so much. It's yeah, it's gotta it when you see when you're there to experience and maybe even guide somebody through this like that kind of transformation, it's such a powerful experience, not only for them, but you're like, I was just this little part of this huge huge courage that it took. And I was just this little tiny piece, and that little tiny piece just made such a difference. Yeah, I can only imagine.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I get to carry that hug with me all the time, right? I just have to drop in and remember Rhonda and just fill up with all of that goodness. It's energy and life-giving for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. So, what limiting beliefs or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I big piece is believing in myself. Yeah. Right. Like I believed in myself in small ways as a swimmer, as a swim teacher. But I being out to lead a program, to design a program, to do something innovative and new, to put my voice on it. When I started off, I used to give credit to other people. This is so great because of other people, because of I'm teaching something else that I learned somewhere else, because of, and for sure, those people are influential and important in the same way I'm influential and important to my students. But it's it isn't just about the external, it's also about how I integrated it and then shared it, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And that was a big shift for me to be able to actually own. Hang on, I actually am important to this equation as well. Now, it's not to say I'm so important that other people can't learn to swim without me, or I'm the reason why they learn to swim. I'm influential in them. It also is the combination of who they are and who I am, right? Us this coming together and being able to make something new. But I always spent a lot of time just giving the credit to other people and not understanding actually, I'm an important piece of this equation as well. And that was a big transformational thing for me as a business owner, as a woman, as a teacher. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I love that so much. So, what daily habits would you say have helped you reach your level of success?
SPEAKER_02:Well, for sure, the biggest daily habit, and it comes and goes now, but for years and years, it was downloading my thoughts on a piece of paper, actually writing things down. I can't say that I ever have gone back and read any of it. Most of it's not even legible, probably. But learning to actually write down my thoughts unedited was a huge thing. It was a huge process to be able to get that outside perspective, to be able to recognize that I am not my thoughts. Yeah. And to be able to start to recognize and see thoughts that are useful to me and thoughts that are not useful to me, how often we repeat thoughts in our own head. Like I can have an argument or a conversation over and over again in my own head, but when I put it on a piece of paper, I move to the next thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so being able to learn how to actually let go of thoughts that aren't useful to me and move to the next thing so powerful. So powerful.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, I definitely agree. I have a hard time journaling anymore just because I used to all the time. And someone picked up my journal and started to read it. And I that just felt like a violation. But I can journal and then burn it, and that makes it the same. Like that gives me the same feeling of like, oh, that just brain dump. And I could use it even in my daily work to do. This is everything that needs to get done. And then I can like categorize it. And then it's not in my brain because I'm like, what was it that I had to do? I know that there was something else. That is me all the time. I walk in the room and I'm like, what? If I have it all like brain-dumped, it helps so much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it clears space, right? Yeah. There's so much going on. Yeah. In the case of like what the things that I actually want to remember, yeah, you don't want to have to keep keeping those charged up in your head. Yeah. But yeah, this way that we we're not very kind to ourselves in small, insidious ways. And those are the things that we, I think, very bravely dump it out on a piece of paper to be able to see. And I think, yes, I agree. I think part of the reason why my writing is so sloppy is just that, like so nobody can read it. It's not really about reading, it's not about editing, it's not about correcting, it's not about yeah, going back later necessarily. Although I do, I must say, when I do dump out my thoughts, I will pay attention to I'll just let it go. But if it's like more than 50% negative, I had to practice this in the beginning, which was then to balance it. Yeah. Right. If there, if all these negative things are coming out of me, that I need to answer those things with the balance, not a lie, not like being Pollyanna y or false positivity, but there's almost always there's a balance to things. Yeah, absolutely. And to be to make sure that I'm not just letting my head perseverate in one side, but finding what the truthful balance is too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. So give us a little bit of detail on what you do and how people can like connect with you and so forth.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Yeah. So we do, you're in Florida, I'm in Washington. I have clients in the UK.
unknown:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02:We actually teach people because we're teaching people the mental steps that go along with learning to swim. We teach people online, we teach people in person. So people can find us on the website is adultswimlesson.com. Okay. It's our website for retreats and whatnot. And then on the social media it's calm within adult swim.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I will put all of that in the show notes so you can just click on the links and it's so much easier. Awesome. I love that. And so you're also then teaching people or teaching instructors as well.
SPEAKER_02:We do teach instructors as well because the way we teach is so unique and we part of the reason why we teach it online is to make it accessible to anybody anywhere. And the other reason why we teach we train teachers is because there needs to be more people in local areas being able to teach this way as well.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Oh that's so awesome. Oh my gosh Corey, it has been such an amazing time chatting with you today. And like I said, I'll put all of your information in the show notes. So thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02:You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah so listeners I hope you got so much out of today's conversation with Corey. I know I did. I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening today and as always peace out guys. Love your life bye
