episode 0081- the swim school that teaches adults to fear less and live more with cori myka

 What started as an idea on an olde ratty couch turned into a life-changing business and a powerful mission. In this episode, Cori Myka, co-founder of Calm Within Adult Swim, shares how a simple desire to slow down and teach people sparked the idea to help adults overcome their fear of water. She walks us through how they went from teaching kids at community pools to offering personalized adult swim lessons, building emotional safety and confidence in the water, scaling worldwide through YouTube and online classes, and even launching a retreat-style swim training in tropical destinations. If you’re interested in starting a business, or if you’ve ever felt judged for not knowing how to swim, this story might just change your mind, and maybe inspire your next venture.

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Show Highlights:
1- What made Cori see the need for Calm Within Adult Swim, and what were the first steps to making it a reality? (6:10)
2- How do you market your business? (13:50)
3- What hurdles came up along the way in running the business? (18:20)
4- How have the adult swim classes evolved based on customer feedback? (23:05)
5- We discuss swim lesson age groups, and the shame that people often feel admitting they don’t know how to swim. (26:55)
6- What are some misconceptions you’ve encountered about swimming? (34:00)
7- Where can we learn more about Cori and her company? (40:55)
8- Listener question: I have a business idea but am concerned it might be too niche, what should I do? (42:50)

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Follow Cori on Instagram: @calmwithinadultswim

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Transcript:

Welcome to episode 81 of the Witness Business Podcast. Today on the show, we're excited to interview Cory Micah, who, uh, started a adult swim lessons company called Calm Within Adult Swim. Yep. And it's necessary. I, I, we're, we're in that stage of life where we're teaching our kids how to swim, um, so that they don't have to, you know, be.

Go, go through, you know, adulthood not knowing, but I would say this summer I tried to teach my daughter how to swim and she tried to teach me patience and we both failed.

Mm, that sounds about right actually.

Yeah. I mean. It's tough. It's she's five and, uh, it's, it's tough.

An adventure. Yeah.

We both, we jumped, I think I might have said this in the interview, but she jumped off the diving board and I tried to catch her and like swim to the edge and we almost, we both almost didn't make it.

I was like, we're not doing that again. So next, next summer, hopefully a different story. But, so

you're

learning

to

float on your back

right now?

Yeah, yeah. We're grateful for people like Corey. She's taking the shame out of, you know, not, not knowing how to swim in as an, as an adult. Um, with, with her company, with her brand Calm within.

Yeah. I thought it was cool. You know, she gets into this obviously, but how it started out as an endeavor for kids and then they realized that there was an additional target audience with the parents and family members of those kids, and, you know. If you know how to swim, you don't think about needing to know to swim, but if you don't know how, it's chief among your concerns anytime you're close to the water.

So she's doing a real service for people.

And aside from that, just, just talking about business like this. Mm-hmm. A swim lessons company, like how do you build a business like that? So it's cool to pick your brain on all things business, all things swimming. So let's dive in and witness business with, oh, I

see what you did there.

What did I do?

Dive in. Let's dive in.

Let's dive in and witness business with Cory. Micah.

 Cori Myka of Calm within Adult Swim. Thanks for hopping on the Witness Business Podcast.

Thanks for having me here today.

Yeah, we're excited to see you. Love your background. Although I'm sad to let viewers know that it is a sticker. Sorry to.

It was, it was convincing enough to, to

I, I, you know, you had me fooled. I had to ask, I had to ask before, before we, uh, started here, but, um, before we get rolling, one, one thing we'd like to start most of our interviews off with is this question.

What would you say is the worst job you've ever had?

The worst job I've ever had. Oh, it took me a second and then it popped right in my brain.

Memories flooding back.

Yeah, I'm like I haven't had that many different jobs. No. Yeah. Um.  The job actually wasn't terrible. The supervisor was terrible. As is the case oftentimes with bad jobs. Yeah, I worked at a, at a skilled nursing home and, um, there were some very treasured moments working in the, um, dementia unit.

Um, uh, but man, the supervisor, she was, uh, scary and confusing and overwhelming, and I was happy to be out of there. 

Well, I guess we can, we can ask a follow up there. I, I feel like the, the low hanging fruit is to say you didn't wanna be a supervisor like that, but what would you say is a long-term lesson you took from it? 

Um, gosh, long-term lesson I took from that. Um, well, is to, and this really goes into, um, my business now is just to slow down. That was her big thing. She was so pressured and rushed and kind of overwhelmed with all the things that, um, I, you know, it made it worse, right? She, because she'd give instructions to me as a newbie and I just really couldn't understand what she was doing, and she's rushing off to the next thing.

And then I'm worried about getting it wrong and, you know, um. But, uh, yeah, just if she would just like take breath and slow down for a minute. Um, but she just really didn't feel like she had space to do that, but I think it made her job harder. And so yeah, I learned from that for sure,  just to slow down and be with the people.

 Is, I mean, is that kind of where you got the, the beginnings of the, the name calm within?

Um, it is.

Maybe subconsciously.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So probably more along those lines. We, um, yeah, we didn't, we didn't start with the whole bit about slowing down, but, um, it really Yeah. Came through. That's what like, made us unique and special for sure.

But I, I feel like having a bad boss is kind of a rite of passage for, for entrepreneurs, for the entrepreneurial type. I feel like, you know, I've, I've had my share. I, I remember one kind of on the same lines where the, the job itself didn't on paper seem like it was gonna be that bad and the boss just made it bad.

Um, so I feel like I. Like, kind of like what Kyle was leading on to like you, you know, having come from that, like the type of boss or the type of supervisor, the type of fill in the blank, you don't want to be, and that helps you line you up, square you away so that you are kind of who you want to be, um, when it

And I mean. A lot of times these, these experiences launch people into entrepreneurship because it's like, I will, I will never work with someone like this again. I will work with myself. So we'll go ahead and take that as a segue to talk about,  uh, calm within Adult Swim. So can you kind of tell us, you know, what were you doing originally when you came up with the idea and what made you think to yourself, well, this is something not only that I see as a need, but is something that I can make of, you know, a legitimate business and, and build my life around. 

Yeah, so we actually, uh, started with a, our more local name, which is Orca Swim School. And so we started our swim school working with kids, uh, so that that proceeded our calm within Adult Swim. We, over time, um. Morphed into really specializing. Um, so we started with sort of the low hanging fruit, the easy thing.

And I say we, my, um, husband and I, we weren't married at the time, but uh, started the swim school together and, um. Yeah, we were, we were teaching swimming, we were lifeguarding, we were doing it for other people. And like you say, it's like, hmm, maybe we could do this for ourselves. What would that be like? Um, so yeah, that was kind of our inception of the time, um, to give it a try.

Weren't married, didn't have anything to lose, got, yeah. That was pre the kids and all that kind of stuff, So um.  

being said, that begs the question, the kind of the theme of our podcast is, um, you know, you have that idea, but then what, you know, 'cause we've all had that million dollar idea, you're sitting in the shower, you know, combing through. All the million dollar ideas that could be, that could make you a millionaire, you know?

But, um, the execution of the idea is kind of what, where the rubber meets the road. So, you know, we all get lost in 10 steps ahead. Like, oh, this may be bigger than I incapable of. So what was that like immediate first step to like, okay, I have this idea for this swim school. Um, how do you go about starting. 

Yeah, I mean, um, it's funny that shower idea have lots of shower ideas now. At that time it was  us sitting on  this old ratty white couch. It was so disgusting

talking  

a ratty, a ratty white couch

yes,  ratty white couch idea, the, um, but yeah, so really looking, I mean, it really started with, um. How would we be different? You know, especially 'cause we were already in the industry, we were doing something already and kind of this conversation we were just talking about.

You're in a space and you can see, easily see the things that are missing, um, and that are, you know, you feel like I could do better in this way or I could service. People in that way. And so that's really where our conversation was, is what we were seeing, um, that we would love to offer. And at that time with kids, it was offering more bespoke lessons, more one-on-one, more continuous relationship building lessons instead of the kind of traditional, you sign up with the community center, you get the teacher you get.

Um, in six weeks, maybe the kids learned something, maybe they didn't, they passed or failed, right? Um, but we really wanted to base on relationships, having ongoing relationships with the students. And at that time, again, it was mostly kids, but. Um, so I think that was really that first piece is, is cultivating why we wanted to do it.

This is, you know, before Simon Sinek, know your why and all that. Um, but just, yeah, why, who, who our people were and why we wanted to do it. What sort of struck our passion about it. Um, so that was really kind of the first thing, first conversation or first piece of it. 

So you're doing this for young kids and then obviously there's eventually an evolution into including adult swim lessons, and I'm just trying to imagine how that would develop because in my mind, you know, as an adult, if I didn't know how to swim, there might be some trepidation. Like, I'm not gonna put myself out there to learn that.

So was it like you were doing swim lessons for the kids and you were kind of recognizing behaviors from parents where they're like, they're not about to get in the water with their kids, they don't know how to went and swim too? Or was it more like you kind of started to solicit and see, oh, well maybe adults would be interested in what we're doing too?

How did that, how did that develop? 

it's actually a little bit of both of those things. Uh, 'cause you could tell from the children, um, and their, how they behaved in and around the water if they were part of a swimming family, right? There's a certain sw, um, swim culture that, um. People inundate themselves into, so if parents swim, they do water activities, it, the kids show up differently to class.

So we could easily identify the parents who didn't know how to swim. And then the other piece of it is, like I said, we were, um, building our business on relationships, right? So, um, relating to the kids. And that naturally attracted the adult who was like, I wanna do this, but I don't wanna be. Um, I'm really afraid to do it or worried to do it, so I don't wanna go to a big place.

I don't wanna go to the general community center and, um, have a teenager who doesn't know what they're doing. Um, teach me. So this piece of us being much more customized and relational attracted adults and particularly attracted beginning and fearful adults. So that sort of, um, was our introduction into the segue of, ah, there's a market here, there's a, there's a group of people, um, who need something else. 

Now continuing with that, one thing that you've kind of touched on a couple times here is the idea of relationship building and that kind of being maybe a core tenet of your business and its sustainability. For a lot of businesses that we interview, it's, you know, especially for food products or um, inventions, you know, things that you use around the house.

It's a transactional nature. You come to the website, you buy the thing, you reap the benefit. You eat the product, whatever it might be, but for you it's more long form, it's, it's sustained over a period of time or, and maybe even annually, year over year if they're trying to build on the skill. Can you kind of talk about what that has been like for you, uh, to really put an emphasis on relationship building and business?

Because I feel like that is a unique perspective that you could provide that maybe some entrepreneurs can't. 

Yeah, for sure. I mean, what it really does being relational is it helps us develop our business based on, um, the feedback loops from our clients. So we're having conversations with them. We are really deeply understanding their goals and desires, and then we're cultivating new classes, different classes, ongoing products for them based on that relational piece.

So, um, when we put a class out, um, advertise a class, advertise something. You know, we know already who we're gonna be selling it to because we've talked to them and we know that this is what they want. This is what they need, this is what they're curious about. Um. It's been super fun in the way of, we started out with just these general swimming lessons in a pool and we've developed into taking people on retreats to places like Hawaii.

That's my, uh, sticker, you know? 'cause at the end of the day, what people really want is they wanna be able to swim on vacation. Uh, so. That's how we've, you know, changed our business over the years is to add retreats and vacations and, um, which is really delightful and fun for us and for our staff to be able to go do that.

 Um, so it makes it, um, such a win and positive all the way around.

You love a good win-win, and when you can turn a vacation into a

Mm-hmm.

expense,

I gotta love it. How do you market? How are you gaining new clients? Like how are you targeting people that

I say, beyond your initial relationships, proximity,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do you like Target somebody who maybe doesn't know is an adult, that doesn't know how to swim? How are you locating those people and then bringing them into, uh, your program?

Yeah, so it's um, of course the best  way always is word of mouth. You know, a happy customer brings in another happy customer, right? So I mean, that's, that's the baseline core, most important thing is always having those referrals from customers and local. After that, it's because our, with our local clients is our, those Google listings.

Um, that's so vitally important for us, uh, even as a service business, right? To have that, um, those Google listings and Google reviews in terms of, um, people who are outside of that sphere, um, YouTube has been our big, uh, channel and to be able to be putting content out there. 'cause, you know, I think about.

My client when they're wondering about, well, I wanna learn to swim people. It's a how to kind of thing. So YouTube is kind of the place that people go for how to, and so that's where we really, um, made our channel there to put content regularly and, um, have lots of information there. Our online classes, right?

So people can spend a lot of time when you're talking about something that people are fearful of. They need a lot of time and information to really build up that know, like, and trust factor of, oh, these people are saying something different. They know something that my regular folks don't know, and so they wanna lean into it. 

And you're touching on something that I feel like we've maybe heard as a, a through thread with different businesses and business owners, which is kinda the idea of putting out free information, um, valuable information to people and not expecting anything in return. You know, not putting up a, not hiding it behind a paywall, and then you build a reputation, you build trust, and then because of that you're able to, you know, get new customers that you wouldn't have before.

And it's, it almost feels like kind of a backwards way of thinking where you would put some of the most valuable stuff out there for free and they could theoretically take it and then just run with it. You know? Never, never go with you. And yet that's often not how it ends up playing out. 

For sure. I mean, I, the truth is I think that the people who take the content and run with it for free are not really your clients anyways. Um, I mean, they're. Client adjacent. Maybe you could say because they're interested in your, the general thing that you're offering, but they're not interested in being a paying customer.

Right. So part of our clients that we're going for, that we're looking for are, aren't just people who are interested in our. Product, in this case, swimming lesson. But we're also interested in purchasing and, um, having an expert help in getting, um, that personalized, uh, attention. Uh, so I'm happy to let lots of people know about how learning to swim works.

Water safety, all these kinds of things. So we're contributing to our bottom line, which is to make people have more joy and safety around the water. And if we can help in that, um, for all the people who aren't gonna pay anyways, great. Happy to do it. And then that's the way that, yeah, the people who do want that extra help, who do wanna, um, you know, pay for more,  then they know how to find us.

You have a unique value proposition because it's not like you're like, Hey, check out this cool food product that I made. It's like, Hey, would you, would you like to stay alive in the water? If so, listen to what I have to say.

Yeah, I'm, I'm curious how,  if there were any, like, hurdles that came up along the way. Um, I mean, I could prob, I could think of I'm, I'm an overthinker when I, when I have a business idea. Kyle, you look like you have a

Well, no, I was just gonna add an addendum to your question, so go ahead and unpack your thought and then I might add to

Sure. So I'm always thinking like 10 steps ahead. That's my problem. That's, you know, why, uh, a lot of the prior business ideas that I've pitched to Kyle never got off the ground because we're always like, well, what about, you know, way far down the line? What, what if this happens and we end up, you know, uh, talking ourselves out of it.

But that being said. You know, I think there's, um, value in learning from somebody who is 10 steps ahead. Like what were some of those hurdles that came up that you had to, that, you know, navigate over, uh, that maybe you didn't expect, like maybe some legalities or I don't, I don't know what could possibly come up in, in your industry, but I'm sure there have been things over the last few years that you're like, oh, I didn't anticipate having to deal with this.

And then you deal with it and you move on to the next thing and the next thing.

Yeah. Well, I mean there certainly is, when we talk about recent times, there's the biggie that we all had to do, which is, yeah, the pandemic obviously.  Um, and, um. I felt super fortunate and glad at that time. I had in 2019 had put all of our material online. Uh, so we were, uh, just. Slightly ahead of that game, um, in that regard.

So, um, so that, that's, uh, the obvious big curve ball. Um, and I mean, for us in our industry, it's always space is where you find space to, um, to do the work, uh, to be able to find a pool. Since we're in the Learn to Swim, we're not in the coaching side of things. Um, the types of pools that we look for are very specific and unique.

Um, so that is, um, that's kind of our always been our biggest hurdle is, uh, finding locations and, um, having

 so how did you, so how'd you do that? Did you have to like find local like pools or swim schools and work with them? Or how did you overcome that? 

We found, um, local community pools, uh, that, uh, will rent space. We found. We've been in hotels and apartment complexes, condos, backyard pools, um, all different places over all the years. Um, so yeah, many, many different places that we've been in over the years. Um, and. And the biggie, like a lot of businesses is being in relationships with other, uh, folks who are in the, in our industry.

Because we offer a, most people in our industry are working with kids and so they're not specializing with adults. So this is not only a unique selling point for us in terms of clients, but it's also is in terms of our pool space and what we do. Um, so it does make it easier for us to go into, um. Other swim schools 'cause they're like, yep, this is not the area we specialize in.

We're happy to go ahead and rent space out for, um, that kind of specialty information. 

Yeah, so it sounds like, so for example, I'm a vending machine business owner, and I came across recently this guy who has like kind of specialty snacks. They're more like exotic snacks and he approaches, uh, places that already have vending machine. And he's like, Hey, let me add another machine and this won't compete with any of your other products because it's like these.

You know, they're from China or from Brazil or from like all these exotic, uh, places that you snacks, you can't get around here. And so it kind of sounds like that's your proposition is like, I'm not, I'm not trying to compete with who, with your audience. I am a completely different audience. And so it's a, it's a value add for me to like, use your space or it's, it's advantageous for you to, uh, for me to use your space and I'm not crossing over and like competing with you.

Is that kind

Yeah,  and not directly competing, but also enhancing. Then, I mean, I can see this with the snack vending too, like, yeah, I want those interesting snacks. I can't get here and my friend just wants the Doritos and they can get it at the other vending machine. Right.

Yeah,  exactly. 

So that's the same thing. You've got all these parents coming in who, you know, really wanna keep their children safe and have a good time, but, um, that's why they're there bringing their kids in for swimming or vice versa.

We're teaching the adults and they have kids. Right.  So it's, it's a really synergistic, um, uh, relationship.

So to kind of build off of maybe indirectly off the, off the question that Steve asked, what I. I wanted to know is you, you said earlier that, uh, you kind of got a, a feedback loop and that helped you edit, you know, some of your classes and how things went. So how did the adult classes from its inception to present, how did those evolve based on some of that, that feedback that you got?

Because I feel like that kind of goes almost hand in glove with what you're describing here, as, as things had had changed to begin with.

Yeah, I mean, so it really started out with,  like I said, we attracted adults, um, because we had this more one-on-one relational experience with people. And I would just ask 'em, I'd get 'em to swim across the pool and I'd say, well, how was it? I mean, just very simple, like, how was your experience with it? And they would give me this, like deer in the headlights look and say, I have no idea.

And I thought. All right. You guys are doing this stuff I'm telling you to do. If somebody looks at you, they'd say, oh, look at that person swimming across the pool. But their internal experience of it did not match, um, because they felt afraid. So that clued me in that there was something else that I needed to address.

I didn't need to just address their physical skills. I also need to need to address their emotional. Um, experience of it. Um, and so then through a series of, again, working with them to seeing, well, when are they going from feeling good to feeling bad, generally speaking, how is what other. Educational modalities are out there in the world that help people with their emotional experience that I can bring into the water that people haven't been bringing into the water.

So generally speaking, you call it mindfulness. There's, uh, lots of mindfulness and now life coaching, um, applications that we've brought into the water. And so that, again, made it different. And so then I just kept it. Bringing in new things, seeing if it was getting to the ultimate goal and the ultimate goal.

And even that people didn't really, weren't able to articulate what their ultimate goal was in the beginning, but I got better and better at asking them about it. And we were able to see, oh, they want to feel safe and calm and um, be able to get air easily when they're in the deep end. Um, the traditional program is about getting people to swim and get out, but what happens in the middle?

So a series of continued questions and, um, inquiries with them and, and really kind of co-developing and bringing things in from other places is how we developed and changed.

 It is really interesting to think of that way because, you know, and I'm not making light of this at all, like, it may sound like I'm trying to be funny, but I'm not, like, it's very different to say that you are swimming versus trying to not drown the whole time. Like, that's, that's a, that's quite a different way to, to approach the whole experience.

Go,

 I mean, one of the things I hear a lot from people when I talk about what I do, they say, oh, well I could swim enough to save myself. I always, that is a red flag statement to me. 'cause it, it, it inherently implies this idea of, um, you aren't safe. You can't be safe in the water. That it's always this idea of having to get out.

And when safety is outside of yourself, safety is a destination. You are not setting yourself up well, right. We have to have a certain amount of internal safety and, um, physical and emotional, um, to really be present and figure out what you wanna do next.

 Is there

an age that you. Is it like 18 and up or is there an age you start with I'm, I'm just, uh, I I have a thought. I'm just curious.

 I mean, we just say adults. And so, um, we will take on a few teenagers because, um, they don't fit well in the kids' classes. Um, but generally most of our people are in their, they're, it seems like they're getting younger all the time, or I'm just getting older. One of the two. Um, a little of both, but mid twenties and, and up is, uh, generally who we see, um, come out for things, but it's when their brain is developed in a different way.

Kids' brains are different than adult brains, and so you have to learn and teach differently to an adult brain than a child's brain.

 Well, the reason I ask is because, you know, we, my church actually just had a. Drowning at a summer camp, unfortunately. Uh, and he was, I think he was 14 or 15. And the reason it happened is because they didn't do swim tests at that, at like, teenagers didn't get a swim test.

They just got a verbal, can you swim? Yes or no, basically. And I think he was embarrassed to say no. So he said yes and he wanted to participate with his friends. And they were out in this like water park, uh, deep end, like inflatable water park in the deep end of the lake. And he went under and drowned. Um, and I'm curious like, um. If there's a place, I guess for that for them, because they're, they're too, like you said, they're too embarrassed to like, admit I can't swim. Maybe that's a problem in adulthood too, is there's the shame involved. You hit a certain age and you're like, your friends are like, you can't swim yet. Like, what's wrong with you?

So how do you battle that, um, teenager or above? Uh, when it comes to, you know, your business when it comes to swimming in general.

 Yeah. First of all, I'm really sorry and sorry for that family. Um, that's a tremendous loss.

Yeah,  it was, it was a pretty brutal, pretty brutal, brutal experience for our church community and everything,

Yeah,

 and for that family.

 I can imagine. Um. And I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of this piece of, uh, especially as a teenager, you just wanna fit in, right? That is the developmental stage that they're at. So it is really important for the adults around to, um, make space for that, that they are going to say, say whatever it is to go along.

The other piece of it is, is when you say to somebody, well, can you swim? It's a very open-ended question and it's not very well defined. What does that mean? Um, what does that actually look

I  can, I can splash around

in a three foot pool no problem. But when you, yeah, the being in the deep end is a different end. Animal.

 Exactly. And there's also, uh. I mean, I think I say this to my students all the time, they actually do need to identify as a swimmer. Um, it's, it's good to identify in that way, but you have to know that there are levels and stages. It's just like, I mean, you guys are talking about, you have, uh, sounds like young kids when they bring out that first board book and they are reading it.

Which means they're either making up a story or maybe they're reading one or two words on a page, right? We say to the kids, you are reading and it's really important to say that, oh, look at you reading, right? Because it helps develop their, um, sense of autonomy and like feeling really good about it and wanting to lean into it more and identifying as a reader.

So, um, but just 'cause they can read the. You know, Dick and Jane books or you know, whatever the most basic book is right? Doesn't mean they can read Shakespeare. And it doesn't mean that they need to, but as you say, if there's a deep end, they were gonna be on a stage and needing to orate Shakespeare, you'd need a higher reading level or a different reading level.

And same as with swimming. So it's really sort of understanding there's a nuance of, um. How people participate, what it means to be safe, to participate, um, and giving enough space for people to be able, one of our things too is I tell people all the time, it's perfectly good and legitimate to participate with a life jacket on.

There are swimming activities that I do as a very proficient swimmer. You know, I. This summer, I spent five days in Alaska swimming around in the cold water of Alaska, you know, swimming miles in Alaska, and it's beautiful. I'm a very good swimmer, but when I get on jet ski, I put a life jacket on. Um, so normalizing these safety procedures for different things.

So. Um, you, I, it's not really answering your question in terms of how you stop it, but you just have to have more of a conversation and to understand that, uh, being in and around the water is very different than other activities that they're gonna, that people go out and do that. We do have, um, you only have a minute, right?

Um, when things go wrong, things go wrong When you're driving. You know, you have more than a minute. You can still maybe survive it, even if it's a really bad accident. But in the water, it's a very short period of time. So it's worthy of slowing down and, um, doing the swim tests. And I even think for adults, you know, they, adults don't have to do swim tests.

Um, but there's a lot of problems that go on out there, um, when they're not really vetted.

 It really is an interesting point though, and to look at it that way because one, the stakes are so high, but two, you know, kind of going with different maybe common everyday examples like, do you know how to read? Yes, you're proficient enough to get by, keep yourself safe. Do you know how to drive? Well enough to get from point A to point B, but you're largely tested on those things on a near daily basis, so you kind of figure your way out with repetitive practice.

Whereas with this, you know, unless you live on, you know, coastally, you're probably not being, you know, you're not encountering the water on a regular basis. And so I just feel like the, the practice there is more, more difficult to bluff your way through, and the stake stakes are too high to do that.

 And if you don't know, you don't know what could go wrong too. Right. So you, um, in the instance that, I mean, you sort of said it sounded like there was maybe a big inflatable, uh, toy. That presents a big variable, um, of how you get bounced off of it or, um, where other people are, how you can, if you're expecting to be able to hold onto something.

So there's just a lot of other variables that if you have never experienced it before, you don't know how to anticipate it either. I mean, which is true for anything. But, um, but the, the cost benefit there is much tighter.

 One thing I would, I would love to do through the course of this episode, beyond inspiring, you know, a. A prospective entrepreneur is also to maybe help one person who's thinking about taking that step to becoming a proficient swimmer, to step across that line and, and do that. So the question that I wanted to ask you is, what would you say is the biggest misconception that you encounter about swimming that you know, by telling them about this, may coerce isn't the right word, but may coerce them to, to take that step.

One of the biggest  misconceptions is that, um, treading water equals safety. And treading water is actually, uh, um, a peak event. It's a peak activity. You, lots of people have seen, you know, an image of an iceberg, right? And, and at the top of the iceberg, that's the part that we think about and see, but it's really supported by all of this.

Um, information or, you know, all of this stuff that's underneath it. So treading water is at the very peak. Um, but people have this frame of mind that if I could tread water, then I would be safe. Uh, but treading water is so complex and it does utilize energy, um, that people end up, uh, working really, really hard at this.

They don't have an underlying foundation of safety, which is how do I slow down and let the water do the work for me and pay attention to my breath and my being my emotional state? So people go chasing this thing that really, um, doesn't provide the foundational information that they need.

 So almost kind of like, you know, if somebody needed to sprint for a second to save their life, they could. But if you need to go on an extended run, if you don't have those core principles on how to run, you're gonna run into a real issue quickly.

 Yeah, I mean, it's the classic thing you see in the movie all the time. You're running away from the bad guy. And people trip and fall, right? 'cause they're frantic and they're freaking out. But there may be perfectly good runners or mover about us in the world, but when we're in that state, we're not as  efficient.

Yeah, and the problem is that everybody writes themselves in as the hero of that story. 'cause the hero, despite no experience, can do that thing perfectly. And then they're like, I am that person. I can do that. That's the whole reason that those action movies have the appeal.

Yeah.

 Yeah, it's

amazing. Like I tried to catch my di my daughter off the diving board this summer. She's five. And uh, it didn't go very well. I mean, we, I didn't want the lifeguard to have to jump in after us, so it was a success if you, if you're looking at it from that angle. Uh, but I thought we were gonna die.

I was like, we're not doing that ever again, maybe next summer. Um, and then there's this little girl who's younger than my daughter. Who took a, took a lesson and can just float. Basically, she jumps off the diving board, pops up, floats on her back, and then kicks her way to the side. I was like, that's amazing.

She used like no energy to do any of that, and I, and I'm over there just like. You know, treading for my life, trying to stay above water. I was also holding a 40 pound kid, but I give myself some credit. But I think all that to say like this, kind of what we're saying here, that having the foundation is important when you know, if you need to tread longer than a couple minutes, like you're not gonna. Not having that foundation is gonna prove problematic. I think pretty quickly why? And I think we just need to take the shame out of, I think that's kind of what I was getting at earlier with my question is like, I appreciate what you're doing and I think it does, um, take the, take the shame out of not knowing how to  swim.

Yeah. There's a stigma  and, and I think that's the, like for example, a couple summers ago, was it last? 2024, I think there was a CrossFit games athlete that drowned. Um, and he was like the best swimmer in the field. He was an ex water polo college athlete. Everybody thought he was gonna win that event, and then he drowned and.

The, you know, years prior to that, people were like, why are there lifeguards at CrossFit games events? These are the fittest people in the world, and it's because of that. Like, this guy's, the fittest, one of the fittest people in the world, and he drowned in a lake swim. Like, not even an ocean swim, a lake swim.

So I, anything can happen. Water is scary, it doesn't matter. You could get like even the inflatable thing, you could get smacked in the head by your friend on accident and go under and nobody noticed. And it only takes a couple minutes.

 I would say, I would say it's not scary. I would say it's unpredictable. And so through classes like this, people can be prepared to handle the variables that they can handle. And that's, that's the biggest thing, you know, in so many ways in life. You know, we're all striving for some modicum of control.

 Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I teach our teachers is that we have a very basic foundation that we start with people and that we're getting people to understand and know how to do, and then from there it's about introducing chaos so that they learn to go back to the foundational things over and over again.

It's not that you're then reaching for all these big complicated things that you keep coming back to, uh, your presence and your breath and feeling your buoyancy. These are the foundational pieces instead of, um, I mean, just, you know, you, I love that image of two different ways that somebody jumps off a diving board, jumping in.

And letting the water hold you and chilling out and not being in a rush to get to the wall 'cause you got air and the water's holding you. Versus this idea that jumping in, now I have to keep myself out of the water, which is very hard to do. It takes a lot of energy and work. And if you're trying to do it for two people.

It's even harder. And um, and I will say it is a success 'cause you guys are both alive. So whether or not a lifeguard had to jump in after you or not, it's still a success if you're both alive. Um, 'cause that's a common, unfortunately, that's another common way that people drown. You know, you have a parent and a child that drown.

So I'm glad it was successful.

 Yeah,  I wasn't worried that like we were gonna actually drown. I was more, it was my pride that was gonna take a hit if somebody had to save us.

 No, no repeats for you. Now, obviously, I feel like we, we've, well tread on the fact that there's an incredible amount of value and, you know, we're thankful for, for the work that you're doing to help, you know, all these people who, who have an interest in swimming as an adult. But what we want to do now is just give you opportunity to talk about, you know, your, your actual locations where you are teaching people to swim, and also where people can find, you know, more of your, your information online.

We'd like to give. Our guests the opportunity to, to plug their business where people can find more about you, learn more about you.

 Thanks. Yeah. Well, as I said earlier, um, YouTube, uh, so we're calm within Adult Swim. That's our, so on our social media. So that's a great place for folks to start. Um, our. Website is adult swim lesson.com. So there you can take a deeper dive. We have online classes, uh, so people can learn anywhere if people all across the planet that are learning with us, which, um, I still think is amazing.

Uh, so as long as you have a local place that you can, um, implement, we just give people tiny, tiny steps so they actually can go out and do it themselves, um, at a lifeguarded place. Then, uh, our in-person classes, we do most of them in Seattle, Washington. Uh, but then we also do retreats in Hawaii and Mexico.

And so we do classes that are for our local community here in Seattle. But we do a lot of our classes in a retreat style because we know. This particular service is, um, unique and um, so we get people who fly in and come in and take the classes, uh, over a short period of time, and then we support them when they go back home, how to implement it at home.

 There

you go. I mean, you know, we, I, I feel like it's, it's really easy to, um, complain about how, how the internet is changing things for the worst. But here you are teaching people across the world how to swim and how cool is that?

 Yeah, so fun.

 So Corey, one of the, one of the things that we do near the end of, of every episode is we have a listener question.

So, uh, people write into me at kyle@witnessbusiness.com and Steve, and I'll comb through the questions and we will pull ones that we feel like are a great fit for the guests that we're having on that day. Um, so I'm pulling up your question now and, uh, today's question reads. I want to start a business, but I'm concerned that I don't have a big enough target audience for it to be sustainable.

What should my next steps be?

 Well, I mean from our point of view is to get started. 'cause the best way, I mean, especially if you are doing a service type business, um, that word of mouth is very powerful and the experience that you get with your small clients to start with, um, will really help you cultivate that message and to be able to understand more and more of what they need and what their.

Um, the way they talk about it, the way they talk about their problems, so. We can have a good idea, but if we're not putting it out there, even with ones and twos and three people, right? You, you start there because you get that feedback and deeper understanding of their point of view of the problem and your, and how your solution is working for them.

So I say, yeah, get started with those ones and twos and you'll find out more, um, and be able to grow from there.

 I'm gonna beat him in the chase. This is Steve's favorite advice. It's the just. Just start

start, just stop talking about it and be about it. Yeah. I love that. I do wanna ask this kind of as a follow up, uh, 'cause I've heard this talked about before  and I've thought about it before myself, is that, you know, and you, and you kind of touched on it at the beginning of our interview, this idea that, like, I have been in my space for some years, some time.

I kind of see what's. Um, I know, I know the lay of the land and I have an idea to be, to kind of set myself apart. Um, do do some things that maybe the industry isn't doing, but then there's this question of like, what if there's a reason they're not doing it? And I, I, I heard this interview with this guy who started a TPL third party logistics company at one point and had this similar train of thought, like, I wanna set myself apart and not do the things the way that they're traditionally done in the TPL industry.

And so he did. I, I forget it had to do with like pricing and a bunch of other things. And then every so often they would be like, oh, that's why traditional TPL companies do it this way because they've run into this problem if they don't do it this way. So then they changed it, and then the next thing and the next thing, and they, every, every few months they realize like, oh, that's why they do it this way until.

After a few years, they were just like every other TPL company. And so how do you know, like going into something like, oh, I'm gonna set myself apart and do this and that, and the other thing that the industry isn't doing well, how do you know that there's maybe a reason they, they're not doing those things?

 Well, I mean, at the end of the day. Um, the only way we know what works and what doesn't work is by doing it. And I mean,

the an love that answer.

you have to be willing to have your own back in the experiment.  Uh, you have to be willing to say that it was worth giving it a go and to get that information. I mean, there are classes or things that we've done that.

Haven't worked out too. And I'm not mad about it because I have that information. Um, and I mean, some of it would come from really knowing as the example you're giving. Maybe some of it could be overcome by talking with people in the industry and to ask them why they don't do this or don't do that. Um, and so you can do some of that, um, background.

But I'd also say the thing that we have to keep in mind as entrepreneurs is. The one thing that will always be different about our business is us. And our unique, um, way of running the business or unique way of looking at it, or our unique relationship with those customers. So even if as the example you gave, he, they ended up rolling out the product in the same way, but there's something uniquely different about each of us that shows up to the table.

Uh, and so you can't discount that too, that, that they're, um, maybe they make better sales because of who they are, even if the product. Is virtually the same. There's some piece in there that people are more attracted to buying it from them than somebody else.

 There's only one. You only one. There's only one person that can run a business like you can.

 Great.

 Well, Corey, thanks so much for letting us pick your brain today. This has been very insightful. I'm glad, uh, to hear about what you're doing. I think you're really, I mean, making the world a better place by, you know, giving adults a place to go, um, when they don't know how to swim. So we just appreciate what you're doing, appreciate you, uh, hanging out with us today, and we wish you nothing but the best.

 Thank you so much for joining

Thank  you guys so much for having me. This was great.