The Lead Roots: How SwimLabs Helped Launch Lead
It makes me so proud to say that this past year’s Lead Summit was our best event to date. There is always a lot of anticipation heading into our Summits and the 2021 Summit was certainly no different. One thing I personally loved about our 2021 Summit was being able to host it in the Mile High city, a place I called home for nearly 8 years. Denver, CO was where I lived and trained for the London Olympics, where I retired from life as a professional athlete, and where I met Mike Mann.
With Mike Mann at the 2021 Lead Summit in Denver, CO.
After retiring from competitive swimming, I traveled the world doing clinics, speaking, working with sponsors, and figuring out what the next phase of my life would look like. I made a promise to myself when I retired that I would say “yes” to any new opportunity that came my way. One of the opportunities I was presented with was working as a competitive swim instructor at SwimLabs in Highlands Ranch, CO. Mike Mann, the founder of SwimLabs, offered me a position to teach private lessons to competitive swimmers. I was equally as excited for the chance to use my swimming knowledge in a positive way to impact future generations of athletes as I was to work alongside Mike and his two daughters, Jenny and Brooke, in the unique environment they created with their swim school. What makes SwimLabs special is their use of innovative technology including warm water, flow pools with instant video feedback and mirrors on the bottom of each pool. Instant video feedback for a swimmer is tremendous for gaining body awareness and learning how to apply the right pressure at the right time throughout a stroke.
Over the next several years, I coached and mentored hundreds of athletes at SwimLabs. My teaching style was unconventional. I worked with so many teenage girl swimmers and many times, they needed a mix of mentorship and technique work. Sometimes, they really just needed someone to talk to. Mike, my boss, was very gracious with my teaching style. He never once came down on me for the lessons I taught that were more talking than swimming, or the times my clients and I went (way) over on our lesson time in order to get to the bottom of whatever important thing they were dealing with.
You can probably see the natural progression where Lead Sports Co. comes into play with the teaching I was doing at SwimLabs. While I know a lot about swimming, and a lot about being a teenage girl, I definitely don’t have “all the answers.” I do however have a network of incredible women who quite literally have “all the answers” though. I launched my company in the spring of 2017 with so much excitement and anticipation for being able to truly impact the lives of teenage girls by bringing my network together with these young athletes for one life-changing weekend.
Working at SwimLabs alongside Mike for over 5 years taught me the value of being a gracious and humble leader. The professional and family-style front office at SwimLabs taught me about community, customer service, and delivering a high quality experience to every customer.
With Avery Hall at a SwimLabs lesson in 2017.
It makes me beyond proud to say that one of my first clients at SwimLabs became a long-term customer of Lead Sports Co. and today works on my team as an intern (hi, Avery Hall!)
When we decided to bring the Lead Summit to Denver in 2020, it truly felt like coming home. We partnered with SwimLabs Highlands Ranch and SwimLabs Littleton to put on our swim clinic at the University of Denver for 150 teenage girls. Mike Mann taught one of our stroke stations alongside our Olympians and professionals, gracious as ever. It was special coming back to Denver, working alongside a company and person that truly changed my life.
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