← Next On Scene: The Human Behind The Brand
Next On Scene: The Human Behind The Brand
From Fear to Float: Rewriting the Narrative Around Swimming and Self-Worth
00:36:09
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- [00:01]
Jackie Zuck
Welcome back to becoming Next on Scene, everybody. It is your host, Jackie Zuck. It is another awesome day for another awesome episode of how to become Next on Scene, Interfield business or in your passion. Before I bring on my amazing guest, Timothy Heffron, who is such an incredible swim aquatics owner of Tim Swim Inc. He teaches swim lessons. He has almost 30 employees. He has a swim shop, he has a swim team. He is the guy to know, especially on the North Shore of Massachusetts. And he's doing so much amazingness and inspiration around the talk around mental health, which I'm going to talk about more in a minute, which also leads me to my tip of the day. And I actually had just posted about this on my social media, but I talked about the power of pausing. And I don't always like to post pictures of my kids, but my kids felt so significant in this. And I feel like as a mom, as a business owner, like I have all these goals I want to achieve. I want to travel and cover all these amazing events and work with all these amazing people. And I've learned right now that my kids are so little and I can't get this time back and I want to be present with them. And even with help, you know, I'm so grateful that I'm able to afford the help. I think it's really important to, you know, pause and, and be present with your kids and be present in the moments that you can't get back because your business or your passions, you know, they'll always be there. And I'm all about, like, taking the jump when it feels aligned. I mean, that was my whole mentality when I was younger. But if it's not aligned right now and you're going to put yourself into burnout, which even Tim and I talk about a little bit on the show today, like, it's not worth doing right now. It doesn't mean never. It just means for now. And so I think it's really important to reflect where you are right now and pause where you need to and not feel like you have to do it all today, all tomorrow. Like if it's in a, if it's in a year, if it's in a couple years, if it's in a couple months, if it's in a couple weeks. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't mean forever. It just means for now. And so I wanted to come on and talk about that. When you take the time to pause and really be present in your thoughts and what you want to do and what you know, that you can physically and emotionally take on the right people are going to understand that and will support it and bend where they need to bend and meet you there. And if it's not, then that's okay. You know, like, that's all about growing and evolving. And I think that the right people will never miss you, the right opportunities will never miss you. It's always about timing, right? So I'm learning that and I wanted to share the importance of that today. So I hope that inspired you. And now I'm really excited to bring on, as I shared, Tim Heffron. Tim has actually been a swim instructor for my kids, and he is just amazing. I've actually now worked with a lot of his team members, and his instructor is even teaching my kids and seeing their swim growth evolvement has been so inspiring. They are just so incredible. So. So if you are in Massachusetts or close to the border, you know, like New Hampshire, I would definitely explore swim with Tim. They are amazing and worth traveling to. They really care. They're patient and transformations are so substantial and worth every dollar you're paying, truly. So I'm so excited for Tim to come on and share his story, especially around the mental health space and balancing such an incredible team while, you know, day to day you know, facing his, you know, struggles and things that he has to deal with, even outside of running a business which has its own things, he juggles. Right. So I'm so excited for you to meet, connect with Tim and get ready to get inspired. He's a rock star. The ups, the downs, and all the in between, what it takes to become next on scene. Are you next? Follow us at Next on Scene. Welcome back to becoming Next on Scene, everybody. I am so excited to be here with the amazing Timothy Hefferon, who we know as swim with Tim. And Tim, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome to next on Scene.
- [04:24]
Timothy Heffron
Thank you for having me so excited.
- [04:26]
Jackie Zuck
So let's talk a little bit about your background and obviously water. Let's start with the splash. So how did swim with Tim come about? And I mean, obviously now you're eight years in business, right? Something like that. So give us a little back.
- [04:39]
Timothy Heffron
Eight years of business at this point? Yes. Honestly, I've been involved in swimming around this area for 35 years. I swam as a kid when I was 10 years old, all the way through college. I was a coach in college and I was a teacher and coach doing a lot of different things. Swimming in New England has always been kind of not Very good. Let's put it that way. It's always been, you know, teach safety and that's as far as it goes. Like, no one actually worried about teaching little kids the finer points about swimming or, or the things they're going to, you know, if they want to swim competitively. So you get a lot of situations where a kid would go to a swim team because they want to do swim team and the entry level coaches are trying to rebuild and take apart all these strokes that these kids are doing that are nowhere near anything that they could do for, you know, continuous swimming. And my goal was to eliminate that because I really believe that there is a lot of talent up here in New England for swimming. And I wanted to find a way to better develop swimmers so that they can become competitive swimmers if they want to or just if they just want to be safe. They're going to be safer because they're going to know how to better swim. They're going to understand what they're doing, they're going to be more comfortable and more confident about what they're doing because I can't tell you how many kids that I can tell you can swim, so to say. But they're not really comfortable in the water. They're scared to death and they're just trying to survive. Every time they're swimming, that's not swimming. That's surviving. And that's different. What I do like to see about right now is I go to swim meets because I'm also the swim coach of our swim team program. And I see on almost every team in this area, be it Y, team, uss, Team, jcc, team, swimmers from our swim lesson program that are competitively swimming and not only competitively swimming, but doing well competitively swimming makes me very happy and makes me feel like we're doing the right thing when it comes to, you know, building this program. Because I see a lot, I see a lot of what we want to see, which is, you know, better swimming overall from the kids, you know, based on what we're doing here. So that, that, that, that's good. That makes me feel good about what.
- [06:56]
Jackie Zuck
We'Re doing for sure. And I also like, as my kids swim with your company and so, yes, I mean like hitting all the milestones in people, like, because you literally see babies to adults in, throughout their lives swimming. So how do we create, like, obviously, you know, especially even little kids, like there is a fear around getting around water. And even with adults that have never done swimming, like, I mean, with anything.
- [07:20]
Timothy Heffron
There, there's there's trust involved with little kids. I mean, with really little kids, the fear is more being away from mom and dad, you know, get hold the time. They love the water. Yeah, they love the water with mom, they love the water with dad. They don't necessarily love the water with someone they don't know. So there's that kind of fear. You get the little bit older kids that actually have a fear of the water, you know, not just a fear of being away from mom and dad. And it's about building trust. It's about letting them know that they're going to be okay. And, you know, building trust with. With one instructor, then building trust with another instructor. I get a lot of times where parents, they want to. They want to stick with only one instructor because they think that's the best way to do it. But I'm like, no, no, no. Your child does better if they build trust. With many instructors, it shows them they can. They're going to be safe in any situation and they're going to feel better quick. Kids that are really fearful, if you just put them with the same person all the time there, you can tend to have. You can tend to stall. And you do need to try and keep those kids moving around with different instructors to keep it fresh and keep them, you know, feeling like they're making progress. But when it gets to adults, you know, really it's just a matter of just showing them, you know, because you can talk to adults and you can. You can make them understand. And that's why I do a lot of. I do a lot of training with my instructors on adults, because you have. You use your words so much more with adults than you use your hands. You know, most adults don't want you to put, you know, be in the water putting your hands on them. They want you to try and explain to them. So it's a matter of, you know, it's a matter of building trust. But with adults, it's just showing them, you know, once you show them and they start making, they. They can start to extrapolate from there. You know, oh, if I can do this, well, then I can probably do this too. So, you know, really, when it comes to overcoming fear, the hardest fear to overcome at first is an adult. But once you can get that adult to kind of overcome that fear, oh, they. They fly, you know, and then, you know, with the little kids, it's a little bit different. You know, they might take a little bit of time to get over the fear, but if they get over the fear, it's the same thing. You tend to make a lot of progress very quickly at that point because all of a sudden nothing seems as difficult as it did before. You know, that one thing that seems huge, all of a sudden it's like, well, that was huge. And I got over that, so why can't I get over this?
- [09:33]
Jackie Zuck
Do you feel like the adults, like, learn faster and are out of it or, like, out of the program faster? They actually stay on as long as.
- [09:40]
Timothy Heffron
Like, we have adults that continue on through adult fitness, too. And we have adults that are still swimming. You know, they've, they've learned how to swim now over two or three sessions, and now they're taking what they've learned and they want to do it for fitness. Because swimming for fitness is great because it covers every muscle group and you're working your cardiovascular and you're working things like your VO2 max, which is your. The amount of oxygen you can take into your lungs at one time, which is so much better on swimmers than it is on, like, your runners or your bikers when it comes to triathletes. So I always encourage triathletes or anyone. If you, if you, if you. Even if you're just learning to swim, keep swimming, because you're only going to get better when you do it, you know, and the only way you're going to get better is to do it. Because swimming is one of those things that you just have to. Like riding a bike, I guess you could say you have to keep doing it if you want to keep getting better at it. Not that you'll forget it if you don't do it, but if you want to keep getting better, you have to keep doing it because there's so much feel involved in it, you know, you can't see yourself doing something wrong. You have to feel yourself doing something wrong. That you have to be able to do it and feel it and have that. That sensation. Yeah, that's one of the complicated things about swimming is, you know, it's very hard to, like, see things and change things like you can in other sports. You really have to, like, have a sense of what you're doing, you know, extra sensory sense, like beyond, just, like, being able to see it. You have to be able to feel it and know what you're doing.
- [11:02]
Jackie Zuck
So it makes sense. So interesting. And I just want to, like, commend you and your team because, like, my son A.J. as you know, was like, so, so fearful and you were like, do the intensive. Do the intensive. And I was like, I was so glad that we did the intensive because just even going in every day with him, like, he warmed up and now he, like you saw at our lesson last weekend, I can do this, I.
- [11:24]
Timothy Heffron
Can do this now. I can do this on my own. I'm like, that's what you want to see. Like, you know, and the next thing you know, it's, it's, it'll, it'll all come from there because once they start feeling comfortable and confident, then it's, then it becomes fun. You know, it's not scary anymore. It's fun. And then they want to do it all the time. That's, that's when they go from, I don't want to go to can I go to the swim? When do I get to go to swim? You know that, that's when you're like, okay, like, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go. And that's what you want.
- [11:47]
Jackie Zuck
So just like your team is amazing. Like Chrissy, Marilla, you're, you guys are just all wonderful. I just have to tell you. And Jess, I love all the ladies just telling you. Okay, so you now basically lead almost a team of 30 people, which is amazing. So what are the biggest, two biggest lessons you've learned in scaling a trust based service business?
- [12:09]
Timothy Heffron
Well, you just mentioned one of them when you started mentioning my staff. Like building a staff and something like this and maintaining and retaining a staff is very important because, I mean, it used to be people came because they wanted to swim with Tim or because they, you know, they heard I was a good instructor. Now people come because they want to swim with Chrissy or they want to swim with Chelsea or, or Mirel or Jess or one of my other instructors because, you know, they have a child who has been in another program and hasn't made progress or, you know, we tried this but it didn't work or they, they're scared of the pool and they, they don't get in the pool. And you know, we do, we, we, we work wonders for those kind of things. And it's because we have a good, well trained, experienced staff. They've been in the program for a while. You know, we don't just bring new people in. We don't just bring young people in. We don't just bring inexperienced people in. We bring people in and we train them up and we make them work as, you know, as shadowing and, and they get a good feel for what we're trying to do. And then when they get kind of released into the group they're, they're ready to do what they need to do. So I really, you know, if you're really going to say what is, like, the most important thing is maintaining and training and retaining good staff. So I'm sure every company will tell you that. And that is one of the things that we work very hard to do by taking care of our staff the best we can.
- [13:34]
Jackie Zuck
So totally.
- [13:35]
Timothy Heffron
I just want to.
- [13:35]
Jackie Zuck
I want to commend you too, because I see you as a leader a lot, and I feel like you're. You're just so good with your team. You're flexible. Like, of course you're the boss, but, like, you know how to be flexible. And so I think that's just an amazing quality.
- [13:49]
Timothy Heffron
Part of that comes from being working at other places as, like, car sales or recruiter or UPS or Comcast and literally just being a number. And, you know, even when, like, you do a good job, not being able to be told you're doing a good job, like, that's the. You can't, you can't. I don't understand how places can function like that. Like, I don't understand how you're going to retain employees like that. I don't understand, you know, just, you know, from working in other places and being, being, working, being as a boss myself. Like, I don't understand why retaining staff is not your number one goal when you're the boss. So it should be. It should not be. I mean, we're all going to make mistakes and you're going to hire people that don't work out, you know, and people's situations are going to change and things might change and. But I mean, for the most part, you don't just want to be losing people just because they want to go somewhere else or do something else, you know, you know, unavoidable things, you know, yes. You can't do anything about. But you don't want to be losing people just because they're like, I just don't want to do this anymore. You know, this isn't working for me. So you do your best to, you know, work with them so it makes sense.
- [14:59]
Jackie Zuck
And I also want to break down, like, how you work with clients and customers. So you have obviously swim with Tim, you do the competitive swimming. Then can you tell us a little bit more about what you guys do?
- [15:12]
Timothy Heffron
You mean in regards to that? Like.
- [15:14]
Jackie Zuck
Yeah, tell us the break.
- [15:17]
Timothy Heffron
Really what we want to do is we want to be a gateway for people who want to start swimming young. You know, they like swimming. Maybe they were swimming when they were a kid. Maybe they just want, they want their child to be able to swim because maybe they can't swim and they want to start young. We want to give them that opportunity to start young and grow through the program and give them opportunities to learn at every level. And then when they finish swim lessons, we want them to have a level to go beyond that. Because in swimming, swim team burnout is huge. It's like the number one thing when it comes to swimming. Because when these kids are real young, they're asked to do way more than they're able to. They're swimming too much, they don't have the technique, they get injured. So what we believe is we're training these kids properly when they're young, correctly when they come into swim team. And our record shows we don't have injuries with our swim team. We haven't had people getting injured. I mean, we've had, we had, we had one or two outstanding injuries, but they were not swim related. You know, they were broken arms or stuff like that. But I mean, our injury numbers are very low because one, we don't overwork our kids. Two, we're teaching them stroke technique first. And we're not just over swimming like other groups are. And we're not worried. I mean, we have some fast swimmers and they're getting faster, but we're not worried about having to fastest kids all the time. That's not the most important thing. I'm going to be much happier with my program if I'm starting these kids out at 6, 7, 8 years old. They are staying in my program until they hit 18 years old, graduating from my program and going on to college. And then if they go on to college, I want them to have room to improve. I don't want them to be swimming eight days a week, you know, or eight, nine, 10 times a week, plus doing five days of dry land when they're seniors in high school. So that when they go to college it's like, well, more are you going to do? You're already working out all the time. You know, I don't want, I want them to be able to continue to grow there. I mean, you look at Gretchen Walsh, and Gretchen Walsh was someone who, you know, blossomed in college and now she's like the fastest swimmer on the planet for females, you know, but again, she didn't. And you look at Shea first down at Georgia right now, someone who came from Manchester. I knew her coach when she was younger, never let her swim a lot until she was like 13, 14 years old. Now she's like 10th ranked 200 freestyler in the country. And she's a freshman in college. You know, lots of room to grow. Didn't overwork her when she was young, you know, and she worked. She swam for a team, Crimson Aquatics out in that I, that I know too. So a lot of good things happening, you know, a lot of, lot of lot a lot of potential for what I see with this program. And it's just a matter of keeping everything working. You know, you asked me for two things other than a good staff. I would say the other thing is not necessarily. You got to make sure that you're not expanding too fast. You got to make sure you have a plan for when you're expanding so you can, you don't. You don't start putting good money behind bad. But you also have to be ready to expand if, if, if the, if the opportunity presents itself. You know, if, if, if I find an opportunity to take over another swim team program or another swim lesson program, you know, and you know, and you know, make it part of swim with Tim, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm gonna probably do everything in my power to make that happen, you know, because, you know, I do want to continue to grow because I want more kids swimming. I want more kids learning the proper way of swimming. And you know, with the Hope Floats program, we're getting more underprivileged kids swimming as well. So, you know, we have different things that we can do.
- [19:13]
Jackie Zuck
It's amazing.
- [19:13]
Timothy Heffron
Sorry, I'm very long winded. I apologize.
- [19:15]
Jackie Zuck
No, no, it's totally good. And I love covering all the grounds. And I think also too like you, you, where you guys teach is in a lot of different locations. So like you have like the pbd. Can you share the locations of where people can swim?
- [19:28]
Timothy Heffron
We have the PBD location for swim with Tim. We have the Salisbury location for swim with Tim. And we have the Methuen location for swim with him. And we also have the Danvers Y for our swim team program. We are the Danvers White Dolphins for the swimming team program.
- [19:42]
Jackie Zuck
Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. Okay, so now I want to talk about. You've been incredibly open about living with bipolar ADHD personality disorder. How is your mental health journey shaped how you lead and show up in business?
- [19:55]
Timothy Heffron
This is, this is, this. This is a very interesting question because to be perfectly honest with you, I. I basically started Swim with Tim Manic for two years. I was working ups five days a week and then working weekends doing swim with Tim. And so I was working 20 hours a day between swim with Tim and sleeping four hours a night. I would occasionally get Mondays off because UPS wouldn't need a driver, so I could go home and put more work into swim with him. But it was you. It's not something that I would recommend for anyone, but, like, And I would, you know, I would then go and I would. When I would have, I would crash for a day and sleep for 24 hours. But, you know, it was you. You. One of the things about being manic is you can tend to push your body to do things that you wouldn't normally do. And I did that starting this program. I probably would not have been able to start this program if not that way, because it required so much to get it up and running in the, in the first place by myself, especially with no idea what I was doing. I, I, it was, it took a lot. But that is something that, again, like, I, I wouldn't recommend. It's not something that, you know, you know, I, I wasn't, I, you know, it wasn't a good time. I was switching around meds, and there were a lot of. There were a lot of things that were not going well at that time. But the good thing about it was I ended up, you know, having all this luck, and I found my, My, My joy, my passion. Doing swim with Tim, I found out, is probably one of the most therapeutic things I've ever done for myself, which is teaching. And, yeah, it was, it was, it was a. It was, it was, it was a diamond in the rough. But, yeah, it was. When I started this, I was, I was, I was going. I was working on 24 cylinders, I'll tell you.
- [21:57]
Jackie Zuck
So, but, like, something I learned from you, too, is the water is actually very healing, right?
- [22:02]
Timothy Heffron
Very healing. Yes. The dive. The dive effect is very, very, very good. For me, going underwater, holding your breath, it helps regulate my, My, My, my dopamine. It helps regulate my serotonin, all my, My blood pressure, my circulation. Everything is better when you're in the water. So it turns out, like, all those times I was going in the water and not really realizing, you know, what was making me feel so good. It was actually just being in the water that was helping me. One of the reasons I'm trying to get back in the water more now.
- [22:36]
Jackie Zuck
Mm. So interesting. But if you look at today, not that we're pushing, but sometimes you do have to push out of your comfort to really get to the goal.
- [22:44]
Timothy Heffron
Oh, yes.
- [22:45]
Jackie Zuck
You know.
- [22:46]
Timothy Heffron
Oh, yeah, yeah. You have to. Yes. I mean, you. Don't get me wrong, like, I'm. I don't regret it. Like, it is what it is. And I. And I got myself, you know, I. You know, it helped me. I learned. I've learned a lot for myself from that period of time through. Like, I've learned a lot about recognizing signs and, you know, you know, taking a moment for myself and, you know, stopping sometimes and breathing. So there's a lot of things that, you know, that I. That, you know, I've learned from experiences my life that, you know, maybe necessarily weren't, you know, positive experiences, but, you know, our experiences that, you know, you. You learn quite a bit from totally.
- [23:30]
Jackie Zuck
And I'm assuming also, like, teaching kids is probably helping. Helps a lot.
- [23:34]
Timothy Heffron
I love that. Yes. Love that. My favorite part. My favorite part, because I just enjoy the energy. I just go in there, have a good time for however long, and that's all I have to do. 30 minutes of a good time. That's all I'm doing. Every 30 minutes, I rile them up, and then I give them back to mom and dad. I'm like, you get to take them home and put them in the bed. Have fun.
- [23:51]
Jackie Zuck
Exactly, Exactly. So funny. Okay, so what do you wish more people understood about mental health, especially when it comes to being a leader, entrepreneur?
- [24:01]
Timothy Heffron
What people understand is people understand when someone's depressed. Okay, There's. There's two things I'd like to talk about this. People understand when someone's depressed, okay? No one really, including the person, you know, suffering from it, usually reels. Realizes when people are manic. So, you know, in that stretch of time, you know, people, they didn't really think much about, you know, me being manic, to say, like, hey, you know, you know, what are you doing? Like, you know, slow down. You know, they. When you're depressed, you know, sometimes, and I say sometimes because this is going to go onto my other thing, people will say, you know, hey, what's. You know, you seem a little down. What's going on? But that being said, a lot of times, whether you're manic or you're depressed, you have to seek help yourself. So don't expect someone else to come up to you and say, hey, what's. You look. You look glum, chum. You know, you gotta get up there and you gotta say, I don't feel right. There's something not right, and I gotta do something about it. And even when you're manic, like, and you feel like You're a million bucks and you can, you're the king of the world and you can do no wrong and you want to do chances and all these other things, you gotta learn to one question. Question yourself. All right? And that's one of the things I've learned from being manic is I always, especially when I'm in a good mood, question my decisions. And you gotta learn to ask for help even when you're a manic, because that's not a good thing either. It can lead to bad things. So you got. Even when you think you have a. And that's the thing about me, you always think you have a handle on it until you don't. And the next thing you know, you're doing things you don't want to be doing. So.
- [26:02]
Jackie Zuck
But you brought up such a great topic about, like, how it's okay to ask for help.
- [26:07]
Timothy Heffron
You need to. You really have to. And I, and that's one of the things I've learned too is like, I kind of, I started to realize towards the end when I was, you know, when I started Swim with Tim, like, this is not okay. Like, I'm not doing okay. But I wasn't, I wasn't telling people. I wasn't being proactive about my well being. I didn't get proactive about my well being until the end of my starting with Swim with Tim. So when I left ups, when I, when I had the breakdown of UPS and I started and I, right before I started Swim with Tim, you know, its own company, that was when I started saying, okay, I need to start being accountable for my well being and what I'm doing and stuff like that. I can't expect other people to be accountable for me.
- [26:57]
Jackie Zuck
Totally.
- [26:57]
Timothy Heffron
And being accountable is important, and I.
- [27:02]
Jackie Zuck
Think it's hard to even own that sometimes. So, like it's, it's a powerful tool when you're ready to actually take action on it. Right.
- [27:10]
Timothy Heffron
Very hard. Especially when you're, like I said, when you're manic and you feel like you can do no wrong.
- [27:15]
Jackie Zuck
Totally.
- [27:15]
Timothy Heffron
It's almost hard to see when you're doing something wrong. So.
- [27:19]
Jackie Zuck
And that, like, really honestly leads into my next question, right? Because there's so much pressure to have it all together. Like, what's something behind the scenes that you've had to overcome that people might not see from the outside?
- [27:31]
Timothy Heffron
I just currently went through a, through an episode where I went through a 12 week IOP course, an intensive outpatient therapy course, which is 10 hours a week of therapy, because again, I was, I was having trouble with my mania. I was, I was manic and I was, I wasn't able to control my, my mood or anything like that or my energy level and I needed to go get therapy. So you know, doing fitting things like that in behind the scenes, you know, 10 hours a week is not always the easiest thing and I hate to bring it back to mental health but you know, it really is a lot of what you deal with when you're dealing with this is you know, I fit in docs, appointments and you know, this, that and the other thing. And then you know, if you, if you have to cover then it's like oh, gotta move this. And then so I mean you have the typical getting older stuff but then you also have the, you know, and then the scary part for me is, you know, as I get older, you know what's going to happen? Is this going to get, you know, progressively worse for me or like how is this going to go? So yeah, there's, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of behind the scenes that you don't, that is not outwardly apparent people that you're dealing with on top of it.
- [28:56]
Jackie Zuck
So what's like a day in the life? Like do you actually like, do you meditate? Do you set yourself up for the day? Like can you tell us like what a day in the life?
- [29:04]
Timothy Heffron
I honestly like I am very bad at like planning ahead. Well, I keep my calendar on my phone and if it's not in my phone then I generally have trouble remembering that it's there. I, I neither, I am generally one of those people because like I said, I'm usually more manic than I am depressed. I generally one of those people that pop out of bed and I'm working right the moment I get out of bed, you know, I usually wake up, you know, I usually get out of bed around 6:30 now but I'm up around 5. The brain starts working about what the things you got to do for the day. And like so, but, but no, I, you know, it really depends on what I have to do for the day. Like doctor's appointments, things like I do a little bit of self care. Like I do, I do some IV fluids on a, on a, on a bi weekly basis, you know, little vitamins and minerals and things like that. Little red light therapy occasionally. I get my nails done, my pedicures once a month, my haircut every other week and I have a little bit of self care. But I love this, just a little bit of self care. And a little bit of, you know, and then the doctors and stuff between, you know, doing work for, for work. So I don't really get a lot of days off. I get more like, you know, a couple hours here, a couple hours there, which I'm sure you understand there's no such thing as a day off when you're trying to run your own business. You know, people talk about work, life balance. I'm like, what is that?
- [30:34]
Jackie Zuck
Right, right, right. But the fact that you're even prioritizing self care in that is amazing. Like, I feel like that's something that everybody needs to do like on a regular, even like daily for like five, give yourself five, 10 minutes, an hour, you know, like if you could figure it out, I think that would be.
- [30:48]
Timothy Heffron
The, that would be the goal. It is, it is worthwhile, I will say it is worthwhile to spend a little bit of time every week, like giving yourself a little bit, a little bit of tlc, I will say.
- [31:01]
Jackie Zuck
And do you read it all? Like, can you get yourself to sit down and read?
- [31:03]
Timothy Heffron
Oh, there's no, no. I mean, I will read news articles and stuff like that, but I like, I, I am someone who reads like half an email or half a news article and like, you know, or, and then skims the rest of it. So like. But I mean, I, I am not someone who reads who I, I read what I need to, but I, I listen to the news, I listen to the news. I do much better with, with listening to stuff. Like, they always talked about how it was verbal or visual learners when we were kids. I was not. I was an auditory learner. I just wanted you to talk. So, like at swim practice, everyone complained that the coaches wouldn't write anything down. They still complain that we don't write enough down. I was one of those people that just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it and I will remember it and I do not need you to tell me again. So. I was always an auditory learner. So that's still how I take things in. I'd much rather listen. I don't need to see anything. I just want to hear it. Huh.
- [31:59]
Jackie Zuck
So interesting. I'm learning all these fun facts. I love this.
- [32:03]
Timothy Heffron
Well, my brain moves so quickly. It just, it's easier to process auditor, you know, audio auditorially than it is, you know, visually. Visually just too. I can't read fast enough for my brain.
- [32:15]
Jackie Zuck
No, I get that it actually, but I think it's good that you can get yourself though to like sit down and get your nails done and get your hair, like, because that's like sitting still and forcing yourself to, like, stay still.
- [32:25]
Timothy Heffron
Sitting still and working kind of thing. So I do. We do 10. I do tend to like to make those work, work, work afternoons.
- [32:33]
Jackie Zuck
Right, right, right. But at least you're still, like, sitting still, I guess, right?
- [32:37]
Timothy Heffron
That is true. Yes. And I am enjoying my. Enjoying myself very much.
- [32:41]
Jackie Zuck
I love it.
- [32:41]
Timothy Heffron
But the kids love my painted tails. They think they're great.
- [32:44]
Jackie Zuck
So I. So cute. I love it. Okay, and finally to close out. So what's next for Swim with Tim? Is there any exciting expansions, personal goals or waves on the new horizon?
- [32:56]
Timothy Heffron
Nothing. Nothing immediate on the horizon. We are going to. Like I said, you got to. You got to be caught. You got to be. Gotta have a plan when you expand. There are. We have. We are still trying to get, you know, some things. We'd like to get a head coach or an assistant head coach in for the swim team. The swim lesson program is looking, you know, like, it's getting pretty well defined. We're still looking to bring in some instructors. You know, we'd like to get Methuen to be a little bit more robust with enrollment. They're doing. We're doing well. Don't get me wrong. We have high hopes, but the more, you know, with Mirela there and myself, we're hoping that we can. We can grow it a little bit quicker and then, you know, if the opportunity presents itself, you know, jumping on the next opportunity when it presents itself. So being ready to go when it happens.
- [33:48]
Jackie Zuck
So it's awesome. And then we didn't even talk about. Side note that you have a store in PBD where people can buy.
- [33:54]
Timothy Heffron
We do have a store where we sell all of our recommended merchandise. We have recommended merchandise. So I used to try and tell people to go find it online, and now I'm like, nope, you can just find it right at the store in Peabody. So it's on the third floor of the Peabody Choice Fitness, right underneath the pool if you want to come check it out. It's a very nice store. Got nice colorful characters on the walls and a beautiful sign. You can meet Bill and the rest of the staff there at the store. And it's a great place.
- [34:20]
Jackie Zuck
It's awesome. Well, Tim, you're amazing. How can everybody follow you on socials? Get in touch with Lynn to potentially take classes. All the things.
- [34:28]
Timothy Heffron
You can follow us at www.swimwithtim.com. you can sign up for our newsletter there. If you'd like to. You can also reach out, see everything about our classes, sign up for an evaluation. Reach out to Lynn, my admin there, through swim lessons. And if you also want to go, you can find us at Instagram. And I think it's hashtag Swim with Tim. Facebook, hashtag swim with Tim. YouTube, hashtag swim with Tim. Basically, hashtag Swim with Tim everywhere. Two M's. And Tim. Gotta remember that it's not your regular Swim with Tim. We're a little bit odd. We have two M's in swim, two M's in tip.
- [35:05]
Jackie Zuck
That's okay, what the two M's is for. I thought it's a fun fact.
- [35:09]
Timothy Heffron
Well, okay. I was a kid, long time ago, and they used to call me Timmy. And I didn't like to be called Timmy. And the first thing I learned was the Y sounds like an E. So I stopped using the Y and it became tip. And that's just how it lasted. So when I was thinking about, you know, doing the swim lesson program, somebody, my friend's wife said, why don't you just call it Swim with Tim? And you can do it with Swim with two M's just like you do Tim. And I was like, I don't think I like that one. And then I thought about it for a couple of days. I'm like, sarah, you know what? I like that one. So, Sarah, Enos, you get credit for thinking of Swim with Tim. That was her. That was her idea.
- [35:42]
Jackie Zuck
I love it. Well, Tim, you're awesome. Everybody needs to check out Swim with Tim. No matter what age you are, you qualify. And stay tuned for who's Next on Scene. Are you next? Follow us at Next on Scene.