My Swimming Pool Lessons

I swim laps. I swim well over a mile at a time.

When I got an apartment in Setubal/Portugal, I immediately joined Supera, the city’s premier gym and swimming center. And I was wondering what it would feel like to swim in a gym again, after over a decade of swimming in an unpopulated condo pool in Florida and, prior to that, in the lap pool of my own home.

The pool area at Supera is expansive, with 25-meter lanes. Around Noontime, when I head to Supera for my swims, the pool area is not terribly crowded. Often, I have a lane all to myself. At other times, I will share a lane no more than one person.

This happened the other day.

I was standing at the edge of the pool. All lanes were taken, and I was considering which lane to join. A swimmer was doing his turn at the end of his lane, noticed me standing, stopped his swim and motioned me to go ahead and swim in his lane with him.

Not because he was done with his swim and about to get out. No. Just because …

I get a choice every time I open my mouth: that it can be with civility and dignity and grace – or not.”

Dana Perino, Former White House press secretary

It was a simple moment. It touched me deeply. In over 2 decades of swimming in the assorted swimming pools of Downtown Manhattan, often 4 or 5 people per lane, no one had ever motioned me to join their lane.

I hope they don’t get into MY lane. That is the mental conditioning of most swimmers who swim in public spaces. Sharing a lane is the last thing they wish to do.

I know. That is how my brain worked, as well, when I would see another swimmer approach the lanes. Until this fellow humbled me.

This co-existing mindset transcends how we share a lane in a pool. It is about civility. Kindness. Generosity of spirit. It applies to every aspect of our lives. Work, family, loved ones, strangers.

And this mindset plays out in so many little ways, micro-moment after micro-moment.

Here are a few more examples of how this civility plays out in my Supera pool, day after day.gage with these leadership questions in mind. They are a very fine place to begin. And they work in every facet of your life.

Micro-Moments of Civility

• When I join a lane with another swimmer already in it, the other swimmer usually acknowledges my presence with a nod or a smile. This physical expression is a tacit understanding that we are about to share space, and that we will do so with respect and grace.

This never happened in a Manhattan pool. Ever. If I got a look, it was a look of annoyance that I had joined the lane.

• About half the time, the other swimmer will pause, and we will have a mini-negotiation about how we will share the lane. Fazemos voltas? Are we circling or are we each staying in our own lane?

Actually speaking with a fellow swimmer never, ever happened in a Manhattan pool.

• I had such a quick in-lane negotiation the other day with Alfonse, a fellow swimmer in my lane. How do I know that his name is Alfonse? After our quick lane-etiquette chit-chat, he extended his hand and said Hi, I’m Alfonse. I responded with Hi, I’m Achim. I’m from Germany. Then we both swam off.

This sort of in-lane swimming-pool-exchange is unimaginable in a Manhattan pool.

• I’m evolving. 2 days ago, I noticed a fellow standing above the end of my lane, looking for a lane to join. All lanes had at least one swimmer in them. I motioned to him that he was welcome to join my lane.

He slid in, with an appreciative smile. He thanked me and also elaborated that ideally, he likes a lane by himself. I grinned – because I DO understand. Then we both went ahead and shared our lane. Beautifully.

I jot down these notes 2 days before an American election. This is an election in which one candidate has called the other a physical excrement. The list of name-calling goes on and on.

“Words create worlds” is a sacred term from the world of Appreciative Inquiry. Yes, I believe that words do that. So do gestures. Moments of generosity and kindness.

The lack of civility in some of the public discourse in the United States seems even more jarring from afar. I appreciate the swimming-pool etiquette in my Supera microcosm where every person wears a bathing cap because public hygiene and well-being, for all, is deemed important.

As election week unfolds, know that civility is a choice. So is kindness. Go there.

My soul feels uplifted by my swimming-pool encounters. Every single time. Civility is the conduit. And always a choice.

Go there. Even when you don’t feel like it, go there.