Make the dream work

How does it feel to combine your career with your passion? Rowan Clarke finds out.

Swimming ignites creativity. It’s a combination of immersing in nature, the dopamine release and the movement of swimming, which allows for a clearer, more focused headspace. Many swimmers say that they have their best ideas as they glide through cold water, the repetitive, rhythmic movement lulling them into a meditative state that allows the mind to wander.

It’s little wonder, then, that as outdoor swimming has grown in size and scope, seeds of ideas in swimmers’ minds have sprouted careers, businesses, organisations, products, services – the entire infrastructure that surrounds outdoor swimming.

But, if outdoor swimming is simply people getting into water, do we really need these swimpreneurs? And is living, breathing and working outdoor swimming as dreamy as it sounds?

Breaking down barriers

You’ve probably heard comments like, In our day, it was just called swimming. But for many reasons, a vast proportion of the world’s population was (and still are) excluded from swimming, drowning was (and still is) a huge killer and we had less impetus to seek stress-free, nature-based therapy.

As outdoor swimming has grown, so has our understanding of its benefits, and so has our recognition of the different barriers to swimming that people face – participation is increasing and worldwide, drowning incidents are falling (the global drowning rate has decreased by 38% since 2000). This is important because swimming is a true cradle-to-grave activity, uniquely life-saving, and potentially more accessible and inexpensive than any other sport.

As they see, experience and recognise those barriers, swimmers have found ways to help not only identify and communicate them, but also overcome them. Rachel Ashe founded Mental Health Swims, for example, to help people like her with poor mental health and social anxiety find a welcoming group to introduce them to water. Melona Headley witnessed the power of swimming for people of colour, so set up Bold Waters to help people swim past racial and socioeconomic barriers (see page X).

Fiona Murphy, founder of Bettylicious, started making beautiful, vintage swimwear to help women overcome body image barriers to swimming, including making mastectomy-friendly swimwear.

“I had a customer, Jane who was always saying she’d buy a swimsuit when she’d lost weight. I said to her, for goodness sake, Jane, buy it and put it on,” says Fiona. “She lives near the beach in Weymouth, and she started swimming in the summer and then carried on. Now, she pretty much swims in the sea every day. She said, if you hadn’t have given me that push to say, just put on the bloody swimsuit, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Beyond fear

Body image anxiety is one of many fears that prevent people from swimming. Most fears can be allayed by guides, coaches, teachers – or swimsuit designers. But, for some, the fear is chronic.

“Aquaphobia is on a scale. Looking at water 20 metres away, you’d have someone with no fear at all, someone else who’s ok so long as they don’t get in the water, and others who just need to get far away from it,” says ‘Aquaphobia Angel’, Jo Good. “One example is a woman who wouldn’t even get into a bath. She came to meet me at a pool. There was a glass window between us and the pool and she burst into tears. She was physically shaking, sweating and hyperventilating just looking through glass at a pool.”

Having left her job in London, Jo pursued a career that made her happy – teaching swimming. It was while working for a swim school that she came across parents facing barriers from a lack of water confidence and skills to outright fear.

“I hired pool time and put myself out there. I started getting people who’d never learned to swim and were a bit scared, and then it snowballed,” says Jo, who trained to coach people out of their fear of water with the Institute of Aquaphobia. “Then I met the woman who couldn’t get in the bath, and realised it was bigger than I’d seen before.”

Inspired by water

At the foundation of swimming businesses are a problem and a solution. Therefore, swimpreneurs have two things in common. Firstly, they either experience or recognise an issue that swimmers face. This could be a barrier to getting in the water, as we’ve discussed. Or it could be a kit-related need, better safety, more research into an area of swimming, or helping people improve their prowess in the water.

Secondly, swimming business founders have experienced a level of enjoyment in the water that’s benefited them. Many have overcome a barrier, and they have all reaped the benefits of swimming outdoors.

“When I was 21, I found the love for open water swimming. I entered a triathlon relay, and I did the swim leg, and I just thought, This is what I’ve been missing,” says Rebecca Wetten, founder of the virtual swim coaching platform, Catch. “It’s taking it out of the pool, or doing some of your training in the pool and then getting outdoors. That’s where the joy really comes.”

Rebecca had quit competitive swimming at 16 because her GB training was too serious and not filling her with joy. It was the joy she discovered swimming outdoors that inspired her business.

“I was sitting in a pub with a pal when she admitted that her 30th birthday present to herself was adult swimming lessons, and she’d not had a great experience with them – they hadn’t met her needs for various different reasons,” she says. “The light bulb went off, and I thought, these solutions exist, but they’re not only not meeting people’s needs, but they’re not filling them with the joy that I know people can feel when they find their flow with swimming.”

The same desire to help people find the joy of swimming outdoors inspired Fiona, whose disability affected both her confidence and desire to continue her employment. That, and her love for timeless 1950s design.

“I’ve always loved swimming. I lived by the sea for a long time. Anytime I can go away and swim, I’m there,” says Fiona, who strives to give other women the confidence to swim. “I’m fascinated by how British women are so self-conscious about putting swimwear on… I did a photo shoot at Dunster beach, and I asked permission to use a beach hut. The lady who owned the beach hut said she didn’t wear swimwear because she couldn’t find anything suitable. I was really upset by that.”

Passion projects

A world of conglomerates, corporations and multinational companies isn’t an easy place for independent swimmer-founder businesses to operate. For example, coaching businesses like Jo’s struggle to get swimming pool time, and product-based businesses like Fiona’s have to outsource manufacture to stay competitive.

However, the very fact that they’re founded by swimmers gives them a very special edge.

“I think having something in common with your customer, designing something that you love to use yourself, and staying really close to your community means that you’re constantly talking to people who are passionate about the thing that you’re passionate about,” says Rebecca. “You learn everything you need to know about your business from your community. Everything we’ve done, how we’ve refined the technology, how we’ve further personalised the training plans, how we’ve made it scalable, UK wide, how we’ve developed our communities – it’s all been based on talking to people every week who are using it.”

This immersion, not only in water, but also in the wider outdoor swimming community is invaluable. It allows swimming entrepreneurs to develop products and services that genuinely make a difference to the communities that they serve.

“It’s all about how [the swimwear] fits and how it makes you feel,” says Fiona, who’s designed her newest swimsuit, ‘The Marilyn’ to fit a broad range of breast sizes, including women who’ve had mastectomies or wear prosthetics. “I’d had an operation six weeks [before first trying on The Marilyn], and I didn’t want to put on a swimsuit and get in front of a camera, but I put it on and it felt amazing. I’ve got to have confidence in my own products to be able to sell them.”

“Seeing the transition from when somebody steps in front of the lens, and they are quite anxious to see how they grow in confidence is something that I really enjoy,” says photographer Justine Desmond, who has worked with Fiona since her photo of swimmer, Pip, in Bettylicious swimwear appeared on the front cover of our February 2021 issue. “It was transformational for Pip to see herself in those images. She saw herself in a completely different light. In fact, she said it was life changing.”

Careers starts with swimming, and they grow with swimming. Whether you’re inspired to train to be a lifeguard or coach, or to use your skills, experience and passion to grow that seed of an idea that popped into your head while you swam, it’s clear that swimming careers change lives.

If you’ve never worked in swimming before, it doesn’t matter. Fiona was working for a charity, Jo in The City and Rebecca in environmental sector for an app tackling food waste.

“I learned somewhere that industry sectors are disrupted by outsiders who come in and with a completely different experience,” says Rebecca. “I don’t think it’s problem that both me and my co-founder have come in as swimmers, but never actually worked in the world of swimming.”

A swimming career isn’t easy, especially in our current fast-moving consumerism culture. But, having an authentic, sustainable, supportive infrastructure around outdoor swimming that enables and empowers as many people as possible to get joy from immersing in natural water is crucial. And for that, we need swimpreneurs.

So, when an idea pops into your head while you swim, don’t dismiss it. You could be what we need next.

More info:

Find Aquaphobia coach, Jo Good at goneforaswim.co.uk

Fiona’s swimwear is at bettylicious.co.uk

Rebecca’s digital swim coaching at catchswim.com

Lead photo by Justine Diamond