What is something you’re proud of?

Jenny | Tāmaki Makaurau

Jenny reflects on how her son-in-law helped her complete an open-water swim, showing that courage, belonging, and inspiration often come from simply showing up and trying, not necessarily from coming first.

“I’ve watched a swim on Waiheke Island and I’ve looked at the swim and thought I’d love to do that and I voiced that. And I had this beautiful experience with my son-in-law, Avi, saying he’d swim with me.

I wasn’t absolutely sure he meant it, but he did mean it. And he swam with me and I did this two kilometre swim from Palm Beach around Nani Island and back again, and he swam the entire way with me. Probably 20 minutes later than everybody else was when I got to finish the race. And he’s still there with me, encouraging me the entire way round. He never said, ‘do you think you can do this?’ He actually really supported me and I felt like he thinks I can do it, so probably I can.

And then having the other swimmers who had come in – there were probably 25 other swimmers- are all there waiting for me and they’re clapping and cheering and they’re happy for me. And in that moment, I felt like I really belonged. And I think that did a lot for me to just realise I can do this. But the person who comes in last gets this to keep for a year. It did a back to front. Usually the first gets the trophy, not the last.

I think that we are aligned so much with winning meaning you come first. And I think what it turned on its head was actually, we can really honour contribution or being a participant. We can honour the courage that it takes to do stuff that is out of your comfort zone.

And even somebody coming along the beach who’d watched and just felt that – she said, ‘I think I could do this. I watched you and you come in last and maybe I can do it.’ And I sort of thought, isn’t that interesting that we can inspire people without even knowing.”