Belle Koclanes

I attribute my success to my upbringing. I mentioned my Greek heritage, but I'm also Italian and was really raised in the Italian culture in a big Italian family. So I've been on pretty much a team my whole life, you know. That helped me in my athletic career as an athlete and a coach, knowing how to learn how to lead and follow, and the importance of understanding how to do both, and serving in different roles, being part of something that's bigger than yourself.

The best career advice I ever received was to be myself, you know, to make sure that as you're progressing throughout the professional realm, that you stay true to you, your values, what matters most to you as you do the work that you're set out to do.

Right now, I would say how important it is for self-development. Obviously it's important to continue to work on your craft, whatever your passion is, and pouring your hours and time into that field. But really, more important than that is pouring time and energy into yourself, your self-confidence, your self-awareness, so that no matter what life throws at you in your professional field, you can stay grounded and anchored in who you are. So, self-development, I would say, spend some time on yourself in whatever capacity that looks like, because everyone's different.

For me, I'm currently navigating a transition, trying to decide if I want to move out of the athletic space in college coaching and professional coaching. The reason for that is there's not a whole lot of stability. Coaches are hired and fired very quickly, left and right. It's at every level, it's collegiate as well now, not just professional. It makes it hard when you're trying to raise my daughters and find a sense of stability, but build my own stability in the athletic world. That's part of the reason why I'm navigating a transition, trying to make decisions on what to do next. That's a huge challenge for us. We just were just in Dallas and thought we'd be there for 3 years, and they let us go after year one, which is not enough time to do much. Year one is usually a transition year when you're just settling in, getting to know everything, and then you can build a foundation and launch from there. But when you don't have time to even build a foundation, it's like, what are we doing? It's really challenging. Everything is so outcome-based, and I understand it, I'm not afraid of that. It's just, how much longer do I want to feel that?

Connection and others, for sure. Connectivity, just staying connected to the people in my life, family, colleagues. Connection is huge for me. And family at the core, yeah.