Deborah Beck

I attribute my success to the incredible community I get to work with every single day. The pay is not good in this field, but you just meet the nicest people. Everybody I meet is very, very different, very, very nice, very committed. It's a sport where you're always training with your friends, and you're only competing against yourself, so triathletes really, really care about how other triathletes do. They are so happy when their friends win - it's just the way the sport develops. So it's a very tight-knit community group, and it's really fun to find myself working with people like that every day. It's very low stress compared to when I was a gym manager, constantly dealing with problems and people who weren't getting along or didn't like their trainer. This is just like everybody gets along and is really sharing with each other. These athletes are kind, driven, and it's just fun. What I treasure most isn't the accolades, but the daily privilege of working with this tight-knit, fiercely committed community.

The best career advice I ever received came early in my career when I was offered a gym management position in Singapore. I had no confidence in doing the job and didn't even want to take it because I was like, I can't do this job. But luckily, the guy who hired me said, 'I understand that you don't know how to do this job, but I think you have the potential to learn, so I'm going to teach you everything you need to know.' That changed everything for me. He saw potential in me that I didn't see in myself, and he was willing to invest in teaching me. From there, I started managing gyms all over the world - in the Middle East, Taiwan, London. That experience taught me that sometimes the best opportunities come when someone believes in you enough to take a chance, even when you doubt yourself.

If you're going to start in this field, you have to be passionate about it, because the money isn't great, so you've got to kind of hustle. You're going to have to make sacrifices, but it's the same for the men - it's even, right? So it isn't like we're getting paid less, so we have to make sacrifices. But there's a lot of opportunity. I would suggest trying to mentor with somebody as soon as you can. Volunteer at races, volunteer to help other coaches to learn a little bit more about how to do this, because it's a little hard to jump into it. Like, virtual coaching - how does that even work? How do I do this? So finding somebody to be a mentor with would be what I would suggest. You can also volunteer at a tri-club and offer to help them with some of their coaching. That's where I would start. Follow your passion, not a paycheck. Be ready to sacrifice, but know the opportunities are vast, especially for women in this sport.

The biggest challenge in my field right now is the severe lack of opportunities for women in sports coaching overall. There are very few avenues for women in coaching, even in women's sports. In the United States, you can be a terrible male at a sport, or not even do that sport, and you're gonna get a job over a woman coaching at a college. There's no path for a woman in sports, and this isn't really on anyone's radar about how poor the opportunities are. That's why I'm so passionate about triathlon - it's one of the only sports where women can actually coach. World Triathlon has very high standards for DEI and actively wants to have an equal amount of coaches that are female and male. The opportunity in this field is that it's international, not just limited to the United States, and you don't get aged out. The older you are, the better you are, because the more you coach, the more people you're coaching, the better you become at it. We've got 70-year-old people teaching us how to coach. Where else can you start a career in your late 50s? It's hard - like, who's gonna hire you? How long are you gonna have to fight for your career? In this sport, age is an asset, not a liability.

The values most important to me are equality, opportunity, and giving back. I'm deeply committed to creating pathways for women in sports, which is why I'm so passionate about triathlon - it's one of the only sports that truly values gender equality, paying women the same as men from the start and actively working toward diversity and inclusion. I believe in the power of community and supporting others, which is why so much of my work involves not-for-profit initiatives, from raising money for Team USA women's triathlon to supporting girls' cycling development in Kenya through the Safari Simbos organization. I also value self-efficacy and personal growth - I love that triathlon teaches people to be self-motivated and to compete with themselves rather than others. It creates this incredibly supportive, tight-knit community where everyone genuinely celebrates each other's success. And I value the idea that age and experience should be assets, not barriers - in this sport, you don't get aged out, and the older you are, the more valuable your expertise becomes.