Surfing & my journey to improve.

This is a story, a journal post of sorts, about choosing to jump in the deep end, getting chewed up and spit out and the experience that put me on a journey for the past year determined to improve. This is a story focused on surfing and how it has helped me both disconnect from and reconnect with life and business.

It was Super Bowl Sunday, February 4, 2018. Eagles beat the Patriots, but I couldn't care less. Not because of the teams, but because my attention was focused on something much more exciting. I was ordering my first custom surfboard from Channel Islands. More specifically, a 7'0" Flyer with bright green rails and blue Futures fins. A black Al Merrick logo center-front at the nose. 47 Liters. Large enough to catch most waves at the local beach, yet small enough to fit inside my car with ease and looking cool enough to fit in with the locals. I had surfed a dozen times before ordering this board and determined to ride bigger waves, I placed the order. 

2 months later, it arrived. Loaded up carefully in the car, I made the 50 mile drive to Santa Cruz. Driving along the coast, I finally found a place to park. Eager to ride the new board, which would surely improve my abilities, I put on my wet suit, grabbed my stuff and walked towards the stairs at the top of Steamer Lane. If this was a ski slope, it’d be a Black diamond. New to the spot, I quickly noticed it was covered with a memorial of RIP signs for all the guys before me who were courageous enough to paddle out, yet not immortal enough to withstand its wrath. Out of my league, but the car was already parked, I couldn’t turn back now. I figured maybe they were bad swimmers and went out on some especially rough days. I accepted the challenge. With legs (no, entire body) shaking, I cautiously walked down the stairs of the cliff face and over the rocks into the thrashing high-tide. 

I got on and started paddling. 30 seconds in and the waves took grip of me, only yards from the rocks. I was in over my head and in trouble. A thousand things running through my mind, I thought to myself... Deep breaths. Stay calm. Focus. My high school's motto, "Esto vir", meaning "be a man", played in my head. I reset, took control and committed myself to outmaneuvering the crashing waves. I looked at where they were breaking, how far apart they were, and calculated if I had a better chance of paddling around, or diving under them. 

I tell myself I'm good at being thrown in the deep end, but this was another beast. It didn't matter how good my board was. It mattered about me, my skills and how I was going to handle the situation. Talk about getting a life lesson beaten into you. I got the message that day!

You see, these waves were different than anything I had known and all my past experiences were going to be needed here. These waves were powerful and pushing me helplessly closer to the cheese grater rocks that lined the cliff. Worse, their power didn't just hold you down. No, that'd be too easy. It created a cloud of bubbles which only had enough density to lift a feather. Anything else would plummet towards the sea floor, helpless only until they decide to dissipate and you have enough water within grasp for you to paddle and paddle hard! Panic or overthink and wait too long and it's a virtuous cycle until your name is engraved on the memorial up top.

I found an opening and paddled towards it with all my might. I had pushed past those first barriers and found myself alive, veins pumping with adrenaline and now in the line up, waiting to ride one of these beasts. 

That day, needless to say, I didn’t ride any waves. If you were there on the cliff looking down at me, you’d be thinking I was just sitting on my board, frozen in fear. Granted, partially true. But in that moment, after that experience, I was determined to learn how to ride those waves. I spent that afternoon studying everything around me and processing what happened, what I did wrong, why I panicked and how I can overcome a situation like that in the future.

People often ask why I surf. Why do I put myself in situations like that? What about drowning and sharks and cold water and a board to the head or head to the reef? Like most, I thought it was cool and it'd be something fun to do. It was a club I wanted to be a part of. And like most, I've come to learn it's much more than that.

Surfing crosses many boundaries. Personally, I'm drawn to work, my phone and having money and success. If it's materialistic, I probably have it, or want it. It sounds cheesy, I know, but when you're in the ocean, it's a chance to be disconnected from the stress of everything on land.

Even on a rough day in the ocean, you can find a sense of calm and are reminded of things greater than yourself. In that moment, you're in another world and learn lessons about hard work and self improvement which is why I’m drawn back. 

Recently, I've been reading William Finnegan's book, Barbarian Days - A Surfing Life. He shares an enormous amount of thoughts and experiences that can fill your mind forever. The following is just one excerpt that resonated with me and which I'd like to share with you. 

As he says, "Nearly all of what happens in the water is too extreme to be expressed in words - language is no help. Wave judgement is fundamental, but how do we unpack it? You're sitting in a trough between waves, and you can't see past the approaching swell, which will not become a wave you can catch. You start paddling up-coast and seaward. Why? If the moment were frozen, you could explain that, by your reckoning, there's a fifty-fifty chance that the next wave will have a good take off spot about ten yards over and a little further out from where you are now." 

Finnegan continues with "Of course, the moment can't be frozen. And the decision whether to sprint-paddle against the current, following your hunch, or to stop and drift, gambling that the next new wave will defy odds and simply come to you, has to be made in an instant." As I agree, he continues down the path expressing "your mood, the state of arm muscles, the deployment of other surfers is critical in your success of catching the perfect ride." And he says, "the crowd is just a nuisance, a distraction, distorting your judgement while you jockey to get the wave to yourself."

I find Finnegan’s writing beautiful, expressive and accurate but I could read his book a million times and it still not resonate as well as the brutal lessons learned at Steamer Lane. You see, that day, that experience, struck me to the core and reinforced in me the importance of being prepared, knowledgeable, committed and executing in everything I set out to do. 

For months, I practiced and struggled. I could stand, but I couldn’t carve. On so many waves, I either stood too far back and had no speed, or went too fast straight down the face, or more often than not, just face planted and was swallowed up by the breaking wave with memories of day 1 at Steamer Lane. 

Over the next year, I made the 100 mile round trip drive almost every weekend. Rain or shine. Summer or winter. In 4 hours, I can drive there, surf, walk around and drive back in time for dinner. Each time, trying to learn something new about the way the waves break, improving my form and trying to copy the locals, who were several levels ahead of me. Over time though, things started to resonate and make sense and most importantly, feel natural.

I learned that as I paddle out and the set approaches, how to best position myself for success. Which wave should I ride? Timing is critical. What direction is the swell breaking? Who else is in line? Keeping my eyes ahead and looking down the line of where I want to go, I take control and in an effort to emulate the best, I try to be fluid and make it look effortless. With the water rushing behind and under me, I glance around at the beauty and how far I’ve come. 

That first day at Steamer Lane set me on a path to become better than I otherwise would be. If I didn’t paddle out that day and commit to riding it, even after being beaten by its wrath, I’d be far less likely to be able to ride it today. Throwing myself in the deep end put me in scary moments and struggles, but surrounded me with talented surfers to learn from, accelerated my skills and reinforced the confidence to take on bigger waves. 

Today, I continue to learn, adapt and evolve in the ocean, in life and in business and for that, I'm grateful. 

If you want to know how to surf, read about it.

If you want to be a surfer, get out there and do it. Fall. Face plant. Get eaten by waves. Get the wind kicked out of you and keep after it.