A friend of mine is setting up a series of yoga/ surf/ healthy lifestyle retreats and he was running a Pilot/ Trial so I spent the weekend in North NSW doing yoga and learning to surf and I am still feeling energized from being in the foamy surf and am feeling really motivated by being able to master surfing.
We were privileged to be taught, mentored and inspired by Rob Wright who trains “grommets” heading to being world champions. 2 of his own children are in the top 10 surfers for their age groups. He is an amazing man and you can see him keeping a close eye as I ride that wave. One of the great thing about having photos is that I am able to self critique my style.
Since returning to Sydney I have mentioned to few “surfer types” that Rob was our surf coach and one word comes up consistently – “legend”.
After a bit of trial and error, I managed to take my hands off the board a number of times and what an amazing feeling. For those of you who surf, you know what I’m talking about.
Three really important lessons I learned from surfing.
1 Eyes up: keep my eyes up. As soon as I looked down my momentum slowed.
Is this similar in business? Keep your eyes in front, keep your Vision Up and Forward.
2 There’s always another wave. As I would start to paddle I might miss a wave and that led to “Bother, missed that one”. The Fantastic thing about surfing is that there is always another wave.
If we could think about business in the same way, “there is always another opportunity” and really believe it – just as we know there is always another wave.
3 Total Focus. There is so much to concentrate on that there is no head space for any thinking that is not part of surfing. In this way I found surfing to be very like yoga. Both these activities, sports, require 100% concentration and focus and attention. I love this about yoga and now surfing as well.
No matter what else is going on, out there in the surf, I was only thinking about surfing; where are my feet? is this the wave? how fast do I need to paddle? which direction is the board going? how do I make the board go over that way? where are my feet? where do my hands go? which way is this wave going? my brain was busy making decisions about surfing – and nothing else.
Surfing is a great analogy for business.
If anyone is keen to learn to surf and have a fabulous weekend at Lennox Heads, Lee and his team are the people to take care of you.