Week 010
There’s a stage every surfer hits where trying harder stops working.
You’re past beginner mode. You can catch waves, you can get down the line. But the thing that got you here, effort, just paddling more and wanting it more, has quit paying you back. What you need now isn’t more effort. It’s a system.
I’m sitting in that exact stage right now. Just in business instead of the water.
I don’t feel intermediate or advanced in the business world. But I’m learning the value of systems and structure, and man, how much of it is the same thing I teach in the water.
The structures I put in place now are what create the freedom to actually enjoy this and take more chances.
But then the question hits. How long does that sustain? How many surfboards do I need to sell? How many coaching sessions do I need to fill? How many retreats do I need to put on? How many hats do I need to sling?
So I’ve been learning about minimum viable product and what can live on outside of me. How do I build something evergreen? Something that runs and breathes without me standing on top of it?
Which is exactly how I look at surfing the South Bay. It’s one of the hardest things to explain in a succinct way. But there are formulas. There are ways I can look at a forecast and predict almost to a T what the ocean is going to do and how I should approach that session. That knowledge is evergreen now. It lives on its own. I just built it slowly over a lot of years.
3 ideas from me
- Structure is what buys the freedom. It kinda sounds backwards. People think a plan takes the fun out of a surf session. It’s the opposite. When I know my forecast, my peaks, my markers and the one thing I’m working on, I’m free to just surf. Same in business. The system isn’t the cage. The system is what lets you take the chance.
- Build the thing that works when you’re not there. In surfing that’s everything that’s gone second nature. Reading the sandbar without thinking about it. Knowing from the tide alone where you should be sitting. You built it in your mind and it pays you back every session for the rest of your life.
- You can compress the timeline. Parkinson’s law says work expands to fill whatever time you give it. Here’s what that actually means in the water. Two surfers both go out 3 times a week for a year. One surfs. The other picks one objective per session, tells someone what it is, and finds out afterward what actually happened. Same wave count. Completely different year. The reps or the effort aren’t what compress the clock. The feedback on the reps is what changes your surfing.
2 quotes from others
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
C. Northcote Parkinson
“If your business depends on you, you don’t own a business, you have a job.”
Michael E. Gerber
1 question for you
What’s one thing in your surfing that’s second nature now, that used to take everything you had?
Let’s keep building,
The shaper