This week I’m excited to host the first blog in a guest series from a long time friend and former colleague Mitch Mocilnikar. A few years ago I affectionally began calling our deep conversations “Metaphors with Mitch.” His way of drawing analogies and painting pictures to give perspective on all our work crises is something that I valued so much… and still do. This week he explores what we can learn from surfing.

One of the advantages to living in Southern California is proximity to the ocean. There is nothing like looking out at the edge of the world and letting my mind go. On occasion, I find myself on a pier watching the unique souls who sit perched on their boards waiting for that perfect ride. Surfing is not a sport or a pastime as much as it is a way of life. 

Surfers get up early, head out to the beach and then find a spot to survey the surf conditions. If all looks good, they don their wetsuits, wax up their boards and head into the water, fighting past the breakers to orient themselves for the best possible outcome. This is the proactive part of surfing. Getting ready to react. 

When the wave comes, the surfers position themselves to react to what that mighty force brings with it. Proper position and adequate preparation will set them up for a great ride but physical conditioning, skill, and experience will be essential in dealing with the intangible elements of each wave.  Regardless of success or failure on any given wave, this is action. This is the reactive part of surfing.

A surfer, fulfilling all of their proactive duties, can hit the water with gusto. Fighting through the breakers and grabbing that first wave can be exhilarating. Going right back in and attacking the surf repeatedly will give them the most rides for their investment of time. It will also wear them out quicker. They will get the most rides but not necessarily the best rides. They will be reacting to what was in front of them but they will never know if they selected the best course of action or just the first course of action. They would be missing something. The reflective part of surfing.

When you stand on the pier watching the surfers you will note how much time they spend just observing their environment. They soak it in and map out a strategy. They are aware of the people around them and the pattern of waves as the sets come in. They take in everything around them from the air temperature to the water temperature, to the wind speed and direction, to the swells. It all adds up in the calculus of surfing. The best outcome in surfing is not determined by the number of rides, it’s more about the quality of the time spent. The time spent on the board thinking determines the outcome for every ride. That reflection is what drives success. Reflection is the critical element of surfing.

My father once told me that the ocean is nothing to be afraid of...It’s just the most powerful force on earth. The surfer gets to experience that in a way no other can. They get time to reflect on the majesty of the ocean. They surf to reflect. Reflection is what makes them good at it.

If you paddle out, catch the first wave, and then paddle back out to get the first wave again you will get a great workout. Surfers don’t surf for exercise. That is an ancillary benefit. Exercise may strengthen your body but reflection will allow you to grow. Surfers surf to free their minds and that would not happen without that reflective phase. 

This is what we do at work all the time. Proactively preparing for what is to come and being nimble so that we can react when things don’t go exactly as planned. We don’t always spend the time to reflect. We can so easily forget why we’re even doing what we do because we don’t value reflection. If you do take time to stop what you’re doing and think at work, you may be afraid that someone will see you and wonder why you’re not “working”. That fear is justified. Not everyone appreciates the thinking part of work. What could be more important at work than taking the time to think!?!

This proactive-reactive-reflective cycle is essential to effective work. Every business can benefit from it. In my previous job, we even incorporated it into our quarterly leader meetings. We framed each of the meetings in terms of proactive, reactive, reflective, and celebratory (that’s a subject for another article) and we used the normal “seasons” of our business to determine when they should be.

All businesses have cycles. Workers might be busy year-round but the work often has a different focus at different times of year. Let’s take advantage of that normal cycle and frame our focus to include proactive, reactive, and reflective attitudes and activities. If reflecting becomes a part of what we do then we will have to spend less time explaining why we do it. It will become part of our collective consciousness.

You don’t have to be actively riding your board to be a surfer. The entire activity is surfing. Let’s spend a little more time reflecting so that we can all be surfing at work every day.

-Mitch Mocilnikar

If life was a dream… and it was my dream we would all take more time to reflect before jumping back into planning and reacting. At work and in life. How will you take the time to reflect?