Started surfing this year. So far it’s been a great experience, challenging at times and rewarding at others. But in between these highs and lows it’s taught me a lot.

Surfing has a steep learning curve and so I knew I’d struggle at the start. It’s hard to have fun when you’re terrible at something but I focused on getting reps. “Just go”, I told myself. Even if I was terrible and felt like I’ve made no progress, I tried to keep going back. Over time I trusted that my instinct and intuition will learn and I will figure out how to surf.

Now having gone around 10 times, I feel like that’s true. The first 2-3 times after my lessons were the worst. I felt out of place, I was tossed around by the waves, had water all up in my ears and nose; felt self conscious and was left exhausted. But the more I went the more I started to feel at ease and started to notice my instincts take over. One thing I noticed is that I got better at reading waves. I watched a few youtube videos on how to read waves; don’t think I learned anything from them. But my 4th or 5th time surfing on my own, I started noticing the waves and instinctively knew which side of the beach to go for the better waves and was at reading the good waves from the bad ones. It’s one of these things that’s hard to teach; the best way to learn is by doing.

The thing about surfing, unlike any of the other sport I’ve played, is how reliant it is on conditions and nature. The surf and the waves are everything. They do whatever they want and you’re just there to enjoy them. If the conditions are good you’re thankful and try to maximize your time on the waves, but if the conditions are not cooperating there is not much you can do about it.
It’s this that I love about surfing. A big part of the experience is out of my control. I can’t control the waves; I only control how I react to them and try to maximize the opportunity when I get a good wave.

Surfing has taught me to be more patient. The following sequence has happened many times: I go after the first decent looking wave I see, I paddle hard but the wave turns out to be not be very good. But then I look back and see that the next wave is much better but because I had gone for the first wave I missed my chance to surf this better wave.
So it’s important to be patient and preserve your energy for the right moments. Going for it all all the time will just wear you out faster.

Surfing in general has give me some good life lessons. There are lots of things are out of your control and there is no reason to dwell on them. All you can do is be ready and patient for the right opportunities and to give it your all when it’s here.

When giving advice, people recommend others do what worked for them. It’s well intentioned, but when recalling past events people tend to underestimate the value of actions that are easy for them and overvalue the actions that more required effort from them.

One advice that’s quite common in the startup world is that you should launch your MVP as quickly as possible. Some recommend you should be ashamed of your MVP. This advice might be a good advice to someone who is perfectionist but it’s a bad advice for someone who tends to move quickly anyway. Might encourage them to move even faster which would be to their detriment.

Take every advice with a grain of salt. Not all advice applies to everyone equally.