John John Florence enjoys the process that leads to winning more than the winning itself. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
John John Florence is a two-time world champion of surfing. He’s widely regarded as the best surfer on the planet. There aren’t too many people who can relate to that kind of success, so the saying “it’s lonely at the top” has probably crossed his mind at one point or another. As someone who will never be the best in the world at anything (barring some extinction event that kills everyone except me), it’s exceedingly interesting to hear his thoughts on what the reality of being the best is.
“When it first happens, you feel elated,” he says. “You’re like, ‘this is it.’ And then you wake up the next morning and you’re like, ‘everything is… the same.’ You know, I woke up and everything is just happening again. Like it’s restarting. You can be determined. You’re just in this non-stop thing; this cycle. Once you lose that motivation, though, and you don’t have any of that deeper power behind it, that can wear you pretty thin.”
Becoming the best at anything often requires a whole lot of selfishness. Endless hours practicing, endless hours in one’s own head, breaking down what could be done better.
“Competing is hard,” Florence continued. “It’s selfish. It’s a hard thing to do, and so you definitely have to have that motivation behind it.”
For John, his years of winning have led to a realization: it wasn’t the winning that he loved so much.
“It was actually the process that led up to winning that I enjoyed the most,” he explained. “I think that’s where my mindset has evolved over the last few years, kind of post-titles. It was a hard one because you have friends and family and everyone around you in your circle is just excited. You just won two world titles in a row and everyone wants you to win three and four and five… it’s really easy to get wrapped up in that outer story that people create around you, rather than trusting the inner story that you have within yourself. It’s really funny what your mind and body will do when you don’t want to be somewhere.”
Florence believes when that mindset strikes, something’s got to give.
“Every time I’ve been feeling that, it’s just injury or something else happens where your body just goes ‘No, we’re stopping.’ It’s kind of like a forced break.”
Now, with so much success in his career — both in the water and out — the way John approaches things is a lot different than it used to be.
“It’s the process that I look forward to,” he said. “I love surfing and I surf every single day. It’s not about winning. It’s about just getting better. I know that’s an endless chase and you’d never reach the end point of that, but I think that’s kind of cool in a way. You can translate that into the rest of life.”
