(Videos reproduced with the kind permission of Steven Kotler)
Part One
Part Two
The byproduct of all this risk taking, as Kotler describes, is an increased awareness, forced mindfulness, faster decision making, and an increase in your creative potential that lasts long past the event. Kotler theorises that this forced focus, and “Flow State,” is one of the key reasons that extreme athletes have been able to draw new lines, and make what was considered impossible possible in their art.
Tapping this potential means that businesses can learn to harness risk, to improve their creativity and decision making. That means improved productivity and greater earning potential. If you are running a business, start taking note.
Extreme athletes are by definition, the extreme example. You don’t need to risk your life to get the full benefits of untapping your flow potential (but it helps).
So what about golf?
Golf is a great sport because it gets you in the open air, gives you the chance to network and discuss business, all while moving your body in a healthy productive way. Any lack of concentration directly translates into a crap shot, so it also gives you immediate feedback.
Chat to any golf pro for more than ten minutes, and you will probably hear that golf is played between your ears. It’s a mental game. This has drawn CEO’s and executives to it in droves, all wearing funny looking pants. Kelly Slater has famously used golf as a mindfulness activity, like a movement-based meditation.
But you still see people checking their mobile phones regularly, and let’s face it, there is very little risk involved.
The Ocean is the Great Equalizer
Surfing is more able to get you into Kotler’s flow state, as your arse is on the line. There is a real element of risk (or perceived risk) involved, and if you are a surfer, you know what it is like to experience this fear state. What surfing teaches you is to harness the fear, to charge, and not to hesitate.
We all know, through painful experience, that bad shit happens when you hesitate. You go over the falls, get in the wrong position, or get held under. You learn quickly and you adapt quickly, because the benefit is the ride itself. This constant improvement leads to constant reward, physically, mentally, chemically.
Learning to harness risk, or what Steven Kotler refers to as “learning to play with fire,” is what every business leader is desperate to harness. The fact that the byproduct of this is also more creative potential is powerfully unique.
This risk sharpens your focus, and makes you truly mindful. You can’t think about anything else because there are real consequences. Kotler shows how this switches off your slow brain, making your decision making more rapid and intuitive.
The Australian Army has been using these tools for years: The Army Adventurous Training Unit was designed to take leaders through high stress, dangerous scenarios, and then force them to make high speed decisions. The outcome? Better leaders.
He also shows how the body rewards you chemically through the release of dopamine and other opioid “feel-good” hormones which among other things, increase performance and your ability to come up with amazingly creative ideas. Your body releases its own chemical high.
Surfers have discovered much of this themselves, sometimes quite by chance. But the number of surfers who adapt their lives to more consistently tap into this state is quite amazing. How many people do you know that took up surfing, then you find them a year later all chilled out, physically and mentally more balanced, and spending as much of their time as they can doing the thing they love? They become a better version of themselves.
Business leaders are now expected to be fit, energetic, balanced, creative, and lateral thinking “change makers.” Surfing teaches you this, and according to Kotler, provides you with the neurochemical state to get shit done, and get it done quickly.
As surfers we are uniquely positioned to harness this change in mind-set. To help the change makers use surfing, skateboarding, rock climbing, bungee jumping, or slack lining to use perceived risk to improve business practices, and to change the way corporations treat the world. In my opinion, surf schools will become a platform for training new business leaders, as well as up and coming grommets.
It’s time to stop bitching about the surf industry and start getting involved in a way that shapes the leaders of tomorrow.
Surfing will be something you do to make you better and more proactive with your life. This is the essence of productivity. You will be encouraged to find greater balance, and use surfing and these other activities to do this.
Learning to surf is not just something fun, awesome, and life changing. Surfing is the new golf. Are you ready to help make this happen?
Ash Boddy
weekendsurfwarrior.com
