Ride the wave

I’ve now lived enough life to see when things have gone well for me, when things haven’t, and why

Recently I’ve been using this surfing to describe when we are doing the thing we are supposed to versus doing something we shouldn’t be

How to ride the wave

The irony of me using a surfing metaphor is hilarious because I just spent a year in Maui and failed at surfing tragically and repeatedly.

Think of business, your personal relationships, your hobbies, and your environment as a wave. When you ride the wave it feels fun, you feel in sync with the universe, the wave does almost all of the work, and you go very far very quickly.

When you go against the wave you expend a lot of energy and go nowhere, in fact you might even go backwards. Notably, there is no honor for the surfer who struggles trying repeatedly to swim into wave after wave crashing into him. No one looks at him with respect, they look at him like he’s stupid. 

Business

There is always a macroeconomic wave in motion that can help or hurt you, and the goal of smart people is to find and ride these waves. In 2012-2020 real estate was underpriced and deals were abundant, anyone who rode that wave had fun, made money, and went far. I rode this wave very well. 

If you’re trying to buy real estate right now while rates are high, prices are high, margins are thin, and transactional volume is low – you’re riding against the wave. It’s hard, you have to put out much more energy, and you might go nowhere. (Many people are going backwards / losing money right now)

Famous examples of Blackberry and Blockbuster are good businesses that rode the wave when things were good and didn’t get off in time. Right now Nvidia is dominating the stock market because the AI wave that has appeared out of almost nowhere was in their favor.

For me it has been very useful to know that I rode a wave, the alternative lesson would be to think I was was good and in business that arrogance has crushed and bankrupted many people. Instead I am just focused on finding the next wave. 

Relationships

I think of friendships, romantic partnerships, and familial relationships all as if they are waves.

When I am around this person do I feel like they are lifting me up? Are we going far together? Does it feel fun? Am I excited to swim out and ride this wave again? 

Certainly people change, grow, and evolve, but there are also many people you will meet in this world that are like swimming into a wave. You can expend a lot of energy to go nowhere, it can be draining, and this may never change. Also to note that our relationships change over time, sometimes you have to exit a wave you used to enjoy riding, and vice versa. 

I was on a board walk the other day and a woman mentioned she had a friend for 6 years that was steadily declining in mental health and competency and the relationship was becoming toxic to her. How long should you keep riding this wave before you have to get off? 

We can’t be callus and dismissive with our friends, but we can’t spend a lifetime trying to get back onto a wave that passed. All waves come to an end

Environment 

Maui was not a good fit for me. Slow, isolated, and the same exact thing has happened there every day for an eternity before today and the same will happen there for eternity after today. Worse, the island attracts the type of people who enjoy that lifestyle. I was crashing against the wave in a big way. 

I felt similar when I lived in North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Arizona. Small towns are not a good fit for me, and (so far) Austin seems to be a much healthier fit. The weather, the movement of the city, and the culture of the people, I found a gym that I’m in love with, our location is extremely walkable, all these things allow me to thrive.

but moving is difficult. I wonder how many other people don’t get the chance to ride their wave because they are stuck and/or scared to go somewhere else.

This isn’t just about the city or state you live, it’s about where you work, where you workout, what you do on Saturday night. I feel that all of these environmental factors play a large part in what kind and how much energy we are given. 

Never forget you get you get a choice on many if not all of these things. Is it difficult to move or quit a job or exit a social group go to a new gym?

Yes

but do you want to spend your days crashing into a wave just because moving to the side is inconvenient? 

You don't control the wave

It’s common to think we control our destiny and everyone who thinks this is wrong. As one of my favorite quotes states: 

Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of Psst that you usually can’t even hear because you’re in such a rush to or from something important you’ve tried to engineer – Infinite Jest

The waves come when the universe wants them to come, in the size they decide, where they appear, and in what direction. You have no say at all whatsoever. 

The thing you can and should do is watch for the wave, prepare for the wave, ride the wave, and get off the wave when the time is right. 

I’ve been enough personal relationships to know what riding the wave feels like and they work so well that I’ve realized it’s worth abandoning all the relationships that are difficult for no reason. I’ve been in enough businesses to know that the the ones riding the wave are making more money for the same or less effort and enjoying themselves much more than the ones going against the wave. 

The universe isn’t fair, you don’t get to choose and worse when something is working it still might abruptly come to an end. Waves die, and the longer we hang on trying to ride a dead wave the more we are going to tire ourselves out to go nowhere. 

Sometimes it's just easy

I encourage you to look at your current opportunities this way, are you riding on top or are you smashing against the wave. 

You know when something clicks in life and it just feels easy? what if most of life could just feel easy?

I’m not saying that that opportunity shouldn’t come without effort, but there is effort that uplifts you and there is effort that drains you. 

What are you currently doing in your life that feels heavy and has no forward progress, could you just abandon it and find a better wave?