{"id":94,"date":"2009-03-22T20:29:15","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T00:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2009-03-26T23:23:22","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T03:23:22","slug":"step-forward-on-the-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/22\/step-forward-on-the-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Step Forward on the Board"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently a guest on Bryan Dodge\u2019s radio show on WBAP in Dallas (see his website<\/a>) after which we had great steaks at the Saltgrass Steak House (always a good place for a steak\u2026..I eat there nearly every time I\u2019m in Dallas) and talked for a few hours.<\/p>\n

Our conversation was intense—go figure, Bryan is a wonderfully intense guy. At one point he said to me in his best imitation of an Old Testament Prophet, \u201cA bigger wave is approaching. Be sure you step forward on the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huh?<\/p>\n

\u201cStep forward on the board.\u201d He repeated.<\/p>\n

\"surfing\"The look of brilliant clarity on my face revealed my confusion, so he explained to me that he was speaking \u201csurfer dude\u201d language. Apparently he\u2019s taken some surfing lessons and learned that when you are on a wave, transitioning to a larger wave, your intuition is to step backward on your board in effort to elevate the front of your board onto the top of the next wave. If you do this you\u2019ll wipe out. Instead, you must\u00a0act counter-intuitively and step forward on your board. The pressure on the front of the board actually causes the board to rise on the water. (About now all my physics friends are saying \u201cwell, yeah\u201d and the rest of us are still going \u201cHuh!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Bryan went on to admonish me \u201cDon\u2019t just lean forward. If you lean (meaning you haven\u2019t really committed, you\u2019ve just sort of paid token attention—-put in half-hearted effort) you\u2019ll also wipe out. You must step both feet fully forward on the board.\u201d You must commit to the next wave.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough this conversation came in the middle of one of the biggest weeks of accomplishment I\u2019d ever experienced, both professionally and personally.\u00a0An enormous period of accomplishment had led up to an incredibly\u00a0huge week capped off by my dinner with Bryan. What he didn\u2019t know though, was that I had said to a couple of key leaders on my team on more than one occasion that week \u201cI feel like we are riding a huge wave and I just need to be sure and stay on the board. Don\u2019t do anything stupid and wipe out.\u201d Then Bryan comes along and without knowing of my wave metaphor says \u201cStep forward on the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s awesome. And if you think God doesn\u2019t orchestrate things like that, we\u2019ll then your brain is broken.<\/p>\n

That conversation was two weeks ago. Every day since I\u2019ve been thinking about what it means for me to step forward on the board.<\/p>\n

What would it mean for you to step forward on the board? In what area are you holding back, slacking off, or hesitating? What big wave of opportunity awaits evidence of your commitment?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m convinced some people commit \u201csurfer suicide.\u201d They see the next big wave and it scares them because they know it is going to require them to\u00a0get out of their comfort zone and develop new capabilities. So instead of stepping forward into greater achievement, they step back and \u201caccidentally\u201d intentionally wipe out.<\/p>\n

Next time I see you will you be hangin\u2019 ten? Or, are you going to have sand in your shorts?<\/p>\n

Step forward on the board!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently a guest on Bryan Dodge\u2019s radio show on WBAP in Dallas (see his website) after which we had great steaks at the Saltgrass Steak House (always a good place for a steak\u2026..I eat there nearly every time I\u2019m in Dallas) and talked for a few hours. Our conversation was intense—go figure, Bryan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,17,18,15],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-commitment","tag-courage","tag-fear","tag-success"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}