Your Points of Leverage: Where to Push Next

Some mistakes are just a wipeout. They cost me my ego and my patience. I incur a lot of 'cost' in the time I choose to invest in surfing – both my lessons, the times I free surf with girlfriends and the amount of time I rack-up looking at Surfline to try and educate myself about the uncontrollables. The ones I've found hurt the most are those that looked like the right move.

Like taking a new board out on a recent trip to the beautiful Crescent Head. 4 days with 12 other women to surf the iconic point and tick Crescent off my list.

This new board was slightly shorter, slimmer and what I thought was the next step in my surfing growth journey. I was so excited, I chose to leave my big red beast of a board behind.

Right intention. Wrong move.

I caught 1 wave the whole weekend. Yep – 1 wave across 4 sessions of surfing.

The most expensive mistake in business isn't doing nothing. It's doing the wrong thing with full – or even half - commitment.

I see this in the business world most frequently when a company chooses to whisk the executive team offsite to do a strategy update. It's well-meaning, energising...and well, expensive. And often built on a fluffy agenda that includes no robust market foundation.

Don't get me wrong, I think strategy offsites are an essential activity for an exec and Board. I personally love facilitating them and seeing the lightbulbs turn on at various stages of a weekend. But if the timing isn't right, what you've got is a good old-fashioned boondoggle.

Trying to get the dopamine hit, in the wrong conditions.

The other thing I didn't know is that how you progress between boards depends on whether you choose to be a shortboarder or longboarder. I didn't realise this was a deliberate choice you made. I assumed that progress for me meant a smaller board - that's what all the other girls were doing. Hence why I made the naïve decision to just take the smaller board to a new surf break. It's the same thing in business – your business identity – or 'why' – determines how you read what your business needs. Only then will you know where you're heading and what your next best move actually is. Without that, every investment is a guess.

Finally, the other thing I underappreciated when I started my surfing journey was how you don't just get out of your car, sling your surfboard under your arm and head out to surf. You go to the deck, you look out over the ocean to figure out where the break is, what the water's doing and where the rip is (to paddle out). Then you get your board, go down to the ocean, and reassess again. Only then do you get in and paddle out. Just like experienced surfers, the best leaders do a lot of reading of the conditions before they commit to their next move and invest their energy.

The point is, leverage isn't about doing more, trying harder or spending more. It's about finding the right point and time to push. That's your point of leverage.

It comes down to diagnoses before action.

Reading before building.

As a Kolbe quick start, I am very guilty of building before reading. Over time, I've also learned to tune into any friction I experience – and asking myself if that is a result of pushing without doing the diagnosis

I'm curious. Where are you pushing, and have you done the diagnosis to know whether that's the right place to push?

Love to hear your thoughts....