Surfing, much more than a sport, is a true mirror of life and leadership. For centuries, it was practiced by Polynesian and Hawaiian elites, where chiefs and leaders were selected based on their ability to master the waves. This ancestral practice reveals much more than physical skills. It reflects essential qualities for any leader: resilience, decision-making, adaptation to uncertainty, and humility.
I have been surfing for several years, and it’s an experience that has helped me learn about myself, my strengths, and my limits. The ocean is unpredictable, and facing it, I can never be in total control. I must adapt, anticipate, accept falling… often… get back up after being submerged and start again to finally catch a wave and experience that sensation of gliding, freedom, and pleasure.
Surfing and Humility: A Lesson for Leaders
Surfing, much more than a sport, is a true mirror of life and leadership. For centuries, it was practiced by Polynesian and Hawaiian elites, where chiefs and leaders were selected based on their ability to master the waves. This ancestral practice reveals much more than physical skills. It reflects essential qualities for any leader: resilience, decision-making, adaptation to uncertainty, and humility.
I have been surfing for several years, and it’s an experience that has helped me learn about myself, my strengths, and my limits. The ocean is unpredictable, and facing it, I can never be in total control. I must adapt, anticipate, accept falling… often… get back up after being submerged and start again to finally catch a wave and experience that sensation of gliding, freedom, and pleasure.
Surfing as a Tool for Transformation and Team Building
It’s with this philosophy that I’ve integrated surfing into the retreats I offer to executives, as well as in team building activities. Surfing, as a tool for personal development and cohesion, offers a unique experience. It allows one to disconnect from daily life, regain a form of self-presence, but also connect with others in an extraordinary environment.
In the retreats and team building sessions I organize, surfing becomes a lever to learn more about oneself, to develop a more nuanced vision of leadership, and to strengthen cohesion within teams. Here’s why I firmly believe in it:
- Managing uncertainty: Facing the ocean, we control nothing. This reality translates into the work world, where leaders must learn to evolve in complex and shifting environments.
- Collective resilience: In surfing, you fall often. What matters is how you get back up, and the strength of the collective carries you in these moments. In retreats and team building, I emphasize this collective resilience. As a team, each person learns to support the other in the face of challenges, just as in a company undergoing transformation.
- Cohesion and collaboration: Surfing, like leadership, can sometimes seem solitary, but it’s actually a profoundly collective experience. By sharing this practice with teams, we develop a form of natural solidarity that extends well beyond the waves.
- Pleasure and performance: Surfing invites a state of flow, that subtle balance between challenge and skill, where one surpasses oneself effortlessly, carried by the pleasure of the moment. By integrating this dynamic, I create spaces where teams can both reconnect to the joy of acting together and experience another way of performing — more fluid, more aligned, more sustainable.
Why Integrate Surfing Lessons into Your Transformation?
Surfing, as a tool for leadership and transformation, is not a trivial activity in my offerings. It embodies the very essence of what I teach leaders and teams: the ability to adapt, to navigate unpredictable waters, to be resilient while maintaining the humility necessary to learn from every situation, good or bad. The retreats and team building sessions I organize in the Basque Country and the Landes offer not only a space for rejuvenation but also a unique framework to develop these essential skills for leadership in a world of perpetual transformation.
I invite you to join these privileged moments, close to the ocean, to allow not only your team to realign, strengthen its cohesion, and better manage uncertainty, but to allow you to evolve the way you see and lead your team.
