Keep Showing Up
My buddy Aaron on a surf trip in Chile.
“Go back to the valley, man.”
-Bunker
A couple months ago my friend, Aaron, was in town visiting and we started talking about surfing. Aaron lived in Boulder for about five years, but all the time prior to that, and since then, he’s been in close proximity to water and has been a lifelong surfer. The quote above is from a scene in the movie Point Break when Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is learning to surf and drops in on a local’s (Bunker) wave, causing that person to crash, and then Johnny is promptly punched in the face, has his leash cut with a knife and is told to “go back to the valley, man.”
When I was growing up in the 1990’s, I dabbled in the skate and snowboard culture which is the closest way I can relate to Aaron and the surf world. At that time, one of the bigger pejoratives you could throw at someone was calling them a “poseur.” I don’t really think this word was limited to the two realms of snowboarding or skating, it was really meant to be an insult thrown at anybody that was trying to fit in and simply wasn’t deemed worthy of belonging. The reason for not belonging could be from a myriad of things, but if you break away all the nuance, it was really suggesting someone was basically not good at whatever it was they were trying to do.
About six years ago (maybe more), I was doing a public speaking gig and one of the slides was titled “I’m a poseur.” In this context it was no longer about board sports; instead it had to do with triathlon. The photo below is from me swimming (well going to the start of a swim) in my first Ironman 21 years ago. It’s hard to tell from the blurriness of the photo, but if you look closely you’ll notice that the race logo is across my forehead (red cap). If you don’t happen to be a swimmer, what this means is that I don’t even know how to put on a swim cap correctly. My inexperience wasn’t just evident when actually swimming, but before I even got in the water.
The discussion Aaron and I had about surfing had little to do with surfing itself. The discussion had more to do with the idea to keep showing up.
No one shows up on day one to go surfing, snowboarding, swimming, etc. and is just a complete badass. Except maybe Mozart. If you are like Mozart, more power to you; just watch out for the Salieris of the world. For the rest of us, we need to keep showing up if we want to get any better.
When I made that slide titled “I’m a poseur” the lesson I was trying to convey was that we all have to take the journey from inexperienced to experienced. We cannot skip the steps from naivete to savant. On that slide, I included a favorite quote from the world famous musician, Dave Grohl:
“Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy an old drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck too.”
I really like this quote because, given its source, it helps to illustrate the fact that no one became the master of anything simply by always being one. While we may not all achieve the level of mastery that Grohl has achieved, the simple act to keep showing up will be our best path to continued growth and progression.
Not any good at something?
Keep showing up.
Kinda good at something?
Keep showing up.
Really good at something?
Keep showing up.
-justin
Learning to snowboard with my cousin Mark in 1994.
Ironman California in May 2001.
Cinco Ranch triathlon, August 2000.
