Episode 243: Ride Your Own Wave
You need to ride your own wave. In today's episode, Fiona shares an important tip wherever you are in your business journey from her beautiful husband, Jerome Rivero. Remember, you're only trying to get better and improve yourself. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Questions to ask yourself
Advice for business owners
Conclustion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 243 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today you're listening to a quick tip episode. If you're listening in real-time, it is Tuesday the 4th of October, 2022. I want to give a massive shout-out to someone very close to me who is celebrating his birthday today. That is my beautiful husband, Jerome Rivero. Today's quick tip comes from my beautiful husband. I just wanted to say happy birthday, Jerome, we love you so much. Before I get stuck into that great tip that my husband has shared with me and I will share with you, I wanted to of course acknowledge that traditional owners and custodians on the beautiful land on which I record this podcast and where I live with my beautiful husband and my lovely kids, and that is the Wurundjeri and Wurrung people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
As I said, today is my husband's birthday and I want to acknowledge him by saying thank you Jerome for all that you do for us. But also I wanted to share a tip from him because I think it is something that is so important wherever you are in your business journey. What is the tip? Well, is it a tip tool or a tactic? I would say it's a tip. It's definitely a tip. So for context, my husband surfs, he has been surfing for a long time. I think he used to like skip out on high school and go surfing down Philip Island, if you're familiar with Melbourne and Victoria, Philip Island has beautiful surf beaches, and both Jerome and I grew up holidaying at Phillip Island every single year. He actually used to tent in the back of the caravan park where we had a caravan.
Our caravan was at the end of the light of caravans and all the tents were next to our caravans. It's very likely that we actually were there at the same time as teenagers and in our early twenties and didn't even know it. Anyway, suffice to say, my husband is a keen surfer. He's also a keen skateboarder and he's been doing that for decades. One of the things that he has gotten into in the last couple of years is surfing at night. He surfs at Urbnsurf, which is in Melbourne. It's a manmade surf area, Urbnsurf. If anyone's listening, we are more than happy to do sponsorship here. But in all seriousness though, it's a really important part of Jerome's life surfing. He came home a while ago from one of his surfs.
He comes home late once a week after that. He said to me, “You've got to ride your own wave.” It sounds so simple, but in the surf, I'm not a surfer. I have tried surfing and I can stand up, but that's kind of as far as I can get. But there's a whole surf community. Because my husband has been surfing for so long, whenever he goes down to the island, he often bumps into people that he knows and they have chats, but there's a whole surf etiquette of which I'm not going to say that I'm expert in, but you can sit there and you can watch other people riding, but that's actually going to mean that you are going to miss your wave. Jerome and I had this whole conversation about, “You've just got to ride your own wave.”
I said, “My God, that is such a good analogy for life in general,” but it is also such a good mantra for business ride your own wave. When he first told me that, I think I actually made it into a quote card and put it on Instagram because sometimes words can be strung into the right sentence and it just really hits home for you. For me, when those words that he spoke just really hit home, because in the same way that, like I just said, if you're a surfer and you're out there to catch a great wave yourself and to have that experience yourself, there's no point sitting around on your board or paddling on your board, or I'm not sure if the right terminology, but there's no point sitting there and just watching everybody else get wave after wave and then being annoyed that they got the waves when you weren't even trying because you weren't focusing on what you need to do, you are focusing more on what they were doing.
You need to ride your own wave. Remember that when you're surfing, you're only ever competing against yourself. You're only trying to get better and improve yourself. A similar important person in my life is Beyoncé. But I remember reading something about Beyoncé where she said, “The only person I ever compete with is who I was yesterday.” I think that is also another brilliant point and kind of fits really well in with these words of “Ride your own wave.” Because I know I've put my hand up, I have done this many times in business where I have seen somebody in the same industry as me or in a similar industry, and I've seen them seemingly come from overnight and get this or that, or they've done this or they've talked about this.
We've got to remember that so much of social media is other people's highlight reels. But also so much is people can go into podcasts and they can say all sorts of things and then you do a little digging and it's actually a very different story. I think for a little while when I first started this business, I kind of got a bit obsessed as too hard of a word, but I kind of got really into checking a particular, one or two people's Instagram and checking what they were doing and comparing myself constantly and seeing how many followers did they have and how many followers did I have? I was so caught up in these stupid vanity metrics. This is probably the first year that I was in business, six years ago. Since then I have really worked on this.
I have to say that I don't generally compare myself to other people. I don't think I'm so good. I don't have to compare myself, but I look at people, if I am feeling like I'm comparing myself, I will ask myself a couple of questions, which is what are the fears that I'm feeling right now? Where do they actually come from? Is there any truth in what those fears are sort of telling me? But also, what can I learn from this person or this brand that I'm looking at with feeling all sorts of ways, but maybe a bit of envy? What can I take from that? Also, why am I doing this? Is it I'm bored? Is it I'm worried about something in my own business? Is it I'd like to do something that they're doing, but I haven't got started on it and I'm procrastinating?
There are all these kinds of questions, but I think it really comes back to realizing that comparing ourselves is kind of natural, but to take ourselves out of that, I'm going to sit here on my surfboard like a business board, whatever you want to call it, and just look at what everyone else is doing. Or I'm going to get into that water, get into the playing space, get into the arena as Breon says. I'm actually going to try and do stuff for myself. I'm actually going to try and catch a really great wave myself and focus on my own journey. Coming back to what Jerome said, “Ride your own wave.” I think it doesn't matter how long you're in business, it's a really important lesson to keep. It's a really important tip to remind ourselves of. That is it for today.
Just a really big reminder to ride your own wave. Don't look at what anyone else is doing, ride your own wave and consider yourself like a surfer. There's no reason for a surfer to get in the water and not ride their own waves. They can't ride other people's waves. They literally have to find the wave for themselves. If they don't focus on that, they're going to lose out on the joy and the experiences of why they went into that water in the first place. If you are finding yourself kind of getting bogged down by what other people are perceiving to be doing, particularly on things like social media, just bring it back. Consider, what am I trying to do with my business. How can I ride my own wave? Again, I just want to say happy birthday to Jerome.
Thank you for this piece of advice and for all the advice that he gives me. I'm very lucky to be in an incredible relationship with such a nice guy. That is it for today's quick tip episode. “Ride your own wave. Of course, we'll link to anything that we need to link to in the show notes for this. And you can find them over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/243. If you found this useful, I would love it if you could share it on social media, just make sure you tag us or if you want to leave a review and you can do that on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast. Thanks so much for listening, I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
