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Yvon Chouinard told his staff to surf when the surf comes up. The trick isn't skipping the work, it's banking it ahead so a free morning is already paid for.
Show Notes
Yvon Chouinard told his staff to surf when the surf comes up. The trick isn't skipping the work, it's banking it ahead so a free morning is already paid for.
Featuring: Yvon Chouinard, Oprah Winfrey
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One mental model each day in a few minutes. Habits, business, building products and thinking clearly. From Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc.
"Luck is preparation meeting opportunity."
Oprah Winfrey
I skipped the work my streaks depend on and each one held.
Yvon Chouinard built Patagonia out of a blacksmith shop. He forged climbing pitons and sold them from the trunk of his car. Years later he wrote a book called Let My People Go Surfing and gave his staff a policy by the same name.
When the surf comes up, go.
Work the hours around it as long as the work still gets done. Catch the swell and come back.
When I first heard the policy, surf when the surf is good sounded to me like permission to skip the work.
It read like a trade: discipline or spontaneity, pick one. What about showing up each day? A habit streak builds your reputation with yourself: each kept day is evidence you'll keep the next one. Skip on a whim and the evidence breaks.
This morning the policy clicked: Chouinard didn't skip work. He moved it around the waves. Discipline or spontaneity is a trade-off that only looks real. He tunneled through it.
Habit banking is how mornings like this happen for me.
On a strong day I work past the daily minimum: an extra post, extra marketing, extra mobility work. The credit carries forward. Bank enough and the day's work is done before the day arrives.
So I did it for the plot.
Let my people go running.
Chouinard's people earned their waves. This morning was my wave: sun out, air cool, a day built for a run. Build the reserve and you're free when your wave rolls in.
What reserve could you build for the chance worth dropping everything for?
- "A habit streak builds your reputation with yourself" (objection paragraph) → link to posts/unpublished/a-habit-streak-builds-your-reputation-with-yourself.md once it publishes. Dru wants that post out before this one.
- "Build the reserve" (final line) → link to posts/unpublished/bank-ahead-then-go-deep.md once it publishes, in addition to the existing habit-banking link.