Advice To A Younger Me

Recently, I was asked to talk to the junior surfers at Jones Beach Boardriders club and share my experience. This club has helped me so much over the years so it was an opportunity that I was looking forward to as I could finally give back to a group that means so much to the person I am today.

Going into any talk I try to think of what I’m going to say based on what I would like to hear if I was a member of the audience and that’s why this was so unique to me. The people who would be sitting in front of me were essentially who I was 15 years ago, so this became the good old “Advice to a younger me” approach that I tend to talk about a lot.

I talk about this a lot because when I speak to younger groups that question tends to come up a lot “What advice would you give to a younger version of yourself?” so I’ve answered it a few times before. When I was first asked this question I used to have a hard time coming up with an answer. The usual “Work hard towards your goals” response was always what I thought of but it never really felt right.

One thing I’ve realised in my time speaking is that as much as I’d love for everyone to have their key takeaways so they can go home and start making changes to their lives this is a very optimistic way of looking at things. I certainly do have people who tell me that they went home and they set their goals etc but I know there’s always a certain portion of people who will just remember the story, or that time “Shark Boy” came to speak.

And this is where my advice to a younger me comes in

My advice is honestly the biggest cliché ever… Life is short, things can change in an instant, so cherish the things you have and make the most of your time here because we only get to do it once.

This advice is the biggest takeaway for me personally from my experience and I say it because it’s true for me. So if someone can take this away from me saying it then that’s great. But people don’t often believe in cliché’s because they can sound lazy and everyone wants that profound response that I could deliver in more detail.

But I cant

Because I think it holds more impact when you learn it for yourself. As unpleasant as bad experiences are, I truly think they are there as an opportunity for us to learn and gain perspective that we didn't have before. I don’t wish bad experiences on anyone but the fact remains that everyone will go through something in life that will be your own version of my shark attack.

It’s in moments like that where I hope people like the group of kids I spoke to at Jones Beach Boardriders will have the wherewithal to reflect on what they heard me talk about and to hopefully use that to help them through their own experience.

Once that happens, all of the cliché’s start to make sense.