Don't Fight the Ocean: A Surfing Lesson on Leading Rural Community Colleges

Here's what 4 people who grew up in Nebraska look like on their first surfing lesson.

I'm 48, and last week I had my first surfing lesson. To be more accurate, it was a paddling lesson. I spent all of my time struggling to paddle past the breaking waves rather than actually surfing them.

The instructor was phenomenal. His general advice was simple: paddle hard between the waves, and when a big one rolls in, either do a 'turtle roll' or push the board under. We had two options, but every wave was different and the same solution wouldn't always work. You just had to learn to read the wave and then make the right decision.

The big waves, he explained, weren't meant to be fought. You just needed to go under to maintain your position, ready to move forward when the water calmed.

He gave us a profound piece of advice: you can’t control the ocean; you need to work with it. The ocean doesn't care what you think or what you're trying to do.

Growing up in Nebraska, I didn't have much experience "reading" the ocean. And that's where I struggled. I knew what I was supposed to do—a full turtle roll—but when the big waves came, my lack of experience meant I couldn't fully trust the process. I’d panic a little, fight the water, and my board would act more like a sail, catching the wave and pushing me right back. I'd expend all my energy and end up angled incorrectly for the next wave, needing to take precious time and energy to realign.

This experience is a perfect metaphor for leadership.

Working with the Waves You Can't Control

First and foremost, we can't control the waves coming at us. As a rural community college leader, you face external pressures every day: shifts in funding, changes in state regulations, unexpected enrollment dips, student information system company bankruptcy, or community-wide economic challenges. These situations don't care what you think, and they hold a lot of power.

If you spend all your time fighting these external waves, you will exhaust yourself. Instead, your job is to paddle and move forward in between the waves—that's where you make progress in your department or college. When the big wave hits, you maintain your spot. You don't get pushed back. You save your energy for when you can move forward again.

Experience is the Teacher

Second, there is immense value in experience. As a rural leader, you will make mistakes. I make mistakes. The key is to learn from them. In surfing, the mistakes are obvious and immediate: you get knocked back. In leadership, many of our mistakes take time to play out. You must spend time reflecting on your decisions.

When the next "wave" comes—the next big challenge—you will be able to read it better because your past experience has served as your teacher. This is also why you must have a mentor with more experience. That person has navigated a lot of waves, and you can learn from their ability to "read" the ocean.

Interestingly, the best surfer in my family was my 8-year-old. She didn’t try to think it through; she just went with the flow. While we can’t fully lead by instinct, we can take a page from her book: sometimes, you just have to trust the process.

I’m glad I said yes to a new experience in my late 40s. Even without successfully surfing, it was a fun activity with my family, and I’ll try again. Next time, I’ll be armed with a little more preparation, knowledge, and experience.