Drowning in Business? This ONE Trick Changes EVERYTHING

:: 00:00:00

Speaker 1

Have you ever been stuck in business? Like no matter how hard you worked, no matter how hard you push, no matter what you do, like you don't make any progress and you wake up like six months or 12 months. You're like, God, I'm busting my ass. I'm working all of these hours and it feels like Groundhog's Day because I'm not going anywhere.

:: 00:15:12

Speaker 1

This is kind of how I felt recently when I got caught in a riptide in the ocean and, you know, sort of pulling me away. But it was a really interesting metaphor for business, and I want to share that with you real quick. Hey. What's up? I'm Ray green, former managing director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and CEO for investor groups and currently a strategic growth partner for B2B businesses and MSPs.

:: 00:32:18

Speaker 1

And a few weeks ago, I was at the beach and I was surfing with one of my kids. By surfing, I mean I was like out there with a surfboard, like paddling and standing up and mostly falling over. And my son was surfing pretty well. The beach that we were at is actually said to be like one of the best beaches for for beginners, because there's different levels of waves.

:: 00:50:14

Speaker 1

And, you know, if you're a beginner, like it's actually it's, you know, it's pretty shallow. But the waves hit. So we've been told that this is a, you know, a great beach to be at. Now, you know, I'm falling over and I'm, you know, kind of drifting just a little bit. And what I didn't realize was I had ended up drifting off to the side where they've got the red flag up.

:: 01:06:21

Speaker 1

But it it just happened like incrementally. And I didn't even realize that I had gotten over there. And as I started to realize that I was over there and my son goes, hey, you've gone too far, cause I just got done yelling at him about the same thing. And I was, oh, shit, I'm I'm too far. So I start swimming to shore and I'm like, I'm not really going anywhere.

:: 01:24:09

Speaker 1

Let me swim a little bit harder and and I can swim like I, you know, I used to to race in triathlons like, I know how to swim pretty well. So I'm starting now. I've got the board and I'm, you know, I'm surfing. I'm not. I'm not worried about it at all. Yeah. A minute or two goes by and I'm like, God, I'm not going anywhere.

:: 01:39:06

Speaker 1

Like I'm not making any progress. So I start swimming a little bit harder. It was like, right around this time that I, I started to get nervous. I started to get actually scared. I'm like, I'm getting further away. I start realizing like something isn't right and I'm, you know, so I start I start swimming really hard. I'm still not making any progress.

:: 01:54:09

Speaker 1

And at this point, I don't know if terrifies the right word, but I'm, I'm I'm scared. Right? I'm like, this is if I can be pulled out in the ocean like, this isn't cool at this exact time, I realize a surfer came in, from this side. And over here I saw somebody, another surfer, jump in from the rocks, and he starts swimming from this side, and they come over and they're like, hey, everything all right?

:: 02:16:22

Speaker 1

And I'm like, dude. And he said, you're in a riptide. So they actually took me out, right? Like, so one of them is pushing the board. I'm paddling and he's swimming. And instead of going to shore, we went sideways. Right. Like we went parallel to the beach to get out of the riptide. And then when we get back to the to the shore and the I take, you know, my, my kids over to to talk to the surfer and I'm like, hey dude.

:: 02:41:12

Speaker 1

Like thanks. And and he says, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm from around here. Like, I grew up here and this beach is incredible, but there's like this actual spot that's that's really dangerous. And most people don't realize it. And we've had two people die in that same spot this this year. So we always keep an eye out and all the locals kind of know.

:: 02:58:07

Speaker 1

And it's easy to to drift over there. And he kind of educates me on riptides. Right. And the gist of the Riptide is, hey, basically an Olympic swimmer wasn't going to swim out of that because you're swimming against the tide, save you the science lesson. But all of the water is basically coming back out and it's going to pull you out, and it's going to pull you out faster than you can swim in.

:: 03:18:12

Speaker 1

And no matter how much effort you're putting in, you're swimming the wrong way. Like you think you see the target and you're like, oh, I see the target. It's right there. I'm supposed to be going right there. And the trick is, you've got to go parallel. You can't swim against the tide, you've got to go parallel and then go in.

:: 03:34:09

Speaker 1

One piece of information could have saved in my case, you know, a life like in some cases, like I don't want to be melodramatic. A single piece of information is transformative, and it comes from somebody with more experience than you now. Like they weren't necessarily they weren't very stronger than me. They weren't any any faster than me. They could surf a whole lot better than me.

:: 03:54:21

Speaker 1

But they can swim to the shore and you better. They knew not to swim there. You know, I'm glad this happened for two reasons. One is that my kids could watch like they know I'm a good swimmer. They see that happen, and now they have some more respect for the ocean. So I think that's that's lesson one. So I'm actually really glad that it happened to is there's just a really good metaphor in there.

:: 04:10:26

Speaker 1

And it is you know, sometimes we think effort is what we need because we see the target, and it just seems so common sense that we're going to do go from here to there when we face resistance, like we we kind of go, well, I'm not giving up. I'm going to go harder. I'm going to go higher, I'm going to go higher.

:: 04:26:09

Speaker 1

And sometimes that's what you need. Like sometimes you just need to put a little more muscle into it. But sometimes you're literally trying to accomplish the impossible because you're just doing the wrong thing. And what you need is information. What you need is an expert to say, hey, dude, no matter how hard you work on that thing, it's not going to get you where you want to go.

:: 04:44:19

Speaker 1

And somebody comes in and enlightens you or gives you that thing and you're like, oh my God, this is awesome. This is perfect. Like, this makes my life so much easier. So if you feel like you've been putting in a ton of work and you're not going anywhere, or you just feel like you're stuck, or you feel like, you know, I've put in the hours I put in the effort.

:: 05:02:06

Speaker 1

I know that first you got to check that you got to make sure that that's there, but you're still not going anywhere. Chances are you're stuck in some type of riptide. You're just swimming against the tide, and effort isn't going to be what you need to get there. So you want to zoom out and want to say, who has this answer?

:: 05:18:00

Speaker 1

Like, who has solved this problem before? Who has the solution? Or the knowledge that I need to fix this thing or to do this thing right? And sometimes it's a it's like an ego blow, right? Like we want to, you know, we want to be resourceful, we want to solve things. But like Ryan Holladay says, sometimes ego is actually the enemy.

:: 05:34:19

Speaker 1

So I'm sharing this as mainly a, hey, here's my experience, here's what kind of like a wake up call it was for me. And here's what I took from it. So it's both a PSA for your next beach visit. And hopefully get you unstuck in business. I hope it helps. Also.