Over the weekend, I viewed an interesting documentary that I highly recommend to anyone fascinated by true stories of innovation and excellence.  What might surprise you is that I’ve just recommended a movie about surfing.  Bustin’ Down The Door is a 2008 documentary film chronicling the rise of professional surfing in the early ’70s, and the vision these surfers shared of what surfing could become.

The road to that vision takes far too many interesting turns for me to give away, so I’ll keep my comments restricted to what fascinated me most.  Take a look at this youtube video to get an idea of what ensues in this movie:

In order to become the best in the world, surfers from all over the globe began migrating to the north shore of Hawaii to hone and perfect their skills.  They realized that in order to become great, they had to face the most consistently tough waves in the world.

The Australian and South African surfers of the time (1974-76) began to win competitions at a much greater frequency than surfers from anywhere else, including Hawaii.  How could this be?

The answer to this question lies in the principles laid out in my articles about “The Talent Code” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).  These surfers had moments of “ignition” and incredible examples of “deep practice.”

I won’t spoil the moments of ignition that motivated each of these individuals to excel at their sport, and to “invent” professional surfing.  But as far as deep practice goes, without realizing it at the time, they became great due to the way they practiced.

Unlike the Hawaiians and those from the States, Aussie and South African surfers didn’t waste valuable time waiting for the perfect wave (which is the habit of most other surfers).  They jumped on any wave, no matter how “narley” (surfer word) or imperfect the wave was.  They were up and down waves at a much higher rate and frequency than any other surfers.  By the way, this was frowned upon by other surfers who had to constantly dodge these obnoxious rebels.

Although the movie doesn’t mention this, anyone who has read my blogs referencing The Talent Code knows, that by practicing in this way, they were able to experience the process of “failure-correction, failure-correction” exponentially, more than any other surfers on the planet.  And because of this, they built layer upon layer of myelin at far greater rates.  As we know, the more myelin one produces, the greater their performance.  So, as a result they became the greatest surfers in the world. 

The reminder for all of us, is this:  If you want people to succeed, then they must practice often…and experience failure.  To avoid failure when attempting to learn something, is a sign that someone hasn’t really experienced that moment of ignition, where they think:  “I want to do this…and do it well!”