At first you’ve no ideas, and no skills to help other’s execute theirs. You’ve no idea about tides, current, and can’t get up or stay up. You can’t surf.

Then you get a bit of experience and realise you can sort of boogie board on a few small waves. You still don’t really know where they come from though.

Then a few bigger waves come along and you do your best but you get eaten by the surf.

After that, you start learning more about the tides, the current, and practice your balancing skills even when not in the water.

[time passes]

You’re bobbing about in the surf. You can see a few waves but you decide they’re not quite right. You gauge the current. You swim a bit further out. You wait….

You see a wave swelling on the horizon. You’re ready this time, you know what to do. You’re prepared. You imagine what it’ll be like to surf those white horses, tunnelling them to their breach on the shore.

The wave arrives…

—

The cycle is never ending. You never stop surfing. But one day, inevitably, you meet your match. Or more accurately, the wave, the idea, the business, meets theirs.