What Every Single One Of Us Can Learn From This Surfer

For those who either don't know me or know me but have never met me in person, allow me to provide a highly detailed and very comprehensive physical description of myself: Freakin' Huge. 

Ok, maybe not huge in the biblical sense but I am 6' 3"/250 pounds. In other words the only surfing someone of my size does is via the world wide interweb. Don't need a board to surf these waves, kids. Thank God. 

And despite the fact that I fancy myself an avid sports fan I never looked at surfing the same way I do the NFL for example. I'm not rearranging my day to watch the Honolulu Hang Tens take on the Waikiki Wipe Outs. 

And I don't belong to a Fantasy Surfer League, either. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I say all of the above because I recently came across a story in which a world-famous, world-champion surfer did something that completely blew me away.

Catch A Wave

The surfer's name is Martin Passeri.

The Inertia picks up the story from here:

The five-time Argentinian surf champion is no stranger to the podium. So when he stopped short on the sand on his way out to his heat, everyone was surprised.

He stopped next to Nicolas Gallegos, who sat in his wheelchair on the sand. At 18, he was paralyzed from the waist down, cutting his dream of learning to surf short. But when Passeri stopped on the sand twenty years after the accident, his dream would come true.

Martin Passeri touched Gallegos’s shoulder and offered to take him out to catch is first wave… in the middle of a heat. Passeri was later disqualified, but winning isn’t always about the trophy. “I believe that was the best wave,” he said, “and the biggest triumph of my life.”

See for yourself:

What Every Single One Of Us Can Learn From This Surfer

Obviously the first word that should come to your mind is: Sacrifice. At least it did in my case. The word has many definitions but this one fits like a glove in this context. "a surrender of something of value as a means of gaining something more desirable."

Clearly he surrendered something of value - the chance to win the surfing competition. What he gained, however, can be found in his quote referenced above: "I believe that was the best wave and the biggest triumph of my life.”

Now cynics out there are surely claiming that either this was all a setup and/or it wasn't that big of a deal because it was only a sporting event, he didn't save his life or anything like that. 

Yeah well cynics be damned for this incredibly selfless gesture simply cannot go unnoticed nor unacknowledged. By all accounts Passeri had never met Gallegos before in his life. 

So why would this 5-time surfing champion do something like this? Why would he make such an extreme sacrifice for a complete stranger? 

I don't know the answer of course for only Passeri knows what was in his heart at that moment but isn't there something we can all learn from his actions? More than likely not on the magnitude of taking a disabled man on a ride on a surf board but perhaps something just as symbolic? 

Maybe it's a pay-it-forward moment in an otherwise innocuous day in your life where you can do something for a complete stranger? Something that let's them "catch their own wave" in one way or another? 

I know I am being melodramatic ... sue me. 

If reading this post and learning of Martin Passeri's selfless act causes you to stop and think for just one second about how you would handle such a situation... then that's all I or anyone can ask. 

So Who Is This Steve?

From being named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger a few years ago to most recently being named one of the 26 Content Marketing experts to follow in 2015, Steve has established himself as a well-respected influencer in the marketing, advertising and branding space. A regular contributor to Forbes and Huffington Post, his work has also appeared in Business Insider, Social Media Today, Marketing Land, Ad Age and Ad Week to name a few. Follow him on Twitter@steveolenski or at the nearest coffee shop.The views expressed here are Steve's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle Marketing Cloud.