the secret is there is no secret: lessons from a stingray

Did you know the antidote to a stingray sting is submerging the sting in boiling water for 40 minutes? I learned that the hard way a couple weeks ago. 

At my favorite surf beach, there’s a group of 20 folks who hang out, tailgate, and share surfing stories in the parking lot. As I started to go to that same beach more and more, I built a sense of familiarity with the group, but an invisible line still separated us. 

On January 1, 2022, the first sunny day in weeks, I caught my best wave ever. As I was getting out of the water, I felt something stab my ankle. I yelped and carried my board out of the water. My ankle was bleeding profusely. Tears welled up in my eyes. Pain and poison seeped through my veins. I hobbled towards the grizzled group of surfers cooking out in the parking lot on a beautiful San Diego day, and they immediately jumped into action. 

One surfer grabbed a camp stove, a second grabbed a piece of chocolate, and a third grabbed a bright orange home depot bucket that shouted in bold white lettering: “Let’s do this.” A couple others told stories of long forgotten stingray stabs, emergency room trips, and great white shark sightings. The message? It could be worse. 

“We’re having feet for dinner, y’all want some?” they called out to surfers heading home. 

Boiling water cascaded around my foot, numbing my excruciating pain with…more excruciating pain. There’s not many places for a foot to hide in a Home Depot bucket, I thought as I squirmed. Thirty minutes into the ordeal, I was still wrought with adrenaline and pain, but it was accompanied by another feeling: one of strong appreciation for this community. 

As I was taking my foot out of the boiling water, a man walked up with tears welling in his eyes and a telling red drip, drip, drip down his ankle. 

“Next patient, step right up.” We all shared a hearty laugh at the irony. I’m sure my vulnerability in asking for help made that poor man’s journey to relief a bit shorter. 

With that laugh, I realized that the barrier I had previously felt was no more. After weeks of showing up almost every day, building a sense of familiarity, and ultimately asking for help in a moment of crisis, I began to feel integrated into the surfer community. Now, every time I go surf, I share a friendly fist bump with at least a handful of people that helped me that bright January day. I feel like I belong now.

The secret is there is no secret. There’s no hack. You build trust and a sense of belonging by continuing to show up. I’ve found this to be universally true in “breaking in” to communities.

thanks to Andy Weissman, Josh Schlisserman, Halle Kaplan-Allen, and Ron Wong for their edits, support, and suggestions on this piece. it takes a community!