I've been at home in Cape Town, watching the IPL from a distance, and planning various strategies for my work with the Indian team over the next two years. It's been a great time to reflect, as I navigate the shift from the past six years of working with a variety of companies and individuals as an external Executive coach in South Africa, to now working as an internal coach, full-time within one organisation - in India.

My reflection is that I will now need to do what my clients have needed to do over the past six years. I will need to deliver results through other people, plan and strategise well, align my coaching approach to the natural motivational flows of the players, separate controllables and uncontrollables, remain stress free, deal with my own fears and vulnerabilities, continually raise my emotional and spiritual intelligence etc, etc... whilst achieving a pervasive sense of content, peace, joy, freedom and love.

Simply put, I now need to walk my own talk...

Which leads me to surfing.

I was woken up at first light last week, this time not by my 18 month-old daughter but by a friend's phone call: "Get up, the surf's up. I'm on on way to pick you up! 'Platboom' will be 'going off' and, being mid-week, we'll probably have it all to ourselves!" he chuckled.

Platboom is an hours drive away in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. The literal translation from Afrikaans to English is "Flat Tree" - but I had never surfed it. Paddling out to sea, I took stock of the situation. Each wearing a 4mm thick full-length wetsuit and hoods covering our heads, we had jumped off the rocks in 14 degrees (celcuis) water and had to navigate a dense seaweed forest to get to a spot about 150m out to sea.

Surrounded by the seaweed (kelp) forest, we sat in a small opening above a large flat rock where no seaweed was growing. Out to sea, a large swell was running, which when it reached the rock formation below us jacked up to form a wave double the size of a man standing. I had never been out in surf that big before, and I had not previously surfed this extremely remote spot.

Oh, and one more bit of detail before I get to the point. My mate, Grant, pointed to some disturbed water some 30metres in front of us, in the direct line to where the broken wave was travelling.

"See that spot?" He said. "There is a rock just under the surface where a guy was killed a while ago. You've either got to make the take-off or, if you don't, make sure you wipe out straight away. Don't hang around to get dumped onto that rock."

The point is, I was doing what I loved, in a stunning environment, with excellent waves... and I was scared. The fear started when we arrived. It intensified when we crossed from dry land into the water and grew all the time we paddled out. It was close to peaking when I was sitting in the 'line up' on the verge of taking my wave, knowing that if I got into the wrong position, or had poor footwork, I would suffer.

As the next wave approached, jacked up in size and steepness as it hit the shallow rock below me, my heart rate rocketed. I bailed out, meaning I chickened out. I let the wave go by and watched and listened to it crash down and leave tumultuous water in its wake.

I imagined myself, air knocked out of my lungs in the fall, being held underwater, in a seaweed forest, with a fibreglass surfboard that could hit me anywhere on my body at any time, and a nearby rock that had already claimed one life. As I was justifying my fear to myself, my friend simply said: "Where's you commitment?"

I was used to coaching a batsman who had nerves when waiting to go into bat, whose nervousness intensified when the 10 minute bell went or when the next wicket fell. I coached them to feel the fear when they crossed the ropes and to take it with them, and had coached them to get into strong positions, have good footwork and a clear mind, despite the fast bowler looming down on them - threatening to get them out, humiliate them or hurt them.

I had done the same for businessmen, when they faced their fears leading up to clinching the big deal, or making that crucial presentation. Admittedly, the difference is that the businessman could only have his pride or wallet hurt, the batsman (and the surfer in this story) also faced potential physical hurt.

And so there I was, removed from my 'comfortable' situation of coaching others into a situation where I needed to 'coach myself.

It would have been a lot easier for me in that moment to coach someone else to do it, but as I worked my way through the process, I got a first hand experience in the process of managing fear.

I was scared, but that was OK. I saw it as a positive and a strength that I could admit that to myself. A few years earlier, I would have tried to pretend that I was not scared, even to myself. I greeted the fear as my friend, it would serve to ready me for the challenge, sharpening my eye-sight, putting all my muscles on full alert, readying any survival instinct should I suddenly need it.

To put my mind at ease, I needed to clarify my strategy. What do I have control over? My position in the line-up, paddle in strongly, know what sort of take-off this particular wave required, visualise a successful take-off.

I also had a strategy for 'failure'; take a deep breath, hold it, relax and roll with the punches. What did I not have control over? What the wave would do, and if I wiped out on take-off, I would be at the mercy of the water for some time. My strategy was to cover my head with my arms if I got near that rock. I reminded myself that my board would surface before me due to its buoyancy, so the leash tied to the board and around my ankle would lead me to the surface.

Reminder again, feel the fear and still relax! (I know not to say "don't panic" - the mind doesn't hear the "don't" so readies itself to "panic"!). I knew I had the skill to make the take-off and ride the wave well. I know how exhilarating and enlivening it feels as a surfer on a wave, moving in perfect harmony with natures power and grace.

In short, I felt the fear, accepted it, befriended it, checked my strategy and trusted my strategy, my skill and myself. I also had a good enough reason to do this thing.

The result, I got to take off on some of the biggest waves of my life, I had some of my best ever rides, and I took my "fear of big waves" to the next level. I also learned what it felt like to take some of the heaviest wipe-outs of my life - and they were not as bad as I thought they would be - the fear of them was worse.

On the way out of the water, I was exhausted and left the ocean at the same place I entered it. But the tide had now changed and the waves were breaking on the rocks more violently. I carried on in the same line and ended up getting washed across the rocks and injured in the process.

In hindsight, up until this point, I had done what I came to do (to surf good waves) and so I stopped thinking. I liken this to a batsmen whose target is to score a hundred, but who does not have a plan to carry on batting. The result, for me, was that I got hurt. The batsman gets dismissed.

In the same way, I guess, a businessman may clinch the deal after a lengthy and strategic conversation, but neglect to get the signature or take minutes in the crucial meeting.