Gracie & Kelly Slater on Professional Surfing, Fatherhood, & Leaving a Legacy

I won a couple of pro contests, as I'm mature when I was 13, 14 years old. And you know, I was like, if I'm beating guys who are 8, 10, 15 years older than me, I must be pretty good here, like, I must have something. And after that, I realized like, okay, I got a good opportunity here. Like, this is my opportunity in life. Enjoy what you're doing, man. You've done all the work for 35 years. Like, just chill out. Enjoy it now. Go enjoy it. The fruits of your labor go and let it just be what it's going to be. And if you win great and if you lose, that's just what's meant to be. And just accept it. Today's guest isn't just one of the greatest servers of all time. He's one of the most dominant athletes in sports history. With 11 world championships, 56 championship tour victories, and five consecutive world titles, he's built a legacy that may never be matched. He holds the records for both the youngest and the oldest men's surfing world champion has won the legendary pipeline masters in unprecedented eight times. And at 49 years old, proved age really is just a number when he claimed his eighth pipeline victory just days before his 50th birthday. And if that wasn't impressive enough, in 2025, he was honored with prestigious, glorious lifetime achievement award, recognizing a career that has not only redefined surfing, but inspired generations of athletes around the world. But behind the records, trophies and decades of dominance is a story about the relentless pursuit of greatness, the pressure of staying on top, and what continues to drive someone who was seemingly accomplished at all. Kelly Slater, welcome to athletes after all. I mean, thank you. I feel like I shouldn't have been here for the intro. I know. Do you feel awkward now? Thank you. I mean, you're used to it. Everyone hyping you up. Yeah. You've been at the top for a long time, so how's it going? It's going pretty good. I mean, my life's quite different now. Yeah. I have two young ones, you know, two in a bit, and almost six months, so a little boy and a girl. Um, my, my daughter is 30, my older daughter is 30 now, she's married, and she's pregnant, so I'm about to be a grandpa in a few months. Oh my gosh. So yeah, it's all, it's all happening. So. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say congratulations on having her kiddos are probably the cutest things ever. My mom always says how do I look like? My mom was trying to steal him. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. She wants grandkids so bad. She's like, crazy. Can you get on it? I'm like, trying to find somebody. Come on. How is it going though? Going in the transition into fatherhood. Pretty, pretty good, pretty seamless. Like I, I fell off tour a couple years back, um, as, as you probably know, but your dad knows well, I was injured for a few years, and I was really struggling to want to surf, and, you know, I wasn't keeping my level up where I wanted it to be, and I couldn't really free surf a whole lot, so I was just, I was struggling to want to be there competitively. And then, um, and, and then it, you know, then I got, uh, put off the tour, you know, the half way. Yeah, I didn't make the cut halfway through that year, and then, um, and then we got pregnant a few months later. So it was actually like a really sort of perfect, uh, um, switch from one to the other. Yeah, like a good distraction almost. Yeah, I gave us some time to also process, um, and just be, you know, present and, and be part of the, the whole process of the pregnancy and stuff. So that happened a few months after I got off tour. So, um, yeah, anyways, uh, it's been a fun couple of years now since that happened. And, uh, uh, not to ask, but I don't really, I don't miss a tour. Really? No, I, I mean, I, everyone sees me as so competitive and stuff, and I, I am in those scenarios, but when I'm not in competition, I'm not like fiending for it. Yeah. It's just that in those situations, I'm able to like lock in and, and really, I, I do thrive in those environments, but I, I don't, um, insert, in the surf world, there's kind of this, like, idea that I need to have that in order to function and live, and it's not that way for me. Yeah. I do like certain competitions, I do like certain contests and, and waves. So if I can be in certain ones, you know, like pipeline, Chopu, maybe Fiji, and, I mean, there's, a lot of the spots are placed that really love, but if I can get into one or two of them here and there for a couple of years, still, I'll, I'll do that. Um, my certainty here this year, and I really enjoyed it. I, I didn't win, but I felt like it was one of my sort of favorite events ever, because the waves were big and challenging and, and, um, you know, it was just a, a, the ocean was a big challenge in that contest. Um, and, uh, you know, I didn't get a great result. I got ninth place, but I had a couple of really nice heats before that and, um, felt like I was really in the mix with everybody. So that's, that's, um, those are always fun and rewarding, but besides that life has just been about the kids and, um, you know, I, I was used to golfing three to five days a week and surfing anytime I wanted. And now I'm like surfing a couple times a week for an hour or two, and maybe golf every week or two. I try to go to the range. If I can get the kids to, if I get my son to sleep early enough, I can get to the range for an hour at night, but all the range is close at 10. So you're like, can you come up and for me, please, the other week, I try to go to the range about 10 minutes away. And I got there at like 915, they close at 10 and they're like, Oh, we stopped selling balls at nine. No. You're like, you know what, let me just call and reserve that, and then the girl that worked there. She's like, actually, somebody left about 20 balls on the very end, so I got, I got, I got to hit a couple balls. There you go. Yeah. Anyways, but it's, I did get, I did go to Scotland a couple of weeks ago and play a week long golf tournament. So I got the colony, let me sneak away for that and that's something I do every year. The fact that you went into golf, but also you're doing the competitions part time versus like the full time, getting first place, holding these championships, like you, I feel like that's really refreshing to hear because I don't know how easy it is for a lot of athletes to be able to do their sport, the same sport, but not hold themself to the same standard. Like the fact that you like loved the competition and you were like happy with ninth, but that's really refreshing to hear. I wasn't so happy with ninth, but I was happy with the performance I put in before I lost. And I served against, first, in the first seed I served as Eli Hanneman from Maui who's had a really tough year and so, you know, he's one of the lower seeds and then in the second round I served against Medina who's, you know, three time world champ and I think currently about fourth or fifth in the world. He's, he's actually had a pretty, I would call it almost a bad year and he's in like fifth I think. Wow. But he's been pretty dominant for a long time. And he beat me out there in 2014 when it was really big and perfect and that one just like stung. I was going to say the fact that you were able to pull that so quickly, like you know it kind of hit. I had one of my best events start to finish ever and then he got me in the final and so then for us to have an early round heat was a completely different scenario and headspace and stuff I think for both of us and, you know, he's going for title and points and stuff and I'm just going to put in a performance so it's a different type of thing. And I don't experience the same pressure, although I, I did feel, I don't know that like like an anxiousness like nerves, not just, I don't know if it's nerves or what, but it took me getting in the water and making a couple of mistakes to kind of settle down and then really put in my, my, my good performance. And what was that? That was recently? Yeah. It was like two, two months ago. What do you think played into that? It was because you were away for a while? Yeah. When you're not in the scenario a lot, when you're not competing full time, you only get one or two opportunities. It's easy like in a year. It's easy to get in your head and be like, this is my moment, you know. Yeah. So you have to forget about that and you go, I just can only do what the ocean provides and what I'm able to do on my choices, on my waves. And so I, the first 10, 15 minutes, I sort of struggled to get calm. I was really excited. The waves were big and kind of scary and choppy and it was a really challenging day. But once I settled in, I felt super relaxed and I felt like totally, like totally at ease in the water. And I could see that that was a different mindset than Gabriel's in. You know, he's, I think coming up against, I would be a wild card, you know, but when you are top seed, you're coming up against a tough wild card, somebody who could beat you. Yes. You have to decide if you're going to go all out or if you're going to kind of like put a solid performance and just somewhat safe, but solid, you know, and that sort of puts you in what I call like the 70% category, which is like, maybe you get a couple like sevens or eights out of 10. Yeah. And I had nothing to lose. So I'm looking to try to get two tens. Not really. So it's easy for, you know, I could also, I could easily make a mistake and fall and, you know, not compete well at that thing. So I don't know. I guess the best comparison would be like boxing, you know, you have these, you have rounds and somebody who's really super talented like Gabriel is, you know, exactly where you stand, you know, shot for shot against someone in a round. So you know how many rounds you put together that were better than their rounds. Yes. And so instead of just trying to knock them out the whole time, you're just like, I'm just going to win this round, win this round. Yeah. And so that's kind of when you're going for world titles, what you're doing is you're just like, you're just trying to win rounds, you're not trying to like put in the performance your life every time. You're like slowly chipping away. You're just, you're just making sure you're just slightly ahead of that person at all times, but, you know, if you, if you have somebody who has a potential. to put in a really great heat, that one round. And they have that one round to win the match. So it was just, you know, it went my way and it was a tough one for Gabe. He was going through a lot of personal stuff too that was very public. So it was, I think the pressure was kind of more on him than me. And but it felt really nice 'cause I don't know, he has a big winning percentage he gives me, so one time doesn't matter so much. You know, I think after that it was like, he has eight wins, I have three. - Really? - That you over our career together, yeah. And but, you know, it's the last time we surfed against each other then I got him the last time. - There you go, no, you had the last laugh. - It's a win for me, but you know, I win the battle, lose the war a little bit. So, but we, you know, we're buddies and I think Gabe's one of the greatest surfers ever, maybe the greatest competitor ever. He's just so talented and, you know, so anyone who gets one ahead of him, like gets a heat off him, it feels like a big win. - Yeah. - I'm sure people feel that way about you too though. - Maybe. - It's funny, there's certain people that have never beat me and there's certain, there's other people who, who, maybe I didn't expect it and they had my number too. - Wow. - So, it's crazy how the strategy and stuff in your sport, like obviously with gymnastics, we were scored the same, you know, we started, you know, trying to go for a perfect time and it's very objective. - And it's all, your judge against technique and deprecative as well, like every judge has a very different way of judging. - Oh, you think it's really subjective? - Really subjective, like political as well. - It seems to me, when I watch it though, they know exactly, oh, that's a minus point five. That's a minus point one, that's it. - Yeah. - And it's very, but you have so many judges, right? - Yeah, I mean, we have two during regular season and then we have four during post and then nationals, you have six. - Yeah, and how many are at the Olympics? - Sorry. - How many are at the Olympics? - I think four, correct me if I'm wrong. - I feel like it's more-- - Maybe there's more, I think there's more. - I'm correcting you, I'm correcting you. - Yeah, you can correct me. - I didn't go the Olympics, so I wouldn't know. - No, it just seems like there's, how many? There's numbers, right? - Oh shit, yeah, there's a lot. - Yeah, so when I see it, I mean, I-- - They're looking at like, they're probably like, they probably have people who are like, hey, you're in charge of feet, you're in charge of knees. - The reason I asked that is 'cause it feels like when I watch the Olympic gymnastics, you can tell where the politics lie in certain scores in certain countries, and so those get kind of thrown out. And that's really why surfing has five judges, 'cause they take the top three and they average those. - Yeah. - But it's a funny thing because with judging, you're trying, you want judges to be as objective as possible, right? - For sure. - But then the creativity of surfing, you want it to be kind of subjective, because there's an artistic element to it that we don't get scored on you guys do, you get scored on the artistic element, and creativity as opposed to just, what's a score of a wave? - Yeah, well gymnastics, yeah, very, very similar in the sense of like, there's a lot of subjectivity, because like, some judges will be like, oh, I really love a powerful gymnast, or I really love a flexible gymnast. And like, if a flexible judge was watching me, I'd get docked a lot, 'cause I wasn't technically flexible, I didn't have that traditional approach to my sport. So, yeah, it just depends on like, and like, if someone does really big errors, and they love a big error, like they're gonna score it higher versus someone that really prefers a different technique. - Yeah, and everyone's got, the surfing world is very opinionated about scoring and judging and that kind of thing, and depending on your country, and the surfing you're watching and stuff, there's so much bias in the opinion from people out there. - Yeah. I always get in trouble because I always challenge the Brazilians because the Brazilians fans, I should say, because, you know, although the Brazilians surfers are ruling the surf world for the past 10 years, clearly. - Yeah, they've been very dominant. - They've been very dominant. And then you get a little bit of Ethan, Ewing, or Griffin here and there that are getting like, pushed into that pack, but, you know, that pack has very clearly been like five Brazilians guys. - Yeah. - And they're just, at this point, you're like, if you beat those guys, you just want to, you know, it's almost like you want the contest. - Yeah. - But every time one of them loses, the Brazilians fans go crazy, like, they got ripped off. And I'm like, they're still winning everything. - Yeah, relax. - It's hard when you love a certain person so much or hate a certain person so much to not have bias. - Of course there's bias, yeah. - And also, when you do have that bias for against, you might, obviously, clearly, you won't see certain things and you will see certain things, right? So if you have a bias against someone, you're gonna see their mistakes. If you have a bias for someone, you're gonna, like, go, oh, another one mistake. - Yeah, now you have a really interesting lens on top. - Yeah, you get a completely different sort of thing. And you might not, you know, so if you're really for someone, you might just see the other person's mistakes in the surfing. - Yeah. - Like, all of you mess up this or the wave wasn't big enough or he didn't do as big of an air or whatever. - Yeah. - But you might not see the good things they did. You know, their style was really good, their flow was good, their technique was perfect. - Yeah, giving credit for credits, too. - Yeah, so, and I think surfing is super hard to score properly and objectively, it's most easy to score if you're just surfing a wave that's a barrel. - Yeah. - Like, Chopu or Pipeline. - It's a bit more like, a bit more cut and dry. - It's cut and dry because you're like, okay, we're expected to go get barrelled and you gotta take off on the biggest wave as late as possible and get as deep in the barrel and make it and that, everyone knows that's a 10. - Yeah. - If you did it just on a very threshold of what could happen. But, so it is easy to kind of poke holes in the scoring if they're scoring, overscoring barrels. - Have you ever gotten a 10 and been like, that was not a 10? - Yeah, yeah, a lot of them. - Okay. - Lots of them in my life, yeah. - I mean, there was times, like, in gymnastics, too, you'll see your teammate, like, make a little mistake and they get a 10 and you're like, yeah. - And they even say it, too. They're like, that was not a perfect time. - Yeah, exactly. - But, you know, there's bias sometimes. - We had a contest. The first contest we had in Gland back in '95, and the waves are perfect. Waves are as good as waves get for like the whole time we're there. - Yeah. - There were like, 17 perfect kens given out in the contest. - Oh my God. - I watched that contest recently and some of them, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would have given them a 7. - Shut up. - Yeah, and it's also like-- - I was like, there's like momentum almost. - Yeah, it's just like, people get mesmerized by a certain wave. - Wow. - Oh my God, the wave is so good. And just someone riding it, it looks perfect. - Yeah. - But you have to be critical. As a judge, you have to be super critical and force surfers to push their level. - Hold them to a higher standard. - Exactly. Especially the best guys in the world. - Yeah. - You know, I copped a lot because Medina was just in Fiji. He got a perfect 10 in the final against Cole Houchman. And Cole still won the contest, but they gave it a 10 and I wrote in social media, it wasn't a 10, it shouldn't have been a 10. And I just got lambasted for like two weeks by Brazilian fans. And I'm like, I don't know how you could give it a 10. It was a great ride. - Yeah. - It was a really great, like a great two ride. And I don't know if anyone else in the world would have made it how he did. - Yeah. - But he kicked out and there was a whole bunch of wave left. So to me, I was like, there's how much score when scoring was left possible in that wave. - Yeah. - He was in a, what we call a combination situation where he needed two scores to get back in the heat. Cole had two high scores already. - Oh, got it. - And I hadn't actually watched the heat up to then, I just saw that wave. And I walked up and objectively, I'm like, that's not a 10 point ride because he could still do three more turns. - Yep. - I watched the heat back later and relative to Cole's scores, it probably was a 10 because Cole got over scored on his, on at least one of his rides earlier in the heat. - And it was better than Cole's. - Way better. But I hadn't seen Cole's. - That is weird. - But I watched Cole's. - And Cole had like an 8-5 on a wave. And looking back at it now, you probably could have given it like a 6-5. - Here. - 7. And so there wasn't much room. So the judges were forced to kind of go, well, that's a tank that's so much better than that ride was. - Yeah. - And there were both just two rides. - Yeah. - So. - That's tough. - So sometimes scoring is only about, not necessarily what's possible, but what has already occurred. - Yes. - And something absurd can occur after they've already set up a bar for scoring, you know, there was a, I remember one time, Joel Parkinson got a 10-point ride in Bali at this contest. And he was against John-John Florence. Joel got barreled, came out and did a cut back and fell, and they gave it a 10. And I'm like, I don't know how you give a 10-point ride to a guy who fell off on his board. - Yeah, what? - And I was, Joel and I were kind of in a world title race that year. - Yeah. - So I was very critical, you know, in like my own bias, but I'm like, the barrel wasn't amazing, he was good, it wasn't amazing, and he fell on the wave. And so, you know, my opinion, I'm gonna pull the thing apart. - Yeah, of course. - But then, but then that-- - I love that you're outspoken too. - But that, well that put John-John in a combination. So he couldn't then win the heat with a perfect ride. And he almost pulled off the craziest air and he was ever seen just like two minutes later. And I'm like, well, where would they go with the scale then? 'Cause then they've created this place where they would need to go to 12 or something to give John the correct score. - Would you think that scoring would ever go beyond time? 'Cause now it does. - I think they could, because I've said for a long time, I've probably been saying for like 20 years that if something outrageous happens and somebody just serves so much better, like something that was unexpected. - Yeah. - Did something that they'd never been done, that kind of thing, 'cause that keeps happening and surfing, people keep pulling off maneuvers, no one's pulled off before. - Well, the bars keep getting raised. - Yeah, keeps getting pushed further and further. And so if that happens, I think they should have a floating scale and go, okay, we can go up to whatever, and then we'll pull it back down and we'll do it all related to 10. So like if you got a 12, you go, okay, that 12 was a 10, what percentage of score was that other guy's nine-five? - Exactly. - It's maybe that's a 7.75, no or something. So then you can create a fair comparison. - There's more wiggle room. - Yeah. - But you need to be able to be flexible on the top end if you've messed up early in the heat as a judge. In my opinion, I also think that judges need to, like I said, they try to be as objective as possible, but we don't have artistic and technical scores. - That would be interesting. Like having artistic section and having-- - We tested that out at an event in VG once. - Okay. - And it was very interesting, 'cause you could get like a nine-five for this. - For creativity. - A five for that. - And so it's hard to put those two things together in a score and give it a number. - Yeah. - And you know where one judge sees more of one thing and one sees more of the other? - Yeah. - 'Cause what they really wanna do when we have scoring and this stuff's probably super boring for people, but scoring like when you have a judge that goes low and a judge that goes high, those scores get thrown out. So what they're actually trying to do is get judges to be all super mediocre. - Yeah. - Like you guys all gotta be-- - 'Cause you want your score to count. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And I don't say mediocre necessarily in a negative way, they're just-- - They're seeing the median. - They want 'em all to be in this one so be consistent, but that doesn't maybe pick up on the nuance of surfing and the creativity and the difficulty. - And there are outliers all the time. - Yeah, like I remember this judge telling me one time he gave me a nine-point-five for a score that ended up like an eight. - Oh. - And the wave wasn't great. It was at this break that was a really long wave and it was really, really good on the outside part and it didn't connect to the inside. And he goes, I thought that was the best surfed wave of the heat, but it wasn't the best wave. He's like, so I scored a nine-five. He goes, I got yelled at afterwards. - You shot up. - Because the other judges came in around eight or low eights or whatever, I ended up losing the heat, but he was just telling me, you know, you just surfed that wave really good. And, but so it brings up this question in surfing is like, are you judging the wave or the surfers? - The wave or the surfing that's done on a wave? - Yeah. - But also are you judge, should you judge that the surfing can be top end, but if you don't catch as good a wave, how much benefit is that you, like part of the skill of a surfer is to find the best wave in the ocean too? - I was just gonna say, I feel like for you, I wanna know how your background with Cocoa Beach kind of surfing pretty shitty waves, like all growing up and making you such an adaptable surfer, like, how that-- - I take offense to that. - Sorry. But like objectively, like not ideal surf conditions, whatsoever, I mean, your spoiled out here. But like, how do you think growing up with Cocoa Beach has kind of shaped you into the surfer now? - It definitely creates a strong desire to surf more. When we were kids, we would literally hope for, if it was flat in the morning, we'd hope for onshore waves so we could surf in the afternoon. - Really? - Any little wave so we could just get a wave and ride. So we just, I think we take it less for granted than people to come from Hawaii, Australia, Indonesia, or something. - Yeah. - Like, we can find a really fun wave in any kind of conditions, generally speaking. So, you know, we've had quite a lot of success in Florida, we have, you know, 23 world titles out of our state, something like that. - Wow. - Lisa Anderson, C.J. Hobb, Good, Free DeZamba, et cetera, there's been a number of world titles. We have a long world champion as well. - So there's no coincidence? - I don't think there's a coincidence. I also think that when you learn something slowly, it's easier to kind of be good technically and expand that to bigger, faster canvas. - Yeah. - So you have to be very precise in small waves. - You stay hungry too. - Yeah, you stay hungry, but your technique needs to be perfect in flawless in small waves. - To make the small waves work. - You can't make a tiny error in your waves over. Whereas in a big way, you catch a little edge, oh, you can find speed again and make up a thing. - Okay. - So you need to be really precise in tiny waves. So it's a good kind of barometer of where you're at with technique. - How did you get into surfing to begin with? - My dad surfed and owned a business near the beach, he owned a bait and tackle shop. I'm about to block off the beach, and so we just spent our lives fishing and hanging on the beach and sooner or later, my brother and I started surfing. You know how my dad? My older brother started before me a little bit, and then my younger brother didn't start to weigh later. - Okay, and there's just three of you. - Three of us, yeah. - And you played football as well. - My mom did something terrible in her last life to have three boys, three of us. - I'm like, all your poor mom, oh my god. - But yeah, we played football. My older brother and I both played on football teams, baseball teams, I think Steve and my younger brother played on some baseball teams. So we ran to other sports to some degree. - Which is nice. I think it helps build skills outside of your sport that you can kind of utilize and pull from. 'Cause I mean, I was always specialized, but I'm so curious looking back like how much of a better gymnast I would have been if I had done other sports. - I think it gets you in that competitive mindset. - Yeah. - So you can learn how to, especially if you have like a little bit of OCD, I think it's good. (laughs) - Perfectionism. - Yeah. - 100%. - I had, I was fortunate to have a friend in high school who was way more competitive even than I was. And, but he didn't specialize in anything. He was kind of good at everything. - Like a jack of all trades. - Yeah, he was a jaco, he wasn't a surfer. - Okay. - And so we would play everything from pinball to bowling to pool to basketball. - Wow. - Everything against each other. We had an annual tournament on my birthday where we played as many games. I mean, we'd go drive go-karts. We would play air hockey, ski ball. - That's so fun. - We'd go to the video arcade and play every video game there. - Yeah. - So by the end of the day, we'd have played like 50 different games. And we'd keep a tally of who beat, who more. And. - You met your match. - And we bet millions of dollars on it also. So. - Shut up. - I forget who I was. - Wait, what age are you at? - I was like 15 and 16 and he was like 19. So I think, yeah. But it was just fun. Yeah, obviously funny money. - Yeah, that's amazing. - The only time we ever paid out was when I, actually he had to pay me 'cause I beat him at horseshoes on the beach. And he owed me about 200 bucks. And he paid me like 60 bucks. And he's like, don't you dare tell my wife. She's gonna be so mad at me. (laughing) And he was way better at horses than I was. I just happened to like tune in and like beat him. - Yeah, he was locked in at one time. - But yeah, but he would, on my 18th birthday, he beat me like 17 straight games of ping pong. And I was like crying. So I returned the favor like 10 or 20 years later. I beat him like 10 games of the row and he was dying. - So maybe he's like thinking back on all that time. And he's like, maybe I'm the reason you're so kind of that. - He put me in my place. - Yeah, I know what else could have hang. I needed someone like him, you know? - I love that. So then when you got into kind of more specialized, when did you make that decision to kind of like hang up all the sports and do one thing? - Oh, I mean, I played other sports 'til I was probably like 12, 10 or 10, 11, 12. And then I was just surfing. - Surfing took over, like the obsession grew or what really started that. - I was just better at surfing than other things, you know? I was pretty good at baseball. I wasn't a good hitter. I was just, I was really good in the field and I understood the game. - Yeah. - And actually football, like I was too small, but I understood football. I could see plays like in slow motion. - Yeah, really. - Yeah, I mean. - We can tell, your brain is like different. - Well, we're just kid, but I played safety on defense and I could see where the ball was going at all times for some reason. I just felt really locked in on that. - You had a six sense. - Yeah, it was probably never gonna be big enough and powerful enough to be a football player. But, and I am glad I wasn't, 'cause those guys suffer at the end of their career. - Oh my God, I know. I interviewed a guy who was a Super Bowl champion and the whole interview was just him listening off his injuries and he was even like five years into his career. - I see a lot of those guys at golf tournaments and they can barely walk. - Oh my God. - I feel bad looking, like my body feels bad looking at him. - I know. - Gosh, he's walking. - They're like made of metal. I'm like, how do you guys go through the metal detector at the airport? - Yeah, well, whatever, you, I got a fake hip, so. - I mean, yeah, fair enough. We keep me throwing stones at glass houses. - My dad's done a few surgeries on me. - I know, I know. We'll get into that too. But I wanna quickly ask about Baywatch. - So, a lot of people don't know this, but you're on Baywatch in the '90s for three seasons? - Two seasons. - Two seasons. - Seven shows. It could have been a lot more. I just didn't wanna be on it. - Fair enough. - Acting is hard, first of all. I've had to do like one or two things. - Well, acting on Baywatch is hard. Just, I mean, great acting would be very difficult. - Yeah. - You have to become a person and like another entity or something. - Yeah, you kind of have to use your identity and take on something. - If you see a great actor, that's a very specialized skill. - I, you know, what scared me-- - We even got into like audition. - What scared me about Baywatch was, I went to the audition and I was terrible. I was forgetting lines. I was like not becoming a character. And then they were like, you're great. We love you. We want you on the show. I'm like, no, this is not good. - They just wanted you to play yourself. - Sort, I mean, I didn't play myself, but I kind of did. - Kind of did, yeah. - Yeah, like I was a surfer, but I was like, I was like, my dad was, a military guy and he was super hard on me and I just kind of like ran off and became a surfer and lived in my van. Okay. And there you go. They maybe could have built that up, you know, the character of that a little bit better. But, um, but I mean, yeah, like it was Baywatch, you know, it's. It was the biggest show on television during its time. It was. Yeah, but I think one point, one million, no, one, one billion views every week. I think. And that happened while I was on it. And I'm not going to take any credit for that at all, but obviously, you know, Pam was coming into like super stardom at that time. Yeah. And the idea of like this show on the beach with like cute girls and running in slow motion. Yeah, exactly. Iconic. Yeah. First to ever do it. Now, I mean, I think, I think people loved it just for the life-grinding skills. Yeah. And first arm. Oh, yeah, they just want to learn. But, um, yeah, I just, because when, when I got on, it, it sort of had a little buzz, but it wasn't huge. And then it became. So you were there when it like sparked. Yeah, I think as I was on. And then after, you know, in a couple of years, I, after I left it just was like, when this meteoric rise. Crazy. And, um, you know, so people who were in that world thought I was crazy to not want to be on the show. But I'm like, I just don't want to be on the show. I want to go surfing. Yeah. I was, I knew what I wanted to do. And, um, so some, it doesn't matter what something else is. Did you notice a huge spike in views and buzz around surfing after you had been on the show, though? Like, do you think that that huge viewership kind of translated to the surfing world? I don't know about the surfing world, but I became like super famous, really quick. I went from like, no one know me to like, I couldn't, I couldn't like walk down the street. You're a household name in Australia and Brazil. And it was pretty crazy. I think back on it now. And it seemed normal. I didn't seem like normal, but it seemed normal for me. Like, I got used to a certain amount of like, uh, fan base, I guess around, but I mean, I'd be in my hotel in Brazil. And there'd be like people screaming at the, you know, it was like, boy band stuff. Shut up. Yeah. Like, I had to have like eight security guards like arm and arm to get me down to the beach. Oh my god. First time I went to Brazil. And, um, it was like impossible to get up and down the beach and stuff. You know, and the number of people was just wild. I mean, I'd have, the first time I went to Brazil, I had like five or six news vans chasing us around the city. Well, we went to try to go find a wave to surf at. And I'd never set foot on the beach there before. Actually, the cool thing about it was that somebody recently sent me a video of the first wave I ever rode in Brazil, which was kind of fun. That's cool. Yeah, because this news crew was there. Wow. Like, this is the first surf you had and there's the first wave you rode. It's like, that's kind of cool, but it drove me crazy at the time. Yeah, I was going to say I was like, well, I was like, I felt the harbored in my hotel room a lot of times. Yeah, you're stuck. I mean, I'd have people like banging on my doors and screaming outside and like, um, in South Africa one time, I had some girls breaking in my room and deal some of my stuff. And then, and then come and try to get me to sign it. And I was like, are you serious? Yeah, girl, what? She's like, I got the shirt out of your room. Like, yeah, I want to, like, you're a thief. I want to take you to the police right now. No, literally, like, I'm trying to call the cops on you. Like, I'm not going to sign your shit. Yeah. But it's, we didn't have social media the same way and stuff. So there was more of like a mystery around stuff back then. Yeah. And, um, you were a lot more exclusive. And not everyone had a camera, because they didn't all have a smartphone. Yeah. So it was, it was just different. It was like, I just had to sign things and take a few photos here and there with people with cameras. But now it's, it's like, maybe there's less of a, I don't know, like, you're more accessible through social media and stuff. So I feel like there's less interaction of people. For instance, like somebody's asking about the US open and why there's so few people on the beach now. But back in the, in the 80s, you know, Tom Kern and Mark Arkelumbo would be out surfing and there'd be 80,000 people at the beach. That's the only time you can see them. Yeah. And like, 10 people deep on the pier trying to watch. And now you see everybody's wave on social media live. Yeah. You can watch it online. I'm doing Instagram live. Look at so and so surfing somewhere. So it's, it's not as interesting in that way or something for people. It's not as exclusive. Yeah. Yeah. If you miss the US open and you have to wait a whole other year to see it. Yeah. It's a different experience. That's a bummer. I didn't really think of it like that. Yeah. When did you see the fame like start to kind of subside and then now you're known more for surfing and not just known for Baywatch? It just through the 90s was tough because it was so, I remember being on the beach at Kira in 94 in Australia. And there was so many, like girls screaming and crying and holding like the gossip, the teenage gossip mag, you know, I could be to sign my pictures all out and I was so embarrassed that my picture was in the, like, I don't want, I'd rather be, I wish these were surf magazines. Yeah, you're like, I want to be taken seriously as a surfer, not just for this like silly heart throb show. And then you know, and then I remember, I just felt like I didn't want it to shrink down and like disappear because it was so embarrassing. And then I remember the guy on the microphone at the contest, like, go and look at all these people down here for Kelly. There he is. He's right over there. And like pointing me out and it was like putting more of like a spotlight on me. Yeah. I was just like, gosh, I just, this feels so weird. It doesn't feel right. Like if this was just for surfing, it would feel okay. Yeah, I'd be able to deal with it. But it's like for this Baywatch thing. And it's like, it's not really about me. It's just that they see this person. It was on TV. Yes. And they're making that connection. So that was, that was tough. But what it did was drive me to, I think it made me better at surfing. It made me a better surfer because I really, it kind of put this chip in my shoulder. I'm like, okay, if, if I'm getting all this notoriety, I better, I better get really good. No, seriously, like, I better really step up to the plate here and like, you had a lot of eyes on you. Yeah. And so I think it, I don't think it did. It did create this intense focus for me to really try to master what I was doing. That's really impressive because I feel like a lot of times you notice this unfortunate situation where a young kid gets a lot of fame, gets a lot of glory really early into his career. And they like rest on their laurels. They can hurt you. They can hurt you. They get into partying. Yeah, I feel like the party or the structure of that culture at all are not really. I never liked to drink and party. I was totally anti-drugs. I was like, my body's a temple. I was really focused on that. I mean, a party you knew that you wanted to still surf at 50 years old. Yeah, I mean, I got distracted by girls here and there, but I didn't like to go have the party life at all. Okay, there we go. But I was in relationships a lot and, you know, those were challenging for me a lot at a lot of times. Yeah. But yeah, I just didn't get on any kind of party train. You know, I never, you know, I have a history of alcoholism, my family, and that was something that wasn't interesting for me at all to go and I saw too many, in the town I grew up and I saw too many people were in their lives like on drugs and alcohol. So it was really an easy thing for me. I'm like, I love surfing. It's a fun thing in the world. Yeah, it's really easier for me in that way because there's nothing more I wanted to do than wake up and go surf the next day. So yeah, 100%. And the fact that you had that tunnel vision and that chip on your shoulders so impressive too, because there's a lot of white noise and distraction that puts into it. So then when did you start really feeling like, okay, this is the career that I want to build and this is the identity that I want to have like being this watch. Well, at a young age, I knew I wanted it to be my life at like 13 or 12, 13, 14 somewhere in there. Okay, I won a couple of pro contests. Yeah, I'm sure when I was 13, 14 years old. And you know, I was like, if I'm beaten guys who were 8, 10, 15 years older than me, I must be pretty good here. You know, like, I must have something. And so I want to locally big, regionally big pro events when I was okay. It goes 14. One might have been when I was 13. But after that, I realized like, okay, I got a good opportunity here. Like this is this is my opportunity in life. Yeah, this is like your purpose. Yeah. And my mom recognized that really early on too. And she, she always was like doing her best to just keep me humble, keep me focused. You know, she didn't, she wasn't ever pushing me like, go train. No, it was none of that. Yeah, it was just like, you know, if you get too big for your bridges, I'll beat your ass. Literally, she was like, if you get cocky, I will smack your head, you know, like, I'll beat your ass. She would tell me that straight up. So she's like, you keep yourself, you keep yourself humble and you, you know, you do what you do. And so I mean, having two brothers also keeps you humble as well. Having an older brother, yes. Oh, yeah, I know being the oldest can maybe be the opposite because you can beat your brother up. Mm hmm. But you've met Ron. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a little ego. I mean, he was good at everything. He's the devil. Right. You know, I not really know. No, no, no. Especially if you're, especially not going to keep him in check if you go golf with him, because he's going to beat your ass. Oh, I know. Has he beat your ass yet? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. He's like a handicap. Six or something. No, no, no, he's, he's like plus one. I think scratcher plus one. I don't even know what that means. No, he's, he's, he's a really good golfer. Yeah. Yeah. He's like weirdly. Yeah. He's, he's talented. Yeah. Um, I love that you also like have gotten into golf. That's so funny. Like just a classic doubt. Well, I've been into golf for like 30 years. Have you? Yeah. Have you been golfing at the same time as your career? I've been golfing since I was 23. Oh, wow. Didn't mess up her back a little bit like my back gets messed up - It's still cute messing up my back. - Yeah, I like, I'll try it every now and again. I'm like, oh my God, I don't really kind of creak from gymnastics thankfully as much as I thought I would. - Oh really? - Yeah, like I've done a really good job before. - What injuries have you had? - The only big injury I had was my torn Achilles and that was after my career ended. - Wow. - I was stunt doubling for Martha Stewart. - Wow. - And it became a super bowl commercial. - That seems like the last person you'd stunt by before to get injured. Wouldn't you just be a small kind of join or something? - Also at the age of frickin' 22, I'm like, why am I stunt doubling for an 80 year old? Like what the hell? But yeah, no, it was like the silly commercial where they were like trying to show the slip-ins for the sketchers, so they had me flip into the shoes. - Oh, in the way. - Yeah, and so I was tumbling out in New York and I remember calling my dad and I was like, hey, kind of think I tore my Achilles. - Did you tear it a hundred percent? - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah, because your dad told me about it. I didn't know if it was a hundred percent or did it be bad. - It was bad. I ended up landing on one foot. I felt it on the punch. Pull back up into your leg. - Thankfully, no, it didn't do that coil thing. I think only like the football players get that 'cause it's like their calves are so strong. - Well, they're so stiff. - Yeah, but yeah, he did it three days later and I was back in six months. - Wow. - 'Cause I did hyperbaric chamber. I did so much of my own like PT. - I think if I had an injury like that, I'd go buy a hyperbaric chamber tomorrow. - Literally. I mean, I still my frickin' buy one at this point. - Yeah, I'm gonna buy one, but I'm surprised you don't worry about one. - No, I just jump in friends when they have one, but-- - Fair enough. - And I move around too much. I'm not in one place. So like spending, you know, 50 or 100 gram on one of those things, whatever it's gonna be. - Yeah. - The hard ones, the soft cases don't do a lot. - Yeah. - You gotta spend more than double the time in there to get the same, you know, get the two atmospheres of pressure and all that. But yeah, anytime, like I got a friend in New Zealand I stayed with for like a week a year and pretty much every night I fall asleep in his. - Shut up. - Yeah, he's got one in his house. - Oh my God. - And every night I'm in him. Like you mind and it's right next to his bedroom. And he's him and his wife have their bedrooms right next to it. - Have your sleepovers at his house? - Well, I stayed at his house, but his gym is like right next to his bedroom. So I feel bad if I go in there and that compressor things on. - Yeah. - I don't wanna wake him up and he's like my buddy Rick, he's like 80 years old. He just, I think he just turned 80. - Oh my God. - But he's in that thing a lot too. So he's, but he's got this cool gym right at his house. So he's one of my few friends that have a hard, a hard case hyperbaric at their house. - That's the way to go. - It's pretty awesome. It's like a huge, a huge venture stay there. - Oh yeah. No, I was gonna say during the Palisades fires, I knew a firefighter that had to like protect someone's house and it was a celebrity and they realized they were like, this guy's like a big deal 'cause he has a hyperbaric chamber in his garage. And he's just like a musician. - Yeah. - And I'm like, okay, now I understand. Like there's some hype around it. I think like Justin Bieber has one. - A friend of mine was staying in New York for like three months just now out in the Hamptons. And he was at a house that had two hyperbarics, two two person hyperbarics in the garage. - Shut up. - At the house and he's like, you gotta get out here. He's like, all day he goes like, we do sauna, we do the ice, we do the, you know, we do hyperbaric every day and he's like, it's two person and he showed me a video and space time. He's like, look, there's a two person one there and a two person one there. I'm like, why do you need two? And he goes, well, my business partner was gonna be here and I didn't think we could get one here in time. So I sent one ahead of time and then another one showed up. - Oh. - Like that we had ordered. We thought it was gonna be like a month later. - Okay. - So I didn't want him to have to be here without one. So we had two and then when we're done, we'll send him to our houses. But he's like, so you'll never be without your hyperbaric feeling. - And each one's what like a hundred grand? - I think those are like 150. I don't know, the two person ones. - Yeah. - They're like massive. - Like what do they have like meetings in there? Like what? - Yeah, they do actually. (laughing) - We can have a lot of that in there. - He's doing an Instagram stories in there. - There you go. There you go. - Okay, make it work for you. Get that money back. - But no, there's a guy named Brian Johnson who's doing this, maybe he calls it the blueprint and he's spending like $2 million a year on his health and he's every single day. He's telling everyone about it and what work. - It's kind of like debunking what works and what does work. - Yeah, and he's getting all kinds of blood worked on and you know, tests on his body like daily, basically. And then reporting in like showing you the results, like the science behind what he's doing. - I need to follow him. - And he said that of all the things he's done, the hyperbaric was clearly the best thing and actually lengthened his telomeres. They measured all this stuff. And he spent like six weeks doing a process in the hyperbaric and testing everything that could be in his body, be affected in his body. So yeah, the problem with hyperbarics is that you know, per session per person, it's like 200, 300 bucks. - Oh, it's so expensive. - It's crazy. You go to a place where like how much of the hyperbaric you know, like one hour's like 325, you know, like cool. I'm not doing six weeks a session. - My pocket's hurt. Yeah, no literally. - For the average person out of pocket. - Oh, I know. - 'Cause your insurance didn't gonna cover that. And it's, you know, to do. - A lot of his new poor, everyone's rich out there. - To do the proper number of sessions, you might as well buy one. - Really? - And have it at your house. It'd be just be something better for your life. If you're gonna, I think he and you can find old refurbished ones. For like somewhere between, you know, 50 and 25 grand. - Okay. - But I understand. - A little bit less painful. - Yeah, but I mean, it's doing more benefit for your life than a car. - That car. - So I think of it that way. - That's girl math. - I mean, I don't know. - That is girl math. - You look, we bitch about a thousand dollar bed. But you spend a 30 year life and the thing, you know, why isn't that more expensive than your car that you spend 20 to 60 minutes a day in? - 100%. I also love how much you're into biohacking. I think it's so fascinating. How much of your athletic and like long longevity of your career do you think is a testament of like maybe the biohacking that you've done versus just like pure genetics? - Yeah, I got really into my diet in my early 20s. And so throughout my most of my career, I was really disciplined with how I ate. - So like what did that look like? - Well, I went from basically eating sugar to like eating organic. I was like in my early 20s. - So nothing that came out of like a wrapper is like you avoid anything that comes out of a wrapper. - Well, I mean, look, you can find good products in a wrapper, but a lot of it is obviously processed. You don't want the ultra processed stuff and all the corn syrup and all that crap, but. - The seed oils. - Yeah, and MSG that's hidden under like 16 different names. - Mm-hmm. - I mean, stuff. - So you just exemplified? - Yeah, I mean, I think you don't want to be so obsessive. You go overboard where you can enjoy your life. But you know, a three day water fast here and there, maybe a master cleanse every couple of years or whatever it is to like just really clean your system out. And just try to eat as kind of just don't overeat, don't overindulge. All the oldest people in the world who was a study done by the sky back in the '70s and '80s, he started studying health, Dr. Joel Wallach. And he was saying all the oldest people in the world, they live at high altitude and they irrigate. They drink from glacial water. So they always have their minerals and they grow all their foods in it. So their foods are full of all the minerals in it. - Full of minerals. Well crap, we're at sea level. - Yeah, I know, I know. But maybe there's a way to do it. That's what he found from his studies. Most of the centenarians of people live over 100 years, we're living that lifestyle. And also they weren't like ultramarathon athletes. I mean, you're not burning through everything in your body. Like you're not putting, you know, 10,000 calories through your body a day. - Yeah. - Like Phelps, you know. - Those guys are built different though the ultramarathoners. - I know, but you're depleting so much stuff in your body. It's hard to put a lot of the stuff back in. - I know. - So if you're putting constant pressure on your body and over time, that gets you in crazy shape and you can do things no one else can do. But at the same time. - So much rebuilding now. - If you want to be 100 years old, that's probably not the way to do it. - Yeah. - And I really thought about it like that. - But maybe do that through the peak of your career life and your physical abilities. But then I think you, you know, the Taoist theory for eating is to get like 70% full. Don't eat 100%. - Okay. - And drink water. - Yeah, and don't even drink water during meals. Like if you're gonna do, I got really into Trophology, which is food combining. You don't eat proteins and carbs together. That this was like kind of my hack. Like when I was like really at the peak of my career was. I was not eat, I was doing a really specific diet and Shane Doran and I were traveling together. And I would basically tell Shane what to eat. And we sort of tested it out through the late 90s. And I originally heard it from the Gracie family. They were, they were in. - Oh yeah, like Gracie Barra. - Yeah, Gracie Barra, like the Gracie family was, they were all into their diet, which was food combining. So it's, when you eat proteins and carbs together, your body didn't quite know how to digest it all efficiently. - Yeah. - Properly. Like a carb meal or a protein meal. And you can mix greens kind of with either one and there's certain fruits you can eat or can eat either together or with other meals. - Okay. - It gets kind of complex if you get really into it. But like you wouldn't eat like sweet fruits with acid fruits, for instance. You wouldn't eat an apple with an orange. - Oh. - You wouldn't eat potato with steak. You don't eat bread at a meal where you have a protein. - Even though like steak and potatoes is like a famously. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, that's so interesting. - And you wouldn't eat two proteins together. You just eat one protein because proteins kind of need to do their own thing. - Yeah. - So I got really into testing this on myself and I would sleep a lot less and have a lot more energy than when I would just eat a whole bunch of stuff together. - 'Cause your body's not having to process it as harsh as you eat. - Yeah, it's just processing kind of one thing with other things that work together. So like a lot of greens work with either or. - That's so fascinating. I never really thought about that before. - It's an interesting process. I don't hear a whole lot about it. Now I feel like I did hear about it for a while while I was doing it. 'cause that was like into that diet. - Yeah, and so you were like talking about it. And maybe putting a lot of the surfers onto it. - But a lot of the meals now, like people who go carnivore, for instance, they're kind of eating that way a lot of times. But they're obviously heavy on the protein side. Paleo can be that way too. You know, you're gonna just eat more whole foods and- - It's more simplistic. - Yeah, fewer things together. - Yeah. - And by just, by default, you're probably gonna, end up on a few of those meals where you don't have a lot of starches with proteins. - Yeah. - But I feel like, personally, of the diets I've tried, I felt like that was the one that worked best for me. - And you felt the best when you were performing. - I felt like I would literally sleep an hour or less at night and I'd have more energy straight away in the morning. - And probably more longevity throughout the day. - Yeah. - 'Cause you're like slow-burning almost. - Yeah, but I also, I try to talk everyone that wants to hear it into doing water fast too. Like at least a three day walk. You gotta go at least three days when you're gonna do a water fast. - Damn. - But now there's even other people who are really getting into it, talk more about dry fasting. Like some people even argue if you're fasting on water, you're not even fasting 'cause it's still- - Filtering. - Yeah, your organs are still doing certain things. - Huh. - So if you go dry fast, which you don't probably want to do for more than like two days. - I was gonna say, you can't really do it for more than two days. - Yeah, they say dry fast is like each day on a dry fast like two or two and a half days on a water fast. Although I haven't done dry fasting, but- - That sounds awful. - Yeah. - I know. - But you're horrible. - I mean, the whole idea behind fasting is your body starts to get efficient. You're winning your life, do you let your digestion stop working? - Yeah. - And just relax. Like you never give your digestion a break in your whole lifetime. - It kind of like helps it heal. - Yeah, helps your stomach heal or relax. - Interesting. - It helps all your organs just settle down and not have to work so hard. And I don't know how you felt when you were competing full time or anything. But when I compete, I don't generally eat in the morning. - I couldn't, it was so hard for me to eat. - The last two days I had big meals before I went surfing and I felt terrible. My energy was so low in the water. - Yeah, 'cause it's like using up all your energy to process the food. - Yeah, I mean, the digestion alone of a big meal is like a workout. - Yeah. - So now you're doing two workouts together. Kind of thing. - They had to really thought of it like that though. - So the last two days I was like in the water going, "God, what do I feel so weak?" Oh, I just ate. - That makes sense. - And it's so clear. But I've kind of gone into like an automatic override when I compete where I just don't eat. I don't know if it's an anxious, nervous stomach or whatever. - Mine's definitely anxious. - But my body just tells me don't eat. And I might have a little bit of something just to-- - Yeah, I have like a bite of like a bagel or something. Like I get something like a carb just to like make me feel a little bit less like I'm gonna faint. - Yeah. - But I could not stomach anything like heavy. I don't know how people did. - The other thing with fasting is just if you do long term fast is getting rid of the glucose cycle in your body. People won't talk a lot about maybe enough about like cancer for instance. I know a doctor, but cancers eat sugars. So the more sugar you're consuming, the easier it is for your body to feed the cancers. And you know there is a theory out there that if you start to fast for like two weeks, your body finally gets rid of that glucose cycle in your body. - So you don't crave anything? - So well-- - So you're not feeding tumors. And ultimately the idea between the idea with fasting is you're letting your body just like shed all the extra fat and get rid of the detox your body. Really rapidly. - So it's a hard reset button. - Yeah, it's a hard reset. So there's this theory out there that if you go into like true keto over long term that your body wants to reject all the things it doesn't need. And so there's not enough studies, maybe readily available on that, but it is something you can look and find information about. - Yeah. - I just find it really interesting. - Now I love that you're so curious though. I think that's what makes an athlete a great athlete is being curious about new technology, new science, like new stuff, 'cause I mean obviously you-- - We're old stuff, I mean this is old stuff. - Old stuff too, yeah, I mean-- - We should not be able to eat for a couple of days when we were cavemen. - Exactly. - Like, you know, you're on the verge of like starving probably more often than like having a food. So you know, everyone would have been like fit and trim back up in those days. And now there's so much sedentary lifestyle. And you know, look at the average American, it's like-- - They sit more than they stand, yeah. - Not only that, but you know, to be overweight and be out of shape is the norm now. And even when I was a kid in the '80s, you go down the beach and everyone was pretty skinny. - Ripped. - Yeah, and ready to do something, you know? - I know, I live in Hermosa and it's like, I rarely see people out of shape. - Yeah, there was on the beach there, just doing the thing. It's attracted that volleyball lifestyle. - Oh yeah, and even if you're on a walk, you see everyone running and you're like shit, well maybe I should run, you know? - It's like this kind of like iron sharpens iron and like everyone's so competitive. And if they're not, you know, surfing, they're skating, if they're not skating, they're playing volleyball. Like there's so much activity. - Yeah, it's good to see those certain places, there's just so much activity for people. - I know. - It makes you look at yourself and go, I should be doing a lot more. - Yes, you're not the 1% if you have abs, you know? Like someone has better abs than you, you know? There's always someone stronger or in better shape. - Some of these people I see on Instagram, like especially the calisthenics guys. - Oh my God. - Oh my God. The strength that gymnasts have, the calisthenics guys have, that the body weight exercise stuff is next level. - Oh, they literally do like pushups with like, their pinky fingers and like, hold up. - Yeah, or like muscle ups that they're throwing themselves in the air at the top of the muscle up. - They're loose, like, like, levitating. Yeah, it's so gnarly. - That's wild. - So for you, out of like the three decades that you surfed and you were at, you're like, I mean, the highest competitive level, what would you say you felt your best, which decade did you feel your best? Or even what year did you feel your best? - My best competitive years were 96 and seven and then 2008. - Okay. - So kind of a big spread, like 12 or 12 or 13 years apart. Yeah, and I probably felt better in '08 in a lot of ways. I feel like in the 90s I mastered competing as much as that I could. - Like mentally and physically? - Yeah, physically as well, but more mentally, like the approach to going out, getting in the lead, controlling the heat, winning. Like I just had this formula I knew worked and I was also really studying everybody. I knew what everyone's strengths and weaknesses were and I knew if my weakest part can be better than their strengths, their strongest part that I was gonna own it. So my goal was to try to make my weakest parts as good as anyone's strong parts. - That is a solid strategy. - Yeah. - Cause it's an individual sport at the end of the day. I mean, if you think about it, like you technically can't control how they serve. - No, and you can't control which waves they ride. - Yeah. - I mean, you can to some degree, you can figure out the conditions and figure out how to put yourself in the right spot and the right wave in each set. And there's definitely a pattern in the ocean that you can study in every single day and you can watch lineups whether it's a reef break or a beach break and you can figure out where the best waves are, what the most potential is out there and put yourself in the best spot for that. So that's one aspect of it for sure. But I would say in 2008, I got to a point where I kind of accomplished all my goals and I was really relaxed. I didn't care if I won or lost. I mean, I wanted to win, but I really wasn't worried about losing 'cause I was like. - You lost that chip on your shoulder a little bit? - Yeah, to some degree. I felt like I got to place, 'cause I won, so I mean, my first goal was to win a world title. My second goal was to try and win again. - Do it again? - Obviously. - Yeah. - 'Cause I had the next year I lost. So then when I had won my second world title, then I started really kind of lining up, like, okay, Tom Kerns, Tom Kerns, Kerns got three, Markergers has four, but Markergers has four in a row. And I started after, I think after I won my, probably after I won my third world title, I really started to like look at, okay, MR's got four in a row. I'm gonna see if I can match that. When I matched that, I was like, okay, I got to, I won chance in my life probably to beat that. - Yeah. - And so I was super burned out in '97. So I won '92, then I won '94, five, six, seven, eight. - Oh shit. - But I was, by '97, I was super burned out, and I didn't wanna, I just wanted to have a break and like take a couple of years off. - So you were fully burned out of the sport. - I was fully burned out after like six years on tour, five years on tour. So I was full on, I started on tour '91, the back half of '91, so I did like, just the back half and just barely qualified for '92. Just did enough to get my points up behind off to make it on tour '92, full time. - Okay. - So I was on '92, three, four, five, six, seven. That was my sixth year in a row on tour. And I was super burned out and I told my boss at the time, I said, if I don't win the World title this year, I'm gonna retire for a couple of years. I'm gonna take some time off. - Wow. - I said, but if I do win, I'm gonna put everything into next year and try to win five in a row and try to beat Amara's record. And I had a very unlikely win at the, I came into the final event, third place. and I won, I ended up winning world title. Like, if I, if I was in that same situation a hundred times, I might do it two or three times. Like, I just got super lucky. - The stars aligned. - Everything lined up for me. - Wow. - I kind of, I kind of took my foot off the gas a little bit throughout the year and got a little distracted 'cause I was trying to like, enjoy my life. - Have some balance. - Yeah, I was trying to get more balance of like, just enjoying my friendships with my life and like the rest of life other than serving. But it was taking away from my ability to like, dominate when I served. - Yeah. - So I found myself like, I found myself like, trailing through most of the year and at the end of the year I was pretty far behind. I had a chance, but it was a, I had to get at least third place at Pipeline. And more likely I was gonna have to get second or first. So I had like, I had a very slim chance really to do that. And the guys that had to me not do good enough to put me out of points. - Yeah. - Out of reach from the points. And so it all just like lined up, boom, boom, boom. And I won that and then I went, that's it, I'm done. I like, I need to take some time off. I'm gonna take three years off. - Really? - And then when I came back it was, so it was seven years between my six and seventh world title. I wanna know five. So I took, I won 98 and then I wanna know five. But I came really close. - Sue did take those years off. - I took three years off. - Wow. - Yeah, 99, 2000, 2001. And I came back in 2002, my father passed away. I wasn't super really engaged in competition after that for the rest of the year. And then the next year I got super excited again. And I came very close, I lost the world title. I had it in my grasp, lost it in the last contest to Andy Irons. - Oh my God. - And it just broke me. And so like, oh four, I don't even think I really tried. I think I ended up in eight places or something. - Yeah, I was just so heartbroken losing the title being that close. - Yeah. - And then in '05 I just got fired up again and came back and I was able to win it that year. And so that was my seventh title. And then I also won '06. The next year, so I won back to back again. - Oh my God. - And then 2007, McFanning won. He had a really great year and he won its first world title. And then 2008, I got fired up again and I, but that year, 2008, this is what, I was just kind of setting the stage for 2008. I think on paper, I won the most, I think I had the most dominant year. I think I won over half the event on, half the events on tour that year. - Wow. - Which I did in '96 as well. But in '08, I just had almost no pressure. I felt like I had zero pressure. So I had, I had like a whole, you know, I had the record of world titles and-- - But you finally set the record, that was your goal. You had just won the year before. - And I had a really great contract with Quicksilver and I was making good money and I was in, you know, Kalani and I started dating. - You were in a healthy relationship. - Yeah, and just everything felt really good. And then I had a friend of mine who, it's funny, I won't name him, but everyone would know his name. But I was talking to him and he said something to me that really like affected me at first in a negative way and then in a really freeing way. And he goes, you know, I have, he's like, I watch events here and there, but I have almost no desire to watch. He goes occasionally, I do, just because it's on, but he's like, I don't really even care about surf contest at all. And this is a friend of mine that wanted to be a pro surfer but didn't become one and, you know, has been a close friend of mine and stuff. And I took it like really personally. I'm like, dude, I'm like, you don't watch me? - Yeah, you don't watch me. - I'm kind of when he's real, and he goes, I have almost zero desire to watch this at all. Occasionally I turn it on, but like I don't care about the outcomes and I was like, oh, and it was kind of startling. I almost felt like he said it like in an offensive way to me. But then I realized he didn't at all. He was just like, he was kind of just saying, like I just like to go surfing and I don't really care about contest. It was that much. It wasn't like loaded. - It was simple. - Yeah. - And then when I realized, you know, I took a couple weeks, like I kept rearing through my head. I'm like, that's weird. I thought he would like care about watching my events or whatever. And then when it finally like settled with me, I was like, wow, that must feel so nice. They're not me worried about it. - Yeah. - And then I got to a place where I was like, really not worried about the outcomes. - Yeah. - And I started taking, I started going to contest like really nonchalantly, just like so relaxed when I surfed. I felt like it was just so free. And I could see the tension and the stress in other people. And the more I was relaxed, the more tension I saw in other people. - Yeah. - Then it was my competitors. - Yeah, 'cause they were like, why is he so chill? - Yeah, I felt like-- - It's like mind games. - I wasn't attached to the outcome. - Yeah. - But then you can enter a flow state even faster. - No, and all of a sudden these magic things started happening for me and I got, I think I won for the first six events that year. I was just like, I was just like, wow, this is so easy. I was just like, in such the flow of it. - Well, 'cause you already developed the work ethic. So it's like, you had the routine. You had the structure. - And I was able to like-- - But they took the pressure. - I'm really relaxed and put in what I already knew. 'Cause at that point, it's all subconscious. I don't know how to go out and-- - Your muscle memory is gonna take over. - Yeah, and then mentally I was really free around it. I wasn't worried about the outcomes. - Yeah. - So I had about to maybe like the fifth or so event that year I lost really early in a heat I had control of. And I got really in my head, 'cause I started thinking like, wow, I might be able to seal this world title super. Like I started creating the pressure again. - Yeah, and I had this heat. I was totally in control of I was in Bali. And I was serving as one of my teammates. I'm quicksover and there was like two minutes ago. I had priority. I'm in the lead. He needs a big score and the set's coming. And I went in my head. I went, oh my god, I'm gonna make the wrong decision right now. - Oh no. - Like I just knew it. - Not a big piece of thought. No matter which decision I make is gonna be wrong, I felt it. I was like, this is it. I can't change it. And so then all of a sudden I'm scrambling in my brain. You know our brains are so complex. - Oh yeah. - And I started just going into this place in my head. Like, I'm gonna make the wrong decision. Okay, do the other decision. What is the decision you're gonna make? Okay, try the other one. And I was like, just so like, - And this is all happening in like the span of probably like two milliseconds, you know. - And I got so confused. And I made the wrong decision. And then he beat, he got this wave. And he, like I took the wrong wave with priority. And I fell on it too. I didn't even maximize a wave. And then I fell and I came up and he's in this perfect barrel and gets spit out and the crowd's going crazy. And they call it the score and he beats me. And I was like, no. 'Cause I was like, if I win this contest, I'm probably gonna lock the world title up like the earliest anyone's ever done it. You know? So I got my ego just holding away. - You treated, yeah. - You were functioning from a place of ego. She was like, but your mom slapping you across the face. - Exactly. And so I was just so like anger at myself the whole rest of the day and I couldn't let it go. And then that night I went to bed just still hanging onto it and I woke up the next day and all the guys that were like my serious threats to world title were still in. - Yeah. - And I was just so fried over it. I was all night, I couldn't let it go. And then the next day, the waves are really good on the other side of the island. So we drove like an hour to go serve. And I was talking to a, I talked to a belly who was like my team manager and my best buddy still to this day. And he's like telling me, you know what? It's just, you just gotta let it go. You just gotta like, it's done. - Yeah. - Just go to your control now. - Just go serve and have fun. And like I was just jumping in the water to go serve at this wave that I've always wanted to get it really good. And I had never had it good. And I pulled up and it was perfect. And literally as I hit the water, I was like, oh, you know what? I'm gonna let that, I just gave myself the talk. Like I'm gonna let the whole thing go. Like nothing I can do about it. Why, this is not how I started this year. What am I doing? - Yeah. - Like get back to what felt good and felt right. Anyways, I went surfing for like three hours, had a great time. I came in and I felt just totally free around the whole thing. And I get on my phone and he, and he attacks me. And he goes, are you watching this? And I'm like, what? And I look and every one of those guys lost while surfing. - Shut up. - Yeah, it was, it was weird. It was like, I just like went, let it go. - The universe like almost rewarded you. - Yeah, literally in the next episode which was early in the, early in the event still, they all lost and I was like, wow. Okay, this is the feedback I needed. You know, like just enjoy what you're doing man. Just go, you've done all the work for 35 years. Like just chill out. - Enjoy it now. - Go enjoy it, the fruits of your labor go and let it just be what it's gonna be. And if you win great and if you lose, that's just what's meant to be and just accept it. And I just surfed the rest of the year that way and I ended up having the, I think that was the statistically best year I ever had. - Wow. - And it was definitely connected to like, working it out in my head over years and years, like figuring out my process and then letting it go and just flowing with the whole thing. - Yeah, entering flow state. - And that becomes, that's where as a competitor, you start to feel like you're tapped into some spiritual thing. - 100%. - And the feedback, the feedback are all, they're all positive messages, you know, that are like metaphors for anyone in their life. You know, you have to accept what is, you have to put in your best effort and if it doesn't go your way, you should still be a happy person. Like all this kind of stuff. - It's like a great gratitude. - I felt like I was becoming my own like, philosopher in my brain. - You're like a little Buddha. (laughing) - But which is funny to say around competition and like money and fame and all these things, You know, you think that. Those things are like distinctly separated from that aspect of life, but they're not there They're also a part of anyone's life. They can co-exist. Yeah, totally. They're like, oh my god Why is Kelly in the corner just oh? But I Couple guys there's a couple guys on tour I was gonna say there's some woos out there I mean you're support. That's the core of it. It's like freaking chicken. We all came from those that DNA Genetics were part of surfing you know there's a reason my drugs was so big back in the 80s But there was old pictures of like Jerry Lopez got two boards on the wall in here You know, there's old pictures of Jerry in magazines like Sitting there, you know doing his yoga. He's still like, you know, he's sitting in lotus. He's sitting in lotus and he's doing his yoga and I mean Jerry He's still he's getting up there almost 80 years old now and wow he still does two three hours hours of yoga every morning and So it's that that's a part of this surf life, but when you start to get into what is pro-professional? Yeah, sponsorship and all the stuff. It feels like no there's money involved. Yeah, it feels like it dilutes all that Yeah, for sure, but there's a way that you can find yourself through that that That difficult Messing that can that can be in your head and you know and be clear and present and You know all the fruits of your labor can Feel good and even losing can feel good Well, yeah, cuz I mean whenever you're gonna be able to actually enjoy all the hard work that you put in if The girl was chasing something else and yeah, the goal post is always moving It's like you're in that state of just like consistently chasing and yeah, but there's something good about those moving goal post too because it gets you It gets you trying to help you take Yeah, it makes you focus. Yes, it makes you focus on to something Better than what you've already done greater than where you've already gone 100% so you you kind of need that internal Dialogue to to drive you beyond your best. Yeah, yeah something that I always say because I'm the kind of person that always moves the goal post and it's like I do struggle sometimes with celebrating the victories and celebrating the moments that deserve to be celebrated Especially for someone that like works for yourself, you know like you try to stay humble. You're not trying to like get wrapped up in all of it, but like I always say you can be the person that's constantly chasing So long as you surround yourself with people that remind you to celebrate And like I even recently like I told someone that I just signed with Spotify. I was so excited But like now there's so much work and there's pressure and there's this and there's that and she's like Well, we need to go out and celebrate and I'm like, oh shit, you're right Like maybe we should celebrate that like I would have never thought to like make that a celebratory thing But when you have people that remind you of that, I think it's really special. Yeah It depends on what celebrate is, you know, it's different from different people I mean, I think just like taking a moment to like reflect just like let's go get super drunk Yeah, no, definitely. And I grew up in the surf culture, especially around Aussies. You know, oh my god. I like the party man They love a party and There's not many of them that have missed a party. You know, especially when I first got on tour. Yeah, man And those guys are nuts. Yeah, how did you so many of it so many guys? I like looked up to and wanted to surf with and learn from and surf against and stuff and I got on tour I'm like, well, they all just rage all night. It's crazy. The work hard play hard and tell me I think surfing also it wasn't I don't think it was looked upon as something you could retire from like you could make a good career for a long time It was like, you know, we're gonna have five to ten years of a great time and then we're gonna get a job and have a family Oh, it wasn't something like you could actually have longevity in yeah I mean there wasn't people making millions of dollars and being able to like Do well, you know, you weren't gonna like retire the rest of your life and work It's like, okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna have a good time for a short time and then and I think that was a lot of the mentality of most of the people that were on tour At the time, of course you had your Outliers, you know, you had your Tom Carroll's and Tom Kern's and you know guys who were multiple time world champions and really took it seriously And that kind of thing yeah, but then you had a lot of hangers on that were just kind of there for the for the fun They're travel. Yeah, and you know occasionally they beat one of the best guys and whoa he won, you know Um always say they like the chicken. Yes, but now you look just accident you look almost you know every guy in every person on tour the girls and the guys like I would say every single one of them is there to win. I was gonna ask you what the percentages of now The people that take it seriously versus the ones that don't but I think it's like a hundred percent. I have to take it seriously Pretty close. I don't think you're gonna make I don't think you're gonna get on tour without taking it seriously. Yeah, I mean It's just it's become kind of formulaic as my only critique of it in a negative sense I think it's it's looked at more like there's this recipe to go out and win and you get the train You don't need a coach and you know all this kind of stuff and to me that was That was taking away from a little bit of creativity and individual Aspect of of doing your own way. Yeah, when I was on art Yeah, and I I felt like there was a little more art to it than then um Then structure. Yeah But I also think that you you could get away with it Uh, you know through the peak of my career. Mm-hmm. You get away with with approaching it that way Because everyone's still kind of in that mindset. Yeah But you know people start to push to a certain threshold of performance and skills and and um Make rates on doing difficult things and that's all changed for even even low-tier guys now or on our tour Still letting a fire under yeah, they're threat to the top guy. Yeah, and you if you if you're following Pro-serving if you've watched this year like Felipe Toledo's in like 21st 22nd place. No way this guy's One of the most talented guys to ever step down a surfboard and I would find it hard for him not to be a world title threat every year And yeah, he just had this year where he's served really good But other guys have just had incredible heats against him and um It must be super humbling for him because he's such a great surfer. He's been dominated I expect him to win 90% of his heats and wow and he's just and he'll even he has the Is a crazy statistic he has the highest average heat score on tour and he's on in 21st He's been losing to people who are having like Their best heat of the year just random. Yeah, just stepping up somehow having this better heat than he had somehow So he's consistent. Yeah, he's consistent So do you think that'll help him high scores? Well that helped because they average all of the scores from every Like event. No, you just no, he's Hope probably end up in a round 20th place. No way. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah So then how does that he could um He could win the event in Portugal this week. Okay on there before um and that'll help him a lot And he could he could very well win the next one which is in the Philippines. It's a wave that like If he's not in that semi-finals, I'd be surprised. Oh my god. The Philippines is incredible Yeah, it's like it's this perfect little wave that suits him. It's a right. So he's on his forehand and It's a little tube to a big air section And he that's kind of what you know, he's a pretty good two rod especially in writes and he's in he's one of the best air guys in the world So, you know, he'd be one of my favorites to win the event But it must just be so strange for him. He almost fell off to our trestles um And then the last event of the year is pipeline with where you know, he hasn't had a good run before so yeah But these neck this vent and the next one are really good for him So he could he could pop up to like maybe almost 10th of e one both those okay, but uh Yeah, I mean I would also say you know going in the next year Felipe Toledo is still a world title threat to next year Yeah, no matter what he gets you're so keep chipping away. Yeah, it's just He I think he's taking a little bit of focus off maybe because he's really a family guy. Yeah, and um You know a lot of that energy goes into his kids and his wife and stuff and which is Which is great. I mean you have empathy. Oh, yeah, obviously very much in the trenches right now I always thought guys were crazy to have the families on tour. Well, yeah, how do you feel about that now? Like imagine, you know, if you were still at the same competitive like what you'd be able to do it. No Wow, I couldn't do it and be as good. Yeah. No, no chance. It's such a big distraction I mean you're losing sleep when young guys You know, I have a couple young friends on tour that have like serious girlfriends or wives and I'm like Don't have kids do not have kids. So you're done man. Just like then because you're And I hear this from other friends of mine too that were either in their careers or maybe didn't have a career Just had a job, but they they wanted to go travel and surf and Have some freedom have some freedom and you know I find it unless you're just positive you met like the absolute perfect person your life and you're in your twenties this Just hold out for a little while. There's no rush. Yeah, there's no rush, you know 100% you don't want to look back and go I should have done this in my life And that's a thing like I don't have any I don't have any like I should have done this or should have done that I have no regrets in that way and Um, you know, Kalani was in the right place where she wanted to start having kids and stuff too So we our timing was really good. Yeah, but um and you and you can't always predict that or you can't plan that timing, you know, you got to make choices that align with your With your things, you know with your with your morals and your beliefs and your your timelines and life and stuff and um And you know a lot of people just go I met him. I didn't expect to meet the right person that I did so that can happen to and Ultimately, that's more important in life, but you know don't don't squander opportunities you have to do the things you want to do when you're the right age and you have the right physical Abilities when you're at your peak 100% I mean, I always say that too. It's like if I were to have The opportunities that I have I would be really bummed if I had even a dog honestly like when we got a dog I was - Oh my gosh! - I got a dog in 2011, and it was so hard. - Oh no, this is so hard. Just feeding the thing and walking it. - Yeah! - But now, you know, we love our dog. She's 15 years old, but she, you know, at first, it was like, how are we gonna do this in travel? - Yeah. - Actually know that how she gonna know where we are, like, we're her owners, you know, like. - Yeah, what a hundred percent. - Is she gonna be mad every time we leave her with her parents? But, Colleen's parents have been great. They've taken care of her when we can't, but she's traveled to Europe with us multiple times. - So you make it work? - She's been a Hawaii price 30 times, you know. She travels with us, but we make it work, but it's now with two kids, it's even harder. Like, just around the house, it's a little tough, 'cause, you know, action expects like, filet mignon. - Yeah. - Sounds that right? - She's like, wait, you gave me a candle just now? No, that's not happening. - She's like, I've been spoiled for 15 years is why I'm still alive, but what do we do in it? You're like, well, in this economy. - And then our son is just running around with his like, plastic golf club trying to hit her and run her over this bike. And she's like, literally, if you go up to pet her, she's like, well, what? - She's traumatized. - No, she's totally traumatized. She got PTSD so bad for her son. I feel so bad, I'm like, if you were like one or two, I'd be like, deal with it, but you're like 15. You're like, she's a grandma, you know, and she's getting run over by my kid on this bike. It's crazy. And it's hard for me not to get super mad at him. He doesn't know, he's too. - Yeah, he doesn't know. - This is what you do. Get out of my way. - Yeah. - We're playing a game. - Yeah. - It's like, dad, you made me this way. I keep you still. - But I'm like, can't you see she's, she got tremors because you know, it's terrible. - So what's next for you? What are you looking forward to the most and like maybe the next 10 years? - See my young ones just grow and learn and then see my daughter's first baby. - Yeah. - She's gonna have a girl. - That's so exciting. - So it's funny her aunt and uncle are gonna be actually her age. - Oh my God. - I don't even think about that. So they'll grow up more like cousins than in that, you know. But. - Are you gonna put your kids in sports? - I don't know, I have no plans. Whatever they want to do. - Fair enough. - But their passion be their purpose. - I don't feel like pushing them in any direction. I just do the things I do. And like yesterday my son cried, literally cried for an hour to surf. - Shut up. - I finally took him out and he was the first time he smiled for that hour. Like I was surfed. Like he was losing it on the beach. Crying tears surf. And I'm like, we gotta put your floaty on. We gotta put your wets in. You know, we gotta. - You're like, oh my God, I just made a clone of myself. What did I do? - And then I swear, I went and he's like, let's go now. I'm like, we're gonna walk him. Get that surfboard over there and we got to the surfboard and I said, look, we got the surfboard. You know, we're gonna go surfing. I just started smiling. He was so excited. - Oh my God. - And we got it on video and he just, let's go. And then the first like three or four ways we caught, they were filming it from the beach. We were just down at Tressels and he was just screaming like happy, like so excited. - Aww. - And then um. - Life hack. I have a short cry and I just take him to the beach. - Yeah. And then he got water in the eyes a couple of times and then he started, oh, I want to go in. So I'm like, do you want one more wave? Yeah, one more wave. - Aww. - One more daddy. - Is he pretty good for his age? Like that's a, I mean, he's two, right? - Well, I mean, I'm standing up but, okay. - But then after a couple of waves, I'll usually go, you stand up now. And I take him on a big board and he'll just like stand right up. - Wow. - So we'll see. - I mean, I remember my dad was doing that to me when I was two or three. - Yeah. - Other three times I'll be like, dad's too big. It's too big and he's like, pedal, pedal, pedal. I'm like, I don't want to. Maybe I have PTSD now. (laughing) - But yeah, no, he loves it. And then I play music around the house every day. So he, you know, we've got a couple of songs we've learned together and a couple of the songs that he likes is Kid Songs. I got to learn on the guitar and we catch him walking outside singing. Like this song I taught him, Kalani the other week, she's like, he was, did you hear him earlier? And I go, no, she goes, he was singing that song outside and she goes, I went on the ring cam and to see if it recorded it. It didn't. - Oh my God. - You'll have to catch it next time. - And it's not a Kid Song. It's like an adult song, you know? - Wow. - It is a song a friend of mine wrote who passed away. So now we play that song all the time. And he's like, knows almost every line in it. It's so cute. - That's crazy. So it's like me and his song, yeah. - Oh, I love that. I still can't believe you were in a band. Like, you have so much lore, but we don't need to get into that kind of thing. - Yeah, I've been in a band. I mean, I've been writing songs for a long time. So I just, I was loved it. As a kid, I sang a lot in my parents. My mom played banjo, my dad played guitar. The funny thing was they never played together. They always played separate. They didn't like, they never played. I don't remember them ever a single maybe once. I don't even know if I can picture them ever having played together, but my mom was in the country, finger picking style. - Yeah. - And on banjo, my dad played guitar and saying just like, Van Morrison and Jackson Brown kind of songs, you know? - So cool. - But, so like, I grew up with it, but I didn't learn to play until I was like 18. And then I became really like passionate. I'm like, why didn't I learn this when I was a kid? - Yeah. - 'Cause I used to laugh at my best friend 'cause he had piano like music classes. - Yeah. - I'm like, I'm gonna go jump in the water. Or I'm gonna go play football. You gotta go play piano. - Yeah, I'm nerd. - I'm like, yeah, you're nerd. Exactly. So funny. And I was like, I can't believe his mom's that strict that she makes him learn music. And I looked back now and he didn't play music anymore. And now I do and I wish I knew music theory and more stuff. So I've been teaching myself and learning for years and years. But I do wish I had a little more formal training when I was young, but it seemed like anyone got any formal music training was always piano. - Yeah. - But I do wish I knew some piano. Okay, so I've been trying to learn some basic chords and how to use my fingers correctly. - Well, you're like, now I have time. Am I as well? - No more than I don't wanna do this anymore. - Yeah, no, you gotta look very professional. - Yeah. - Oh, I love that. - Well, I wanna get into a quick little rapid fire and then we're done. - Cool. - If you could only serve one way for the rest of your life, where would it be? - My brain instantly thinks that one's so crowded. Oh, there's too many fuel there. - Okay, if no one was there, it was like a zombie apocalypse. - I would disappear. I'd just live and feed you the rest of my life. - Sounds about right. Like cloud break? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think my dad would say the same thing. - Yeah, there. One of my most proud moments of my life, though, has been Mark Richards telling me if he could serve one way the rest of his life, it would be Surfranch. - No way, the way that you create it. - Yeah. - That's really cool. - So, when he told me that, I was like, wow, that's like feather in my cap right now. - Yeah, I mean, you're like, that's why I created it. That was the full purpose behind it. - But I would also say maybe like Kira or like SuperBank in Australia. It's just so fun, but it's always so crowded. - Yeah. - Like a normal day with good waves is 400 people. 400 people in the water. - Wow. - It's, I don't know what's gonna happen in another 20 years. Like, there won't be, there literally won't be room for people to serve. I keep thinking that at some of this pipeline, you know, some mornings I wake up and look at the camera and it's just been light for 30 minutes. There's 70 people out. - Oh my God. - I mean, even Trussles too, it's packed. - Trussles, there's room though. - Okay. - Trussles can look really crowded, but everyone's getting a wave. - Yeah. - 'Cause you can go right and left. - It's long, yeah. - And it breaks further out or in the middle or on the inside, so like each generation of people kind of sit in different places and each one only has about eight to 12 guys on each, like on the outside. - Yeah. - There's usually six to 10 people who are catching the big ones. And then the middle, there's like maybe 15 to 20 and you can go right or left. - Okay. - And then the inside, there's the groms or you can go down a little bit. So like Trussles looks really crowded, but there's always space for everyone to catch a wave. - Yeah. - But pipeline is a single peak in a small zone. It doesn't really move out or in. It's like in one place. - Yeah. - And so I kind of have this theory that at a lot of those waves, people aren't gonna get better than they are right now. 'Cause you just don't get enough waves. - You get the same wave over and over again. There's no variety. - Yeah, when I was 20, I could still sort of pipeline with 10 people out sometimes. You know, but now there's not a day with less than 50 that's any good. - Yeah. - And everyone's aggressive in the water. So it's hard for any one person to go get a whole bunch of waves and be able to put themselves in all the situation of rights and lefts and big and medium waves and small waves. - There's no reps. - Yeah, you just don't get the reps that you used to. So unless you become like a super scary person that can never be scared of, and you just take off on any way. - Super stick with you. - Maybe those are the guys who will dominate in the future. - All right, biggest wave you've ever served. You did some big wave surfing a few times. - Yeah, I mean, I surfed to Eddie a whole bunch of times with a man, I don't know. You know, I've towed jaws a couple times, maybe like a 50 foot wave, but not like a 70, 80 footer. Like the biggest one's guys have ridden now. - 50 feet is insane, still. - Yeah, it's big, but it's guys are riding regularly, every year riding 70, 80 foot waves now. - Oh my God. - And like at Nazare and a big giant day at jaws. And it's surprising that just with the amount of energy you see, like I have one friend who's had, he's wiped out in two particular waves that I can remember, one at Nazare and one at jaws. And I think there are the biggest waves that have been wiped out at both spots and he was fine. - He walked away, fine. - Yeah, fine. Both of them were like 80 foot. And I'm just, I'm like, how did you live through either, I haven't actually talked to him about either. He's from Spain, actually, but he charged his big waves and he wiped out at Nazare. The clip is. It was hard to see because it was afternoon. The sun was in the background, so it's like really-- - Backlit. - It contrasted, yeah, it's backlit and you can't see very good, but he gets to the bottom, but it's like 80 feet peak and he falls right in the worst spot. And he must've gone up and must've taken like three seconds to get up to the top of the way and go over the falls. - And just get-- - Oh, just detonated, yeah. - Oh. - I mean, you just feel like you get ripped from limb to limb. - Yeah. - And then he had one at jaws on what looks like the biggest day that ever surfed two years ago, right before Christmas. And he fell in this way, it's about 80 feet and he falls at the bottom and even where he falls, it didn't look like he could get a good breath 'cause he was almost gonna make it and then it just the lip hit him. - Yeah. - And it's so scary. - It's so scary. - I mean, it's a whole ocean. It's like you can't even-- - I'm sure Bonnie's very happy you're not surfing big waves like that with two kids. - Yeah. - It's a little too high risk. - I don't know, I still have it as I are for some big waves, but maybe not the biggest waves. But, you know, still like most of the big swallows on the North Shore I want to go surf, so. - Really? - Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna stop like and just only surf waves under certain size. I don't know if I'm feeling good in that day and I want to go surf in a surf. - Yeah. - But I would say when my son was first born, that first winner in Hawaii, I was a little like, my brain, I started imagining it, like even small waves, even sometimes when I'm at Tressels, I have this weird colony calls them intrusive thoughts where I think like, what if my son happened to be right here in this wave hit him and I couldn't get it? - Yeah. - Even when I think him in one-foot waves, I like freak out a little bit. So I have this weird-- - Yeah, you're done now. - That's weird like primal fear and I even think about myself that way. Like, you do start to think about your own mortality. - Yeah. - I think like, you know, I would hate for something to happen to me and my son not have his son or my daughter not have her dad, you know? - Yeah. - But those things are, that's also part of, it's a big part of, you know, my suggestion to, you know, younger pros not having kids really on, 'cause it takes away a little bit of that. - That edge. - Yeah, softens you up a little bit. - Yeah, you don't want to soften up. You want to feel like, you want to feel immortal to some degree and you want to put yourself through the fire and harden yourself as much as you can and mentally and physically, it's good for that competitive spirit for sure. - Yeah. - And having kids just like, it makes you turn to jelly. - Yeah. - Just like, oh, that's one of the inventors, my kid, when he's sleeping and like, I don't want to turn up. - Yeah, exactly. Like, I just want to, like, you don't even prioritize your food, you're just like, I want to feed them right and then I'll eat their leftovers. - Yeah. - Oh. - The whole thing becomes different. You look at the world differently. - Well, your sports is very selfish. So when you're not able to be selfish anymore, it's like, it's completely different mindset. - Yeah, be selfish as long as you can be. - Exactly. All right, we're just saying you've ever seen floating in the ocean. - Oh, my brain instantly goes to Bali where there's just so much stuff floating. And I remember surfing this place with my friend Rizal and it was a reef that doesn't normally get swell and this one day, it was like a lot of swell. - Yeah. - And there was like this, what we figured was like this kind of ledge of reef and there's a big, like hollow, like opening underneath it and every time a set would come, like garbage would come, I swear it was disgusting. - Ew, what? - And I remember just diapers and like, that was the one thing I remember is diapers coming out from the interview. - Oh, oh my God. - The waves are so good, we just kept surfing. - You're like, fuck it, we're going in the trash. - But I mean, and you know, - Garbage, sir. - You think a lot of syringes on the beach there and stuff. - Yeah. - Yeah, the diaper was like, oh. - Oh, you're like, maybe let's not fall. So we don't get done our head of water. - Yeah, close your mouth. - Yeah, close your mouth, close your nose. Out of the two roles, you being on Baywatch or you being in Serf's Up, which one was your favorite? - Oh, Serf's Up, for sure. (laughs) - Yeah, yeah. - I knew you guys. - I have a good story about that. - Yeah, I know that. - It doesn't really involve me, but just 'cause I was in the movie too with him. But one day, Patel Connell and Rob Matrata were flying from Mexico back to LA and they landed and they were waiting for their boards and they see this whole hoopla over by the carousel getting to baggage, you know, people taking patients and stuff. And they're like, obviously it's so many famous. So they walk over to kind of see and it's Paul McCartney. And they're kind of like looking at him to, oh, wow, Paul McCartney, you know, and never seen Paul McCartney. And then they're like, oh, you know, everyone's bugging them, let's just leave him alone. So they go back over waiting for their bags at the oversized and Paul McCartney comes to walk and buy. And he goes, are you Rob Matrata? And Rob's like, yeah, I'm Rob Matrata. And I think he might have known Pat too from Manless Summer or something, but he goes, and they're like, Rob's like, how do you know me? - Know me yet. - And he goes, oh, well, I have a three-year-old daughter and her favorite movie is Surf's Up. He goes, I've watched it a hundred times. He's like, so I know all the characters in there, it's tough. - That's amazing. - So if Paul McCartney knows me, it's probably from Surf's Up. - And I've made it. That's when you know you freaking made it. That's so funny. - They were like, that's not bugging me. And then he came over and spent like five minutes talking to them about this and just like, oh, what are you guys doing? Oh, we're waiting for our surfboards. And back in the '70s, there was a surf movie made called "Band on the Run." If you know Beatles, there's a song called "Band on the Run." And in that movie was Paul Nielsen, nicknamed "Smelly." Bruce Raymond, I believe it was Peter Townan and Robert Bartholomew, and they made a movie about the four of them traveling around on tour. And they used that song "Band on the Run." And they called the movie that. - That's true. - Then the Beatles eventually found out about it and did a season to assist, but they allowed them to make 500 copies of it on VHS, batch in the '70s. Yeah. - Not the season to assist. It's like, you guys have enough money, babe. Like, I think it's okay. I don't think this little surf movie is gonna really put you guys under, relax. That's funny. Okay. If you could surf with anyone dead or alive, who would it be? - Oh. - Because after my dad passed away, I was, the month after he died, I went and surfed two contests in Tahiti a week, like two weeks later, and then in Fiji right after that. And I remember, I was in Fiji and, and I had his ashes with me and I kept spreading him like I spread a little in Tahiti and a little in Fiji. And I think I spread seven South Africa. But I remember being in the water in Fiji. I was in this heat and I'm like, I don't even know if I'm a surf. I'm just not here mentally, you know? - Yeah. - And then I started thinking about my dad and I'm like, you know, it's crazy. I've spent so many years of my life coming here to Fiji. And I just love it here. My dad never got to even surf a single wave here. And I just started thinking about him while I was in this heat. And I swear right then, the most perfect wave came to me. 'Cause I was thinking in my head, I wish my dad could surf one of these waves. - Yeah. - And in the most perfect wave came, I got a 10 point ride. And I'd paddle back out and I was just beaming. And then right when I got back to the lineup, another one came, we got a 9.5, like, you know, score wise in the heat, but they were absolutely the most perfect waves you'll ever ride in your life. - Just don't, yeah. - And I was just thinking, I wish my dad could just ride one of these waves in his lifetime. So yeah, I mean, if I could surf. - Maybe that was him. - Maybe it was, but yeah. If I could just surf one more time and, you know, and my dad never went on a surf trip. - Yeah, you take him on a surf trip. - He came to California with us once. He came to Hawaii with me, but it was, you know, a few months before he passed away. - Yeah. - He went surfing. And my dad wasn't a great surfer. He was like very, you know, not even maybe average surf level. But he got me into surfing and I was, I was actually scared as a kid that we might go to Hawaii, my dad might get himself in over his head. And I was, I actually had this fear as a little kid. I'm like, my dad is kind of crazy. He might just paddle out when it's big. It's like, I'm going to go kill himself. - Oh God. - But I wish my dad could have ridden one of the waves that I get to ride around the world at some point in his life. - That's so cool. What's harder, a perfect 10 in surfing or a hole in one and golf? - I've had a lot of 10s. Never, I, you know, I have one hole in one, but it was on, it was almost a mistake. It was like an eight. We were playing this little par three course that cost $2 to play. - Shut up. - It's up in LA and Bel Air. It's a dog park and they put like 18 little holes on it. And I think it's called Henley Park. - Okay, I thought you were going to say the one in El Segundo, because there's that one right there too. That's like top golf. - Anyways, I'm playing with my friends and we always had this rule. If you make a hole in one playing together, it's a thousand bucks from each guy. And then we came with this rule that, okay, it's a hundred bucks if they're under a hundred yards. - Okay. - And so it was the 18th hole on this little course and I pulled it left and it hit the collar of the long cut of grass and it kicked right and went in the hole and dunked out for a one. - Shut up. - It was like an 80 yard hole. So my friends only had to pay me a hundred bucks a year. - Damn. So close. You've golfed with Barack Obama and you've golfed with Adam Sandler. Who's better? - They'd be a good match. - Really? - Yeah. I think they're around the same level. - Okay. - Yeah. I think they'd be a good match. - Who do you think's better though? - The former president of the United States, or-- - I might give a slight edge to Adam. - Okay. Maybe because the basketball shorts give some ability. - 'Cause Adam, like, it's funny 'cause he doesn't really take anything too seriously. - Never. - And he can hit the ball pretty good. Without, it seems like he didn't even really try that. Hard. - Really? - Yeah, I just hit the ball, yeah. - Okay. - But, you know, he's, he's, maybe if I was betting, if they were playing each other in the game. - There was money on the table. - I hope they get to play one day. And maybe they have, I don't know, but I hope they get to play one day and it goes on polymarket. - Hell yeah. - That would be sick. - Like a pay-per-view with his own polymarket. - Yeah. Like a proper match-up. - But, but I don't remember whether I bet I played with Adam a couple times. I don't remember whether we bet, but I bet with a Brock and I think I lost. - Oh no. - Well we're playing on handicaps and I didn't play great and he played all right. - All right. - But and I liked it 'cause he was kind of talking smack to me too. - Really? - Like over putts like, I don't know about that one. You're not gonna make that quick. (laughing) - Yeah, he's definitely given it to me a little bit. You know, he's got that sporting nature. Well thank you so much for coming on. It's been an honor having you here. I learned so much and I can't wait to live forever just like you. - Hey. - Well thank you. I love you guys so so much. Thank you all for watching and I'll see you next Wednesday. - All righty. - Bye. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]