#461: Kelly Slater — The Surfing Legend on Routine, Rickson Gracie, Favorite Books, and Overcoming Setbacks

“When you’re humble, you’re teachable.” — Kelly Slater Kelly Slater (@kellyslater https://www.instagram.com/kellyslater/) is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He holds nearly every major record in the sport, including 11 world titles and 55 career victories. He also has the amazing distinction of being both the youngest and oldest world champion in men’s history. His most dominant days were the mid-’90s, when he won five straight titles between 1993 and 1998. After topping Mark Richards’ previous record of four straight titles, Kelly tried his hand at retirement in 1999 but failed. He rejoined the tour full-time in 2002, and over the following five years faced his toughest rival in Hawaii’s Andy Irons, who got the better of him for three straight years. Their heated battles became the most compelling in the sport’s history, propelling it to new heights. Kelly finally reclaimed the title in 2005 and repeated in 2006. Kelly swapped titles with Mick Fanning in the years that followed. Kelly will also be remembered for the wave pool technology that he and his team of engineers at Kelly Slater Wave Co. http://www.kswaveco.com/ brought to life in 2015, which has the potential to reshape the surfing landscape for generations. Please enjoy! Please note that this episode was recorded in late May 2020. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews! For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. 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• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

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• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:08Speaker 02

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• 0:12Speaker 01

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• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:22Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Element, spelled L-M-N-T. What on earth is Element? It is a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I've stocked up on boxes and boxes of this. It was one of the first things that I bought when I saw COVID coming down the pike, and I usually use one to two per day. Element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low carb, or paleo diet. Or if you drink a ton of water and you might not have the right balance, that's often when I drink it. Or if you're doing any type of endurance exercise, mountain biking, et cetera, another application. If you've ever struggled to feel good on keto, low carb, or paleo, it's most likely because even if you're consciously consuming electrolytes, you're just not getting enough.

• 3:06Tim Ferriss?

  And it relates to a bunch of stuff like a hormone called aldosterone, blah, blah, blah, when insulin is low. But suffice to say, this is where Element, again spelled L-M-N-T, can help. My favorite flavor by far is citrus salt, which, as a side note, you can also use to make a kick-ass, no-sugar margarita. But for special occasions, obviously. You're probably already familiar with one of the names behind it, Rob Wolf, R-O-B-B, Rob Wolf, who is a former research biochemist and two-time New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Solution and Wired to Eat. Rob created Element by scratching his own itch. That's how it got started. His Brazilian jiu-jitsu coaches turned him on to electrolytes as a performance enhancer. Things clicked and bam, company was born.

• 3:50Tim Ferriss?

  So if you're on a low carb diet or fasting, electrolytes play a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness. Sugar, artificial ingredients, coloring, all that's garbage, unneeded. There's none of that in Element. And a lot of names you might recognize are already using Element. It was recommended to me by one of my favorite athlete friends, three Navy SEAL teams as prescribed by their Master Chief, Marine units, FBI sniper teams, at least five NFL teams who have subscriptions. They are the exclusive hydration partner to Team USA weightlifting and on and on. You can try it risk-free. If you don't like it, Element will give you your money back, no questions asked. They have extremely low return rates. So again, Element, LMNT, came up with a very special offer for you guys.

• 4:35Tim Ferriss?

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• 5:10Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first

• 5:50Tim Ferriss?

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• 6:09Tim Ferriss?

  Well, hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. And my guest today, I'll keep this intro short, is Kelly Slater. Many people will know that name. Kelly is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He holds nearly every major record in the sport, including 11 world titles and 55 career victories. He also has the amazing distinction of being both the youngest and oldest world champion in men's history. His most dominant days were in the mid- 90s when he won five straight titles between 1993 and 1998. After topping Mark Richard's previous record of four straight titles, Kelly tried his hand at retirement in 1999.

• 6:53Tim Ferriss?

  He failed. He then rejoined the tour full-time in 2002. Suppose he sensed that he had many, many good years left. And over the following five years faced his toughest rival in Hawaii's Andy Irons, who got the better of him for three straight years. Their heated battles became the most compelling in the sports history, propelling it to new heights. Kelly finally reclaimed the title in 2005 and repeated in 2006. And of course, went on to gather many more titles. Slater, that is Kelly Slater, of course, will also be remembered for the amazing wave pole technology that he and his team of engineers at Kelly Slater Wave Co. brought to life in 2015. The technology has the potential to reshape the surfing landscape for generations.

• 7:37Tim Ferriss?

  And you have to see video to really quite grasp and grok what that means. But I encourage you to do so. You can find him online at kellyslater.com and on Instagram and Facebook at Kelly Slater. And without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Kelly Slater.

• 8:00Tim Ferriss?

  Kelly, welcome to the show.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Hey, thanks, Tim.

• 8:02Tim Ferriss?

  I appreciate you making the time. And speaking of time, I want to just sort of set the table for people. So you and I are on opposite sides of the planet, in a sense. And I wanted to start with something that came up when we were texting, because I know in scheduling this, I am in Texas, you're currently in Australia. And so the choice was, do we do crack of dawn, your time, or really late at night? And we ended up doing late at night, so it's late your time. And you texted about taking a two-hour bath.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  I actually do take a lot of baths, just because it's kind of an easy way to just let your body detox in hot water. And I did, you know, for about the last two months, I haven't been working out or really even surfing very much. So this past week, I started working out again and kind of built up a lot of the lactic acid in the muscles. I was working out with a friend of mine, who's like a brother, Tom Carroll, who was... Two-time world champ back in the early eighties. Fellow surfer, lives right up the street here from where I'm staying. And we spent a lot of time together over the years surfing and training together. But I did a workout the other day and I've been surfing the last couple of days. Yesterday I surfed pretty hard and the day before that I surfed a bunch.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  And so you know, those muscles are just getting kind of worked again that I don't usually sit and let the lethargic side of me build up too much. Especially this time of year, I'm surfing almost every day usually.

• 9:27Tim Ferriss?

  Let's talk about, we touched on the baths for a second. And we can't believe everything we read on the internet. But I did see, if we're looking at morning routines, I did see that in an interview with Huckberry, it seems that you start a lot of your mornings with a glass of warm water with lemon. Is that true or is that not true?

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. It is? Yeah, just to, just to get a little warmth going in the body, loosen up. Obviously lemon's really good for you. It's alkalizing, even though it's an acid, it's alkalizing in the body and it's got a lot of minerals and some vitamins and just a nice clean way to kind of wake your system up. And to me, it feels better than putting something heavy in my body.

• 10:14Tim Ferriss?

  Do you drink coffee?

• 10:16Speaker 03

  I do a little bit, but I'm a hundred percent not like a coffee addict. I don't know really what good coffee is. I kind of like the smell of coffee more than I like the taste of it.

• 10:24Tim Ferriss?

  Has that always been the case with coffee? Or was there a period where you drank?

• 10:30Speaker 03

  No, I've never been a coffee drinker. I intentionally have really kind of stayed away from coffee. I feel like I drink it a little bit now just to be ready for it. But this one time I went to, this is the reason I really don't drink coffee. I went to France and we spent sort of the two months prior to going to France to compete. On West Coast time and Tahitian time and those are the events prior to going over to Europe. We get to Europe and we compete within like a day or two of getting there. And it's nine hour time difference going east and that's the hardest thing when you fly east. You just, I don't care if it's from West Coast to East Coast, I just even three hours is tough to get back on track. But when I fly over to Europe, it's really hard for me.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  It takes me almost a month to feel like I get into like a morning routine. And I was going for a world title in the early 2000s over there. And I drank a coffee one morning to wake up and I got the jitter so bad. I fell off on every wave I was caught in this heat. It was a really crucial heat for me to try and win. And if I won that heat, it was pretty much a shoo in for the world title that year. And I did everything possible to lose that heat and somehow won it. But it was because I drank a big coffee in the morning, didn't have any food. And so it really kind of scared me away from coffee.

• 11:44Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm. Now, this might be, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I had asked you for, and I appreciate you contributing to my last book, Tribe of Mentors. And the question was, how is a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success? Do you have a favorite failure of yours? And you mentioned I narrowly lost a world title in surfing in 2003, after basically having locked it up the month prior. And then you went on to talk about how it felt terrible, but drove you to clear up a lot of things. Was that the same competition or a different competition?

• 12:16Speaker 03

  That was a different competition.

• 12:17Tim Ferriss?

  Could you speak to that, that loss in 2003? Since we're on it, just how that came to be and what it drove you to do afterwards?

• 12:26Speaker 03

  You had to bring that up, huh Tim?

• 12:28Tim Ferriss?

  I did, you know, just to humanize the immortal, superhuman Kelly Slater, you know? Figure we'll start.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  I'm kidding. Actually, I do look back at that as, I mean, obviously there's no world title. It is sitting in your hands, it slips through that you're not upset about on some level. But if I could go back and change anything, I really don't think I would because it was a real, very clear indication of where things were going wrong for me. And also. To sort of charge the battery back up, make me dig deeper and competitively speaking, and uh, skill set speaking with my surfing and motivation, all these things. It was just kind of a reset for me. It was rebooting the software in my brain in a lot of ways and those are tough lessons. I, I lost that world title at Andy Irons and I

• 13:18Speaker 03

  was in a relationship that was just wrong. Um, I literally didn't sleep the night before that competition, in a fight with my then girlfriend, literally the whole night. She was fighting with my mom. It was just a nightmare.

• 13:29Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds terrible.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Oh, it's terrible. It was terrible. I woke up the next, I didn't even wake up the next morning. I didn't sleep. Maybe I got thirty minutes, forty minutes of sleep that night. I walked out of my house the next morning, walked behind the house and I saw two friends of mine and uh, I believe my little brother was there too and I just, just started bawling. I just broke down like, everything felt wrong and I was, you know, I knew in my heart I was gonna lose the world title that day. And if, if you're in the right frame of mind, I think as a competitor, if you lose, it hurts, but you know it's not life, it's just a loss. But that was deeper because I, I had all these other things that it was, it was such a clear indicator that I was off in a lot of different areas and

• 14:13Speaker 03

  I had some work to do and those things are painful sometimes and you know, it was one of those days.

• 14:18Tim Ferriss?

  Did you find that that loss took you a while to climb out of, or was it waking up the morning after and immediately deciding on changes that you were gonna make? Could you just perhaps describe what the days or weeks were like following that?

• 14:36Speaker 03

  It definitely wasn't the next day. It was, I would say it was the next year, maybe. About a, it, it took me about a year to um, sort of, you know, get my act together and um, straighten a lot of things out. I remember going into the next year, my, my father died in oh two and then um, I'm pretty sure it was his birthday, the following year that I lost the world title, actually on his birthday. I was still a little bit down in the dumps about that and the loss hurt so bad that I kind of just went into my shell for most of the next year competitively speaking. And at the start of two thousand and five, I remember we went to our opening, it's sort of the end of the year, beginning of the

• 15:18Speaker 03

  year banquet and where they, they crowned the world title officially, but they also start the year. And I remember walking out of there and um, At that point, Andy Irons had won 2002, 3, and 4. And I remember walking out as we were leaving and I saw Joel Parkinson, who was, you know, also a world title contender. And I just said to him, I said, who's it gonna be this year, me or you? One of us gotta take this guy out. And I remember in that moment, just feeling like I'm ready, you know, I'm not scared to lose. And I really felt like I could beat Joel and would beat Joel. And I felt very confident that, you know, with no fear and just going out and feeling it that I could, that I would beat Andy. So that year was a huge turnaround and

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Andy and I had a lot of head to heads. The rivalry really peaked that year, you know, like he won a contest in Japan and then I won a contest in South Africa and then he won a contest and I won a contest and we were going back and forth and I was thriving in it. I just, it was exciting me, you know, I just thought in my head, you know, I've already lost to this guy before. It's not gonna hurt any worse this time, so I might as well put everything into it I can. And I just took a totally different headspace than 2004 when I just kinda shied away from the whole thing. And then it just all, it all just fell in my lap, really. It all, it all just, everything just kinda lined right up. And it was almost unbelievable because it felt like the matrix kinda thing where you just see it playing out.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  Even if you make a mistake, it plays out in your favor somehow. And that whole year, that whole year went that way for me.

• 16:50Tim Ferriss?

  What did your self-talk or prep look like that particular year? When you're seeing the matrix unfolding, saying some of the more important competitions, how did it differ from years before? If at all?

• 17:04Speaker 03

  I don't think it differed necessarily. I think it got back into the groove, you know, I think I felt out of that confident place and out of that, you know, when you get in the flow and you get in the zone, you don't question it. And if you start to question it, you kinda, um, you know, you start to fall out of it. But then you get to a place where you're really, you know, I feel like if you're really mastering that feeling and that, that place for yourself, that you can kinda step back and watch it also and it even gets stronger. You, you kind of embolden yourself into that. So I, I felt like my surfing was there, my competing was there. I felt unstoppable. And I just built on that confidence and I never questioned it. You know, I knew it wasn't gonna be easy to beat Andy because, you know, I really did have this light and dark, good and evil, kind of love, hate.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  All that kind of rivalry between us and you know, we're very different kinds of people, but we also identified with each other a lot and Andy grew up watching me and seeing I was kind of like his inspiration. And then when he became my rival, he said he hated me and wanted me to die, you know? So it was like, it felt real personal, like he just, he had made no bones about it. He was like the first person I ever competed with it. I felt was really on that level and just said, I'm, you know, he, he just goes, I want to just smash all his dreams. And he would chat in interviews and stuff.

• 18:20Tim Ferriss?

  It's intense.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  You gotta step up to that or, or, or, you know, step away. Yeah. It was the first time I ever felt someone that way in my face before. And, uh, in the end, it was, I think it was really good for me, but it was, it was tough at times.

• 18:34Tim Ferriss?

  If we look at 2003, if you're willing to go into it, one of the things that popped out, because I, I think that the wins and we're going to talk about, obviously a lot of the successes, people are aware of a lot of the successes, but how you have maintained and honed your skills with such longevity, I think is one of the more impressive things. And so I like to talk about the bumps along the way. And in 2003, coming back to that, you mentioned your dad died in oh two. I was reading an outside magazine interview and I'll just read this and then I'd love to hear you speak to what it means, but losing his father paved the way for what Slater described as an expanded awareness. Then while taking early season break in 2003 between events in Australia, has adopted second home.

• 19:18Tim Ferriss?

  A close friend challenged him to lead his family's emotional recovery, not be victimized by it. And the words were penetrating and Slater, with his friend's encouragement, enrolled in a series of local therapeutic workshops that helped him identify troublesome behavior patterns and emotional sand traps. Now there's a little bit of context we need to fill in here, but could you speak to, I guess, a bit of your childhood for those who don't have any context? And then what happened in 2003, if what I read is any way to lead into it?

• 19:45Speaker 03

  You know, my childhood, I think, as for most kids, it feels normal, you know, like what you know seems like the normal thing. But looking back now, my, my dad was drinking a lot, my mom, it really made her crazy. And, um, you know, when you have alcoholism or gambling or whatever you have in your fam- if you have, you know, some kind of big issue like that in your family. Everyone else kind of falls in line, you know, like some people are enablers, some people are mediators, some people are, you know, become aggressive, some become, you know, the, you react to it different ways. And, um, and you, it kind of creates this sort of maze and puzzle that all sort of makes sense in that, in that environment. But there's a lot of unhealthy survival skills and that kind of thing.

• 20:27Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  You know, but there were other families that were worse off than mine, that were friends of mine, you know? So it didn't seem that outlandish or anything, but my mom probably harbored us from a lot of the stuff and we didn't know, maybe, you know, some of the things that were happening, like kids shouldn't. But, you know, a lot of my feelings are, a lot of my memories are pretty good, you know, like, I don't feel like I grew up in like any kind of a physical abuse situation like some people have or whatever, but getting on with it. I also didn't learn a lot of skills that helped me evolve and mature emotionally at a young age. So I was at times really shy when I was younger in my teenage years. For me, I was a strange mix of, um, I knew I had talent, so like, you know, surf wise, it was kind of a place for me to show that.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  But at the same time, with people or with media, that kind of thing, I was really kind of shy. To the point where I didn't like to take pictures in front of people because it embarrassed me and that kind of thing. You know, I didn't like signing autographs and, because I, I just felt silly. I actually remember my first autograph when I was 10 years old.

• 21:32Tim Ferriss?

  How'd that go?

• 21:33Speaker 03

  My mom worked at this, uh, this little cafe on the beach that we grew up surfing in front of called the Islander Hut. And, uh, the owner's wife.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  I won this contest, the East Coast Championships, and when I got home, she was like, oh, my gosh, you're gonna be a famous surfer one day. You're gonna be a professional or whatever. She's like, you won this big competition. You need to sign something for me. And I was so embarrassed. Took me like a half an hour to sign this piece of paper. I didn't know what to do. I didn't, I didn't know how to sign an autograph. And like, I remember like fifteen, twenty minutes later, she's like, you got that autograph for me yet? And I was like, ah, I don't even know what that means, you know? Um, you know, fast forwarding to, you know, the context of taking, I don't know, there's a book I read as a kid that was Adult Children of Alcoholics or something like that. And, and I read that probably when I was like my early twenties and I was experiencing a lot of,

• 22:24Speaker 03

  um, I was going through a breakup. And as you do, you get really emotional during breakups and experiencing a lot of things. You, you wanna, you wanna evolve, you wanna learn and, and grow quickly in this situation so you can maybe save the relationship or, you know, not blow it by making stupid mistakes. It should be natural to get right. So, you know, at that age, I started identifying like, oh, there's some weird stuff going down in my family. There's some really unhealthy dynamics around money and around, um, communication, all those sort of things. And as I got older, because I did really well, you know, I obviously

• 23:07Speaker 03

  started winning world titles and making money and, you know, in some ways, a lot of the family pressure or focus was around me. And I, I think if someone stands out as doing something extraordinary in a family, that's kind of natural. So my, my godson, he's thirteen. I have two godsons and, and one of them's thirteen and he's a really good surfer and his dad's one of my oldest best friends and. I heard him saying the other day on an interview, he said, uh, you know, the thing about when you have a kid, he has two kids and he said something about when you have a kid who's doing really well at something, it takes so much time up for the rest of the family.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  And so much of the focus of the family, it might be around that one person as opposed to equally amongst everybody. And it made me, just in this past week, since I heard that, it's made me think about that a lot. Because I have an older brother, Sean, and I think as we've gotten to teenage years, that was probably kind of funny for him that, you know, I started doing so well and he didn't keep on that same trajectory as when we were kids. You know, I think it was tough for him. I know it was tough for him. He recently said something to me to the effect that he wished he wasn't a pro surfer. You know, he wished he had done something else at that time. Which was really sad for me to hear, you know, because we grew up just loving surfing so much and it created a life for us. It created all our travel and friendships and

• 24:33Speaker 03

  and all these memories on the, around the world and work and, you know, it was, it just became everything. And as, as a lot of the pressure, I think, was on me, you know, I bought a house when I was seventeen and I was paying for a lot of things, you know, for everybody and that kind of thing. So it, there's a certain control that happens for someone in that position. And it needs to be handled with care and it needs, you know, might need some help. And we didn't have that help or understanding and, and so all of us, I think, suffered through that time. So, you know, in two thousand and three, if we're gonna fast forward to then,

• 25:13Speaker 03

  um, when my friend said that to me, my friend Trevor, he said, maybe you're the one who needs to sort of handle this because you're aware of it, you know, all the problems that are going on in your family and, you know, there's, there's things you can see about your mom's struggle that you could help and your brother and. Blah blah, things with your daughter. And I really kind of resented that because in some ways I took on a fatherly role in my family. But I was the middle child.

• 25:38Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  And um, I think I kind of longed to be put back in that place of like, I'm the middle child. I'm not the oldest. You're my mom, you're my older brother, you're my dad. I'm probably, I'm probably getting ahead of myself here because I, you know, some of these conversations haven't fully been aired out, but you know, there's just a dynamic that happens and I'm, I'm not placing blame on anyone for this, but um, you know, just trying to kind of objectively look and understand because I'm still growing through this stuff and you know, wanting to understand it from, from all perspectives. I, I did become like a mediator in my family. You know, I was scared for my parents to break up as a kid and I just imagined in my head, I, I think I lived in this dreamland where everyone got along and it was a movie and it was a happy ending.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  And um, you know, that's not always the case. You know, the happy ending comes when all the lessons are learned usually. So when I was confronted with the fact that I might need to be the person to kind of help mend a lot of these issues in the family, I, I resented that because I was longing for someone else to do it and I wouldn't have to do the work. And I wouldn't have to come up with those answers and it's easier if it's not you.

• 26:48Tim Ferriss?

  Why, why did, why did Trevor say that to you? What was it about that? Point in time or the, the surrounding conversation or background that led him to say that to you?

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Well, cause Trevor, you know, he was one of my best friends or, you know, still is on a deep level, but we just don't spend a lot of time together these days. We've been kind of off in different directions, but Trevor was like a six time um, Iron Man champion in Australia. And uh, he'd been through a lot of the sort of emotional and, and uh, financial and stardom, if you will, pitfalls that can happen. You know, he, on his own level, he'd, he'd had a lot of that stuff happen to him and he was able to get through it. He, you know, he, he had, you know, and I, I wouldn't say anything that he hasn't stated publicly or whatever, but you know, he, he went through divorce and uh, money problems and all sorts of things. And he was able to eventually work it out and he got married again.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  His current wife and his ex-wife are best of friends. All the kids get along, like he, he really has a, a happy, healthy situation.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  Coming at us some, some things that were not so pretty at the time. I think he saw that with me. You know, he just, he saw that I was learning quickly. We were doing these courses together and he was helping me a lot. And I was able to talk about things that I couldn't talk about with anyone else before in my life. And so I think it wasn't so much a challenge to me as it was, hey, I see something special here that can make you feel good. And I think you could fix these things up and it'll make every other aspect of your life better and more coherent and, and happy. So it's kind of one of those things.

• 28:29Tim Ferriss?

  What, what type of courses were they? Were there any particular things that you found helpful or that stuck with you?

• 28:36Speaker 03

  They were, well, they were sort of like personal exercise courses, maybe metaphysical if you will. Um, I don't know, just where you, you spend a lot of time with other people and do these processes of being a listener or being the person who has problems or overseeing those things and doing these little exercise. And then just talking about your feelings, just like simple stuff, like really simple stuff. In the course, they kind of ask you to not really talk about it too much outside of it, but we would just do these exercises. And then afterwards you talk about how you feel and you relate those feelings to the rest of your life and the way that you as a person approach and experience life. So you just kind of look at all your filters and it's just an experiential kind of exercise.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  And I started realizing that even in the simplest things that you do every day, the way you wake up and think about them and approach them is how you approach life. And so everything's kind of a metaphor of another thing.

• 29:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the, the sort of filters and stories that we might not even be aware of. You mentioned metaphysics and we don't have to get super metaphysical here, but I, I think metaphor and

• 29:42Speaker 03

  We'll just get quantum physical.

• 29:44Tim Ferriss?

  We'll just get quantum physical here for, for 20 minutes. Hold on to your panties, everybody.

• 29:51Tim Ferriss?

  There, there were two books that, that you mentioned in, in Tribe of Mentors. I'd be curious to know when either or both of them came into your life, just in terms of influence and sort of shaping your thinking. The first is actually the second one you mentioned, but The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, which I also have. That's a beautiful little book.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  It's a great book.

• 30:14Tim Ferriss?

  And why don't we start there and then we'll get to the second one, but how did that enter your life?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  God, that's so weird. He just brought that up. One of my best friends is named Khalil.

• 30:23Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  And I met him about, I don't know, eight years ago, seven or eight years ago. And he's just become such a big part of my life. And he's an ex-drug addict, who was nearly dead and homeless and penniless. And got himself together. Now he's more or less a health food addict and owns a bunch of smoothie stores in LA called Sun Life Organics. He's just really like, this guy's a success story in his life, you know? But the book, and I'd never known a Khalil before, but I just flashed on that because my mom gave me that book, The Prophet. And I think, I want to say I was in my early twenties, maybe late teens to early twenties, and she gave me this book. And I don't know how she knew about it. It was,

• 31:07Speaker 03

  I don't know, it just seemed like an extraordinary book. To me, it became like my Bible, because I felt like I could read a little piece of it and it would hold me over for a month, you know, maybe one or two pages.

• 31:19Tim Ferriss?

  Totally.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, you might just open to some aspect of life that you're questioning or whatever. And you read, you know, they say all the great things are simple things. And that book really kind of is a Cliff Notes to life in a simple way. But I just felt it really was a really inspiring book. And it didn't take a lot of effort to get something from it.

• 31:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's a very, this book found me in a very tumultuous period of my life. And I ended up reading, like you mentioned, one or two very short chapters, two pages perhaps, each day. And it had the effect of taking what could seem like an overwhelmingly complex world and distilling it down to something simple that you could reflect on and use for the next few days. The second book, I'll bring it up, is one with a longer title, and that is The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity by Daniel Reid, R E I D. Could you speak to this book? And same idea, how it came into your life and what you take from it? What are some of the takeaways or impacts in your life?

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah, I started reading that book in the early 2000s, maybe 2003, 2004, 2005, somewhere in there.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  And I I just found a lot of this, the, well, if I were to rewind a little bit, in the late nineties, I started to learn a lot about the Gracies, um, jujitsu. Mm hmm. I didn't start practicing, but I was reading a lot about them and reading about Hickson, who I later became friends with. And they talk about a diet, a food combining diet, where you don't mix proteins and carbs together in meals. And you don't mix fruits with either, and you could have greens with sort of anything. Um, that's essentially what food combining is. I I had read a book in the mid nine, around ninety six or ninety seven called Fit for Life, which was kind of the same thing.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  And I think I'd been inspired by the Gracies to read that. And then I don't remember who gave me the Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity, but I started reading that and got really, really into the the diet aspect of it, getting into the food combining thing and started following it kind of religiously. I think I read it in ninety eight originally, and I kept, I I sort of kept it with me for about ten years is what it was. And in ninety eight, I was traveling with Shane Dorian. That's whose son is my godson. And Shane and I were traveling around the tour together that year, and I became kind of like our the chef for both of us. He just told me, just tell me what to eat, because he knew I was super into diet. And so we got really into our diets and, um, I felt like he was helping me be a guinea pig to see if this thing worked.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  And I found myself sleeping like six hours a night and feeling like I was totally rested. My body just felt much more relaxed and energetic. Hmm. And, um, you know, there's other things in the book that were helpful, too. There's a lot of breathing techniques that I tried to incorporate myself, didn't really do them practicing with anyone else. And it it gets into all sorts of things around, you know, ob- obviously, it's the title of sexuality, too. Um, so it it dives into all that kind of thing, too, but like the just using everything in your life in a healthy way. And, um, I don't know, it's one of those books I just, I had to travel with it for years. I just would always keep it. It was like, just in case I need to read something, I'll have it with me, you know?

• 34:47Speaker 03

  It was always in the bottom of my bag for a long time. And I probably recommended that book, literally at this point, to tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands or or millions even. After this, it'll be millions for sure.

• 35:01Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Dry Farm Wines. I'm a wine drinker. I love it. Love a few glasses over meals with friends. That said, I hate hangovers. It kills me often for multiple days. Right now, all of the wine in my house is from Dry Farm Wines. Also, for my last two book launch parties, all the wine has been from Dry Farm Wines. Why is that? Because in my personal experience, their wine means more fun with fewer headaches. Dry Farm Wines only ships wine that meet very stringent criteria. Close to sugar-free, so less than 0.15 grams per glass. Lower alcohol, less than 12.5% alcohol. Additive-free, there are more than 70 FDA-approved winemaking additives.

• 35:46Tim Ferriss?

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• 36:28Tim Ferriss?

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• 36:51Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned a name that I'd love to come back to, and that's Hickson Gracie. So I know quite a lot about Hickson. I've only met him in person once, very briefly, so that he wouldn't, I don't think he would remember me. But he has, now that I think about it, an incredible physical practice that in some ways, if I had to guess... Share some similarities with your physical practice. I remember long ago, watching a documentary largely about Hickson called Choke, which was about, I believe, his initial competition in Pride, the early, early iterations of Pride. And watching his yogic practices, his abdominal work, his breathing, cold exposure, etc.

• 37:33Tim Ferriss?

  How would you say the two of you are most similar or different? What similarities and differences do you see?

• 37:41Speaker 03

  It's so funny because you remember years ago, everyone was doing that ice bucket challenge. You pour some cold water on your head and that's like a big thing.

• 37:48Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  And I remember back watching Choke and that was before I knew Hickson and watching him go into like basically if ice cold temperature water in Japan and training for these fights, just getting his mind strong and, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, totally prepared for war. And his breathing techniques are just like out of this world, you know, like Wim Hof, the guy who's famous for his breathing stuff, but Hickson was doing that, you know, 25 years ago or more. And, you know, I had heard that Hickson could move every muscle in his body independent of any other muscle. He had such control. And like for people who don't know jiu jitsu, you know, the Gracies are learning jiu jitsu by the time they're two years old in that family.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  You know, kids wrestle, all boys wrestle, but they were wrestling at a young age, tiny kids with technique and learning the skills and learning how not to hurt each other. And so it was as natural as breathing or anything for them. And I always had real admiration from afar for Hickson before meeting him and then we became friends. I'm not quite sure the first time I met him, I met him at Rincon surfing. I think it was the early 2000s or late 90s. Met him one day in the car park and then a few years later, a couple of years later, I got invited over to his house to go do a private session with him and taught me and my friend Travis some jiu jitsu.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  And then I kind of think he gave me a few one-on-one sessions and I sort of sponsored him for surfboards and would pay for his surfboards. And

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Like an informal kind of, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours, but I always had this huge admiration for him and I was just really, you know, happy to know him and get to pick his brain sometimes, but in about two thousand eight, it was about two thousand eight, I was, I saw, I saw him one day, he came to the Surfboard Factory where I was, who I was sponsored by and we're up in Santa Barbara and, and he goes, he's like, you know, man, I think you should stop now. I think you should, I think you should quit. And I said, why? And he goes, you know, you're gonna give all these young guys a chance to beat you and you, you're not gonna be as sharp. You're gonna, you're gonna lose your desire. You're gonna get a complacent, you know, and then guys who shouldn't beat you are gonna beat you and when you look back, you're gonna be upset about it.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  And about three years later, I saw him and I had won two or three more world titles in that time. And I said, you know, if I listened to you, I wouldn't have this many, you know? If I listened to you, I would only have eight and now I got eleven, you know? And he's like, oh, man, you're right. You're right. And there is always that question for athletes, like, when do you stop? And, and what's the right time? And you go out at the peak or shortly after it? And, you know, it's a weird thing because it depends on your purpose, you know? It depends on what message you're sending and that message can change too. And, and I feel like mine has, but that message, that doesn't have to be so centered around your ego. It can be an evolution.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  And, um, people who say like, guys, people need to go out on top. Why? So I mean, yeah, that's great too, but obviously if you're at the top of your game, you're still, you're still beating people, you're still beating everyone. And, um, passing the torch sometimes is, you know, somebody's gotta take you out. And, uh, you know, that can be a respectable and respectful way too. And, uh, I've always kind of welcomed that, uh, in my later years here on tour, I've sort of welcomed like, I, I wanna see the level be what my mind imagined when I was fifteen, twenty years old, not somewhere behind me.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  You know, I want it to just keep going and, and I wanna be part of that evolution to push that. And, you know, at forty-eight years old, I know nobody takes me lightly in a heat when they compete against me. And, you know, that's, I think that's an honor in itself, you know, that they still, you know, the best guys in the world are still. Worried when they get in the heat with me and I'm I'm not dumb though. I know where my level is. You know, there's certain times that I'm I can be the best guy and there's other times where I gotta work on it. Or you you know, or I'm not right there. But if you're enjoying it and you love it and it's your passion and it it surfing is a different thing, you know, kind of like,

• 42:09Speaker 03

  what would I compare it to? Strangely enough, golf, they're both sports you can do till you're old. You know, you can do way up in late into your life. You're not gonna be doing that with football and baseball or basketball so much, you know, not hardcore anyways.

• 42:23Tim Ferriss?

  I'm gonna ask you about the evolution of surfing in a in a moment, but I want to come back to Hickson just just for another minute. And that is, what were what were some of the things you learned from Hickson or that most impressed you? You were mentioned picking his brain about things. Was there anything that you picked up from him or that really astonished you about him? You mentioned that individual muscle control and I had referenced the abdominal exercises, which kind of makes it sound like crunches. But what I'm talking about is what you saw, and you probably remember this in choke race, he's in this freezing cold river, snow everywhere, and he's also moving independently as he breathes his abdomen, where it looks like his guts are just moving in every possible direction like an octopus under his skin. It's one of the strangest things I've ever

• 43:05Tim Ferriss?

  seen. But what are some of the things that you picked up from Hickson, if anything, or took note of?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Funny enough, probably one of the simplest things is the first thing that swings to mind and that is efficiency. Because when he anytime he's given me a jujitsu lesson, he's given me a few privates and and he did the same thing for my little brother one day with me. And it was all about efficiency of movement. You know, he said, Look, you know, I can fight a guy. I'm like 170 or whatever, 175. He's like, I can fight a guy who's 250 pounds and I'm stronger than him. Not because I have more strength, but because I understand leverage. I understand how the body moves and the efficiency of trapping someone's joint and using leverage instead of just energy, you know, instead of just

• 43:55Speaker 03

  wasting my energy and using strength. I'm using superior method and technique. One thing I really have always respected about Hickson is how disciplined he was, especially like seeing that that footage of him, knowing that the level he got to with his breathing and his stomach, you know, his muscle movements and his mastery of jujitsu and his arts.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  The amount of time it took to get there and he obviously had something special, you know, he had a certain way to look at it that no one else did. And that's why he was the greatest. So it's taking all the best techniques, all aspects, you know, from diet to breathing to, you know, understanding his body, understanding his opponents and what they're good and bad at and using all that, it becomes an equation that you, you know, when you get to the highest levels, you don't think of the equation, it just, you understand that, you know the answer. And um, so you, and you just trust that and use it. And so in the simplicity, there's a mastery. And um, I think that's what I've picked up from the times I've spent around Hickson.

• 45:02Tim Ferriss?

  I promise I would come back to the evolution of surfing. Where do you think the evolution of surfing might be going? Is, is there anything that would be inconceivable for most people today to imagine that you think is coming down the pike? Where, where do you think things are going?

• 45:18Speaker 03

  I've said to a few people in the last few years, last five or 10 years, that I would hate to be a young surfer right now because the levels you gotta go to, whether it's gonna be just competing, like just small wave performance and technique, or it's gonna, if you're gonna be a big wave guy, like the stuff guys are doing now is so crazy that young kids who have any fear of big waves right now must be just like having no understanding of what they could do to get to that level. Guys are surfing, regularly surfing 60, 70, 80 foot waves. And um, you know, you need to do a lot of preparing for that ahead of time, a lot of,

• 45:59Speaker 03

  a lot of putting yourself in unsafe, not unsafe, um, unfamiliar territory, you know, pool work, underwater work, breathing, breath holds, you know, water safety classes. They, they have these classes called uh, big wave rescue, there's an acronym for it, BWRAG. Anyways, it's all about big waves and practicing and practicing all the water safety. So there's these courses, you know, they're, they're really good for young guys to go to, actually they'd be, they'd be good for, they could translate to anybody, even people who don't surf, you know, but they're, they're kind of built specifically for like being able to be comfortable in big gnarly situations and also go save people in the middle of, you know, the surf.

• 46:44Tim Ferriss?

  And I'll link to that in the show notes for folks.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, all aspects of water safety. And it's really like a passion play by the surfers who do it. You know, everyone's kind of looking out for each other. And, you know, I've had a number of friends drown and not make it. And I've had a number of friends drown and be saved. And a lot of those, most of those who were saved were because of all these kind of techniques that everyone's been learning from divers and lifeguards and all sorts of water safety people. In fact, there's one friend of mine who drowned and was saved. And then about, I don't know, a couple of years later, he actually did CPR on another friend of ours who drowned and saved him. So there's a, there's a real tight fraternity

• 47:26Speaker 03

  community in, in the surf world, especially in the big wave world. And, you know, guys are looking out for each other because they know it's, it's a life and death thing all the time.

• 47:34Tim Ferriss?

  And if you, if you look at the, the evolution, just size wise, performance wise, technique wise, over the last, say, five to 10 years, I mean, as it seems to be mirrored in many other places like MMA, there's this almost exponential curve that seems to be persisting. And I'd be curious to know what you think things might look like in, say, five years' time. And, and you've been part, of course, of innovating with technology, right? The Kelly Slater Wave Company, producing the longest man-made, high-performance, open barrel waves. I remember the initial videos making the circles and just blowing people's minds. What do you think the state of the art training will look like for people who do want to hone their skill,

• 48:16Tim Ferriss?

  given how intimidating it can be now if they want to compete as, as an example? What, what do you think it might look like five years from now?

• 48:23Speaker 03

  I kind of wonder, um, you know, I think this last five years was really a fast evolution in wave pool technology, wave tech, man-made wave technologies. I think it might, I don't know if it's going to speed up or slow down right now. I feel like it's going to slow down a little bit because there's a number of different technologies. And now it's about perfecting them, just innovating on what is already there. And then having surfers ride them and give feedback to what else they would like to see. But there's quite a lot of good waves being made by machines at this time. There's, I want to say, three distinct, different technologies with different kinds of waves. Five years from now, I just expect there will be more of these made.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  You know, there's probably six or eight around the world that have become sort of destinations for people to go ride. There's one in. Abu Dhabi or Dubai, there's, there was two in Texas, now there's one, but I think the other one's gonna be rebuilt. There's one going in, at least one going into Florida, if not two. Um, there's one in England, there's one in us, down in Melbourne, Australia, and I think another being built on the Gold Coast right now, and then potentially we're building one on the Sunshine Coast as well. So, five years from now, I don't think there's gonna be a time where surfers are completely stumped for waves. You're always gonna have somewhere within your access, you can go get a wave on any given day. The wave pool

• 49:45Speaker 03

  in Aus- that they have in Australia right now is down in Melbourne, and I was talking to a friend recently, and he goes, "Oh yeah, like a bunch of my buddies have gotten a flight from Byron Bay, flown all the way to Melbourne in the morning, surfed two sessions at the pool and get home by dark, or get home like just for a late dinner." And that's a two-hour flight each way, and he said they're happy to do it again next month, or in two months, or whatever. So, these things are becoming, you know, destinations for people, and it's, it's just like a supplement to your surfing, just like vitamins would be to your diet. It's just another way to get, get your fix of, uh, getting in the water

• 50:25Speaker 03

  and getting something done. But now you see people advancing, evolving their surfing a lot quicker, and that's gonna be the case. That's gonna be the thing. Like, my godson Jackson, like, I'll probably just keep talking about him, but he's thirteen, and he's one of the best aerialists at his age in the world, if not the best at his age in the world right now, and he's really only been surfing about four years. And, you know, I've grown men all the time, just going, "Oh my god, how's Jackson? He's unbelievable." You know, people watch his edits and see the things he's doing, but he's spent a lot of time in the, in these different wave pools already, practicing the airs over and over again, and Shane was saying how, he's like, "Man, the first time we went, it was crazy to see Jackson's evolution over the course of like two days or three days."

• 51:08Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  And how much better he got in that amount of time, 'cause- There's a real crossover now between skate and surf. So you see all the guys who are really good at airs. I would say 90% of them anyways are good skaters. And so they they understand the rotations and the grabs and that kind of thing. And when we were kids, we didn't really have access to skate parks and ramps and stuff. And now there's a skate park in every city. Almost all these guys have a bunch of friends who are great skaters or pro skaters or even someone in their family, you know, it's a great skater. So there's a real solid crossover there. It's just more access, more time on the mat, you know?

• 51:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it also seems like with the wave pools, at least I recall a friend of mine joking that surfing, he's a very good surfer. He said surfing should really be called paddling because you're spending a lot of your time paddling. And it would just seem that with a wave pool, I feel free to chime in, but he said with a wave pool, it seems like you get a density of repetitions of surfing that is is difficult or impossible to replicate elsewhere, just in terms of number of reps per hour in that sense. I heard you made a sound. How would you respond to that?

• 52:21Speaker 03

  No, totally. I mean, because in the ocean, you might search. All my years, I've thought about certain waves that look good for a certain maneuver. And I might go and surf that wave once every few years. And it might have that section I'm looking for only once every couple times I go there. And I might get that wave, you know, even less frequent than that. So the point is that the sections we need with the right speed and size and all that thing to do certain maneuvers is so rare to find in the ocean. And now we can start to design those into manmade waves. So that if you ever have that situation in the ocean, it's not unfamiliar. It's you can master that before you ever take it to the ocean. So then you go out in the ocean,

• 53:06Speaker 03

  you go into competition or whatever, and you've got something in your in your back pocket and then nobody else has, or that you're not unfamiliar with.

• 53:13Tim Ferriss?

  If you were, say, 20 years old, and had the level of surfing that you had when you were 20, what if that were today, what advice might you give yourself about the learning process? Doesn't have to relate to technology, but is there any advice you'd give your 20 year old self about honing the craft, improving the learning process?

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Gosh, I mean, I would probably just say go skate a lot. Get on a skate, go get on a skateboard because you can go carve and you can do airs. And those are the two things you need in surfing. You need to, you need to really understand and differentiate the two. You know, you're either in surfing, you're, most guys are either a power surfer or an air, you know, maneuver trick surfer. And it's almost rare to see somebody who's really great at both. Um, we're starting to get more and more. There's like John, John Florence and there's Gabriel Medina and there's Jordy Smith. And there's quite a few guys now, but when I was on tour and when I got on tour, when I got on tour, I would say there's nobody.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  And as I was on tour, there were very few over the years that were good at all those different aspects. I mean, my mind almost draws a blank until just this modern era now, who have been able to understand there's a real difference in the approach of doing those maneuvers. The, the base of power surfing where you're just carving up and the air stuff where you, you kind of have to be more horizontal and lateral and stay over your board unless you're doing grabs. And then, you know, when you start doing grabs and rotations and inverting stuff, then it's the air thing goes to a little different level and you, you have to be schooled in some other skill set, you know, like skating or gym, you know, gym work. If you, if you were to go work with a gymnast, specifically with a gymnast who understands

• 55:01Speaker 03

  flips and rotate and spinning and that kind of stuff and landing back on your feet. If you're really going to dive into it all, you can't discount your diet. You can't discount body work. You can't discount doing yoga or Pilates and staying supple, getting some extra strength and bone density, but not getting too big from using weights. So there's always this kind of balance for surfing. You don't want to be a giant, strong dude, but you don't want to be a little weakling either. Uh, you just kind of need this nice balance and blend between all those things.

• 55:31Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned body work. This seems to be an important component of, I suppose, just physical practice for you or regeneration. There are a million and one different types of body work. How do you use body work? What are the types that you have ended up focusing on for yourself, if any?

• 55:49Speaker 03

  I've gone through most everyone you can imagine from Shiatsu to Thai massage, Swedish, deep tissue, um, bio sync.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  I mean, all sorts of different, you know, I've tried everything, all the chiropractics and osteopaths and all that kind of stuff. But in general, I do need a little bit of adjusting, some chiropractics, because I have scoliosis. I have a pretty big curve in my back. And from that, my muscles get really imbalanced. So I kind of need a blend. I mean, my neck will go out, my lower back will go out, so I need to get adjusted, kind of put that back. I sometimes throw a rib out.

• 56:28Tim Ferriss?

  It sounds painful.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a little, it's different than breaking rib, it's just more annoying. You could still kind of surf through it with adrenaline, but it, it is annoying. The way I usually do it, it kind of pinches something in my neck, so I can't turn to the left. I feel like Zoolander.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  I can't turn left.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  I really like Thai massage, because it's, it's deep. It's almost like lazy man's yoga, in a, in a way.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  You know, I've been disciplined for many years. I've been, I, I've spent over thirty years being pretty disciplined with my body and what I put into it and, and, um, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, but I, I, uh, in doing that, I'm never too obsessive about any one thing. I'll go through like binge periods where I'm really obsessive about my diet, but I don't love to work out. So I, I like to kind of consistently get some body work. I like to surf enough. Because surfing's fun, you know, I just love to surf, so it keeps me fit. And if I surf enough, I'm at a level that's pretty good for my cardio and for my strength. But I generally always need a little bit of extras.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  You know, I, I should spend more time stretching, especially my hips and my hamstrings. If you can picture a surfer paddling, we got our art, our back arched the whole time. So I can actually bend backwards, amazing. I can put my feet on my head and that kind of thing. But bending forward, I'm stiffer, because I spend my whole life with my shoulders back and my back arched. You know, blend for me is just if I feel like something's out, if my back goes out or something like, I gotta get adjusted, let it relax. Gets in anti-inflammatories once in a while because the stress around contest, if your body's out of whack is annoying too. And then, um, yeah, just get that, get that body work, get those muscles worked out that are in balance. You know, if you're a little too tight there and a little too weak there, the ones that are built up too much, you gotta kind of like stretch out.

• 58:25Tim Ferriss?

  And just for folks who don't know, Thai massage, I'll do my best to do a quick description and then please add anything that we're missing. But you described it as lazy man's yoga. Uh, you re- it's a, a lot of it is done on a mat. People will often stretch you. I've, this is the one form of massage I've explored quite a bit and use pressure, right? The feet, lots of, they might use blood stops, lots of walking.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  A lot of walking on you.

• 58:50Tim Ferriss?

  And also traction. I mean, depending on the style. So it's a, it's a really comprehensive system. Uh, I've, I've also found Thai massage extremely helpful. How often do you get, how often do you have body work done?

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Well, I'd like to get something done every week, but you know, sometimes I'll get it a couple of times a week. If I'm in one place and I got somebody I like to work with, I'll go two or three times in a week sometimes. And then I might not go for a month once in a while. If I'm competing though, I like to try to get something at least once a week.

• 59:20Tim Ferriss?

  Once a week.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  And, and, but if I'm at the contest, sorry to jump in there. If I'm at a contest, we usually have massage therapists there. So each day I'll get a little bit of something during contest days.

• 59:32Tim Ferriss?

  Just a few more questions, Kelly. I know it's, uh, it's late. What time is it over there at the moment? It's gotta be on the late side.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. 1:30.

• 59:41Tim Ferriss?

  Oh my God. 1:30 a.m.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Hey, we're partying, man.

• 59:45Tim Ferriss?

  We're partying. And, uh, yeah, this is another surprise in the Kelly story is your history as a, as a night owl, which is pretty astonishing. At least was unexpected for me. But just a few more questions for you. This is one on behalf of a friend of mine who is, uh, if you haven't ever met him, I'd, I'd actually love for you guys to meet at some point, but his name is Josh Waitzkin. I don't think he'd mind being named. He was, uh, the basis for Searching for Bobby Fischer. So he was considered a chess prodigy as a kid. He hates that word prodigy, but nonetheless, uh, very, uh, very, very successful chess player. And then, uh, was a world champion in Tai Chi push hands, the first black belt under Marcelo Garcia, who's sort of the Michael Jordan of grappling. And

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  He's one of my all time favorites.

• 1:00:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah. So Josh co-founded a school with him in New York and now he is spending his time on the water and this is his new passion. And he's fascinated by all water sports. And I'd love to, and this is, this is a question that he posed, ask you about foiling. What is your opinion of foiling or e-foiling as a supplement or adjunct to surfing or otherwise? That's my add-on. But really what he was wondering is, does it connect or not connect to surfing in your mind?

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Well, the best guys in the world are surfers. So yeah, it connects. When I was a little kid, there used to be this sort of slogan, Cocoa Beach, the small wave world, you know, small wave capital of the world. For whatever reason, there was like, you know, a big emphasis of surfing in Cocoa Beach. And it was probably a slogan from Ron John Surf Shop or something, but somehow it became known as like a small wave capital. And then in the last 20, 30 years, Cocoa Beach is not on the surfing radar at all. No one comes to Cocoa Beach to go surfing from anywhere else in the world. They do from like Orlando and they might from down South Florida, but they don't, it's not like a destination for people from other places in the world. You're going to go to Hawaii

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  or Indo or Tahiti or France for that matter, Portugal. But with the foiling thing, so, you know, for people who don't know foiling, just, I mean, you can just Google it, go on YouTube.

• 1:02:00Tim Ferriss?

  It's like a surfboard on a hydrofoil. So you don't have the resistance of the board on the water.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're riding under the water and you're riding like it's, it's, it's probably the closest thing you can imagine to flying, but being in the water. Just think of all the America's Cup boats now, the ones that lift off or those ferries, the super high speed ferries that that ride in a foil and all the energy, all the weight lifts up off the water. So there's just so little resistance and the bigger the foil, the more that, the more lift you have. So the faster you're going, the less foil size you need. I can't really speak to it because I'm a complete kook and novice. I've done it like three times. I've done the e-foil once. And I think the e-foil is a little goofy. I'm going to just kind of throw it out there. I think it's really good for learning. It's kind of training wheels for, for foiling in my eyes.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  You do it to kind of get the feel of being lifting up off the water and not having, not relying on your board edges and stuff to create the turns. And it's, foiling's a little counterintuitive. When we surf, when you lean into a rail and do a turn, you're pushing all your energy and weight down into that rail and you're getting a lift back from that rail. When you foil, when you push on one side, wherever you put your force, it lifts back against you in a way that kind of throws the board the opposite way you think it might. So if I, if I'm surfing and I lean my right rail down in the water, that rail goes down. Of course, I'm getting a pushback against it, but in foiling, when you lean to the right, if you put, if you lean to the right and then put your energy down to the right,

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  the foil kicks the board back up against you and you kind of fold in half. So when you, when you lean right, you almost got to put equal amount of pressure on the left at the same time. It's hard to, it's hard to explain because I am such a novice. So there's a little bit of counterintuitive. It's almost like if you're riding a bike and you're turning right, you have to turn the steering wheel left a little bit to go right. It's, it's the weirdest sensation, but it's so cool looking, like the amount of speed you can get. And what I was saying about Florida being, like Koga Beach being the smallest capital of the world, I'm just starting to think that Florida might be a good destination again for people that want to go foiling because we have these really shallow offshore shoals off of Cape Canaveral.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  Basically where NASA Space Center is. And my friends have been getting like mile long rides out there. You can just catch these open ocean swells and they don't break and you just, you can go so fast back and forth on the things and it's so cool looking. It's completely silent and there's just no wake and I don't know, it looks like nothing else in the world. I kind of want to get into it, but I'm scared once I do, it's going to mess my surfing up, so I'm kind of, kind of waiting.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  I was, I was telling you, I was working with Tom Carroll the other day and Tom foils almost every morning and he says, as soon as I'm done foiling, I got to get back on a surfboard so I don't forget that feeling or else my surfing goes downhill.

• 1:04:59Tim Ferriss?

  It is, it is a beautiful and eerie visual to see foiling. If people haven't seen it, we'll put some links in the show notes, but it's very, it's unlike anything you've ever seen, particularly if you're not familiar with, with water sports at all. It just looks, it's kind of hard at first, within the first few seconds to even compute what is happening.

• 1:05:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. Because like you said, there's no way. Tiny wave.

• 1:05:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Somebody can be on a tiniest little wave and they're going 20 miles an hour.

• 1:05:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  You know, or whatever, just flying.

• 1:05:29Tim Ferriss?

  It's really wild. Just a few more questions, then we'll break here. Are there any, any really great moments in the water that come to mind that were not captured on camera? Any, obviously, there's all of the practice and lots of sessions on the water, but does anything come to mind? Not that you regret that it wasn't captured on camera, but like a standout moment for you that has, has just been kind of locked in the amber of your memory?

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  I went on a trip down to Central America one time. There's this really great wave that was happening years ago. Funny enough, strangely enough, it got ruined by the 2011 tsunami, which wasn't huge when it hit there, but it was really powerful and small and it changed this break in particular that we were surfing. But we went down there and I, I brought my friend to shoot like thousand frames a second on a phantom camera, like the best footage you could ever get at the time. And we shot the best day I've ever seen at this place. Like a day you get very few times in your life. I, maybe the best day a surfer I ever had. And he filmed the whole thing and we flew from there to Tahiti. And we got to Tahiti and I said, hey, um, let me know when I can see that footage. And

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  like the next day I called him and I said, have you looked at it yet? And he's like, oh, um, there might be a problem with it or something, but I'm, I'll, I'll let you know later. I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, I don't know. I just like trying to go through the hard drives and stuff. So I go down and I go and see him the next day and I said, all right, well, what's going on? And he goes, there's no footage. I go, what do you mean? There's no footage? Like you missed some waves or like? He goes, no, there's, there's no footage at all. And I was like, what do you mean? And he goes, there's just, there's no footage. Like he goes, I think when we were going out on the jet ski, something came loose from the hard drive to the camera and it just never even got one frame of footage.

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  So we we don't have any footage at all of that whole day. I was equally like upset and thought it was funny. And I actually, in a way, I I kind of I'm kind of glad that it didn't happen because this was this place was so magical and um I felt cheap filming it and showing it to the world.

• 1:07:38Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  And uh and and it's renowned for people like dropping their cameras that have filmed good sessions. Like there's like kind of this mystique around this place. And like a whole bunch of people, my friends that have been down there filmed and stuff, like my friends that live down there and and they they've dropped cameras in the water after a whole day of filming and like somehow somebody erased the footage. Like all these things have happened. So like the the footage of this place has never really gotten out. And um and then they're site then the tsunami hit and and ruined the sandbar that had built up for, you know, who knows how long decades. And um so it's kind of funny. It it sort of hit itself and and uh although I wanted to see that footage, we didn't have it.

• 1:08:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the Bermuda Triangle. And then the beach was like enough of these people with their cameras. Let's change the landscape.

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  It happened.

• 1:08:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's amazing. Uh Kelly, last question. What are you most looking forward to in terms of of goals for yourself? Doesn't have to be really deserving, but really it could be, of course, a over the next handful of years.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  But this obviously this period of time with the COVID thing has been a I hope it's been a time of reflection for everybody. I think it's a time for all of us to sit back and think about our health, think about what's important, put some money away. You know, I think about all the people who lost their jobs and who live on credit and who don't save for a rainy day. And, you know, people are in far worse situations than that that don't have a don't have a roof over their head. I think it's it's one of those times to really think about kind of everything that's important in your life. And strangely enough, if you look at my YouTube feed, I would say half of the stuff that I watch is converting vans to a home. And I have this sort of after all these years of like wanting to, you know, make money from when I was a kid so I could buy a house to then

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  buying homes in different parts of the world. And now I'm sort of looking forward to either living on a boat one day or or living in a van that I can just live anywhere. And uh making it kind of simple. The only problem is I have too many surfboards and too many golf clubs. But um.

• 1:09:45Tim Ferriss?

  You could have a caravan, you could have the first van be the home and then.

• 1:09:50Speaker 03

  Well, and you know, too many countries I'd like to be in. So, but um, yeah, I, I think just um, taking some time after being on this whirlwind for thirty plus years, I mean, nearly, nearly thirty years on tour, but you know, another ten years on top of that, chasing waves from when I was a young kid, to just scaling it back to, you know, who I like to surf with and where, what else I want to include in my life or, or take out of it. Just looking forward to enjoying the next forty years of life and, and um, fifty years, eighty years, I don't know, how long can we live at that point?

• 1:10:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, TBD.

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, looking, looking forward to that and, and um, you know, more, more, I think more personal uh, growth. Uh, surfing has become real crowded and you almost have to become spiritual to enjoy it sometimes because there's so many people in the water. Um, so you know, learning to, to enjoy and enjoy what I have and, and to be able to share it. You know, a kid that I surfed with yesterday wrote me a message today online and he said, hey, you know, I really want to like be a pro surfer. I really want to get as good as I can and try to be a pro and make a career. And he's like, any advice? And he's like, sorry for bugging you. And I was like, no, like,

• 1:11:18Speaker 03

  it's, it's sort of, it's probably strange how much I enjoy sharing

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  all this stuff that I've learned with younger guys. If they want to ask me, you know, I think maybe sometimes people are intimidated to ask me or don't think I'll want to talk about it or something, but I'm really happy to kind of share any of those things I can with younger surfers who are hungry for it. And I thought it was cool that he kind of had the balls to just say, hey, can you help me out here? And I gave him a like, nice, long rundown, do all these things, go all these places, like, don't fake it, put your heart into it and give it your best try. And if it works out, great, but you know, there's a long road ahead to get to that point. You know, I don't totally know how good the kid, this particular kid is. I saw a couple clips of him and.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  You know, in all honesty, there's some work to do there, but you know, somebody who has the desire and is willing to say, hey, this is what I want to do, all the best to those people, you know. It sounds like somebody like that's willing to work and to be humble and when you're humble, you're teachable, you know, you're able to learn. It's like, you know, even someone in my position who's, you know, I've won a lot of contests and all that stuff and I still, a lot of times I need to just sit back and be willing to learn and be humble and not think I know something or know it better than somebody. A lot of times just, they say, teaching is the best way to learn because, you know, going back to that theme we started with early on with that 2003 when I lost that world

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  title, when you teach, you mess up, you know, and you learn something from that and you learn better and better how to understand and comprehend something and be able to share it with somebody, not from a place of righteousness, but a place of like you've lived it.

• 1:13:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, we'll try to track down the comment and the where to go and what to do to put it in the show notes, but Kelly, this has been great. I look forward to watching the next 50, 60, 80, 150 years, depending on where medicine takes us and really appreciate you taking the time. I know that you have lots of demands on your time, so I appreciate you carving out a bit of it for this conversation. Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and you can find show notes, links to everything at tim.blog/podcast and until next time, don't be righteous, be open minded. If you think you really understand something, try to go teach it to somebody who's an up and comer. Hey, guys, this is Tim again.

• 1:13:51Tim Ferriss?

  Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just

• 1:14:33Tim Ferriss?

  a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Element, spelled L-M-N-T. What on earth is Element? It is a delicious, sugar-free electrolyte drink mix. I've stocked up on boxes and boxes of this. It was one of the first things that I bought when I saw COVID coming down the pike, and I usually use one to two per day. Element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low carb, or paleo

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• 1:15:57Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:16:40Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:17:22Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:18:05Tim Ferriss?

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