Shawn Ryan Show - #86 Laird Hamilton - The Greatest Big Wave Surfer of All Time | Part 1

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Laird Hamilton is a legendary American big wave surfer, known for riding some of the most dangerous waves ever to break. Laird is also a fitness icon and creator of Laird Superfood. Part one of this two part series is a chronicling of Hamilton's childhood in Hawaii where he met his first love–the ocean. Hamilton recounts what it was like being the odd man out in a culture he would grow to be apart of. This episode also covers his early surfing career and the beginnings of his insatiable drive to conquer the world's biggest waves. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://shopify.com/shawn https://puretalk.com/ryan Laird Hamilton Links: Website - https://lairdsuperfood.com Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/F859FC96-07C4-4ED8-952A-9CA41B8B784F Instagram - https://instagram.com/lairdsuperfood?igshid=NGVhN2U2NjQ0Yg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@lairdsuperfood?_t=8hPulnwWiXy&_r=1 Youtube - https://youtube.com/@LairdSuperfood?si=rjEDqFoHVJU01BQH Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lairdsuperfood Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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staples, like lean ground beef at $368.00 and 10 pounds of farmers market care at 399.00 until November 29th, See fly for details. Something that truly inspires me are folks that are trendsetters, people who are born with a raw talent or a gift or a certain skill set that maybe falls outside of society's normal parameters. And instead of conforming and changing their gift and trying to get better at something else, to please somebody that they don't even care about, they go off and they do their own thing. They exercise the skill set so good at it that they force the attention of the public, the critics,

the world. In my next guest to adjust that, he is possibly the most prolific surfer in the entire world. And in the beginning, the surfing community wouldn't give him the time of day. They wouldn't sponsor him because he refused to conform to the judges point system or anything else that the community was trying to make him do. Instead, he pursued his dreams and he became so good at what he does that he forced the attention of the entire world to look at his talent. Ladies and gentlemen, that exact mindset is partly how I built this podcast, is by setting

trends and not looking at competition and not worrying what everybody else thinks. worrying, whatever, but else, things. And so for me, this next episode is truly inspirational. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend, my business partner, and the most prolific surfer in the entire world, Laird Hamilton to the Sean Ryan Show. If you get anything out of this, please head over to Apple Podcast and Spotify. Leave us a review, Patreon. Thank you for all the love. It's because of you guys at this show,

even exists. And everybody else, thank you for all the support. We love all of you. Cheers from the Sean Ryan Show team and much love to you all. all the support. We love all of you. Cheers from the Sean Ryan show, team and much love to you all. Enjoy the show. Thank you. This has been a long time. You drug me in, Lynn. You drug me in, Lynn. That's right. You don't come in, Lynn much, do you?

Only for you. And a few other brief moments. But yeah, in Lynn, I'm far from the ocean. I'm like, I wonder how long it will take me to get to water. We've got a lot of creeks here. We've got a lot of creeks here. They were. Temporarily.

Yeah. If you ever been to Tennessee, I have not. Well, welcome. Thank you. It's a good time of year to be here and fall. Yeah, yeah. If you ever been to Tennessee, I have not. Well, welcome. Thank you. It's a good time of year to be here in fall. Yeah. Color in the trees. Yep, yep.

But so let me give you a quick introduction here, even though you don't really need one, but American big wave surfer, founder of layered superfood, pioneer in action, water sports, fitness, health, and nutrition, innovator of stand-up paddle boarding and hydrovoral boarding, successfully served jaws. The wave size for those that don't know of jaws from what I understand is 30 to 80 feet. That worked. That's insane. Am I accurate on that? Yeah. Yeah. Where is that wave? It's on Maui.

Is it? Yeah, it's off of... Ironically, it's at the base of the largest dormant volcano in the world. No kidding. I don't know if there's a relationship, but yeah, it's a special wave It's a special wave on the tip of my that when we were young was unsurfed. We were the, I mean, people paddled out to it just to see it, but we were the first ones to actually ride it and make it a wave to be ridden. We actually brought it. I say we brought it, it's destruction, but we brought the popularity to the spot, which now has made it busy. Oh man, that's, you're quite the adrenaline junkie.

I think we have a lot of common hair, but I can't wait to dive into that. Stunt double for James Bond in the opening film, Die Another Day, filmed at Jaws, regarded by surf historians as the all-time best of the best at Big Wave surfing. That's quite the compliment. And probably the most important husband, 26 years,

your father of three daughters, your author, producer, of fitness and nutrition expert. And as I mentioned before, adrenaline junky. I don't know, that's kind of a, the problem with that term is a little bit of a write off, but yes, I'll take it. I'll take part of it. You know, when did your addiction to adrenaline start?

I mean, I, you kid, like little kid, my dad said that I would, when I was young, like, six, seven, I would go to a cliff where adults were kind of apprehensive and just jump off stuff. So I think I, I mean, I think I was naturally, I mean, the truth is, is a piece of it had to start because there was stories of my mom, my real father left my mom while my mom was pregnant.

And my mom went to San Francisco to have me, but she had boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend when I was young. And I think they were like pushing her around or something and I would attack them like when I was like very young like they said like a three-year-old just come and attack the leg, you know like I was like so I think I don't know if that a part of it part of my development in being that way could have started from that, like that I needed to be courageous, forced into courage.

I think, you know, I have a step that who is a great champion surfer. And, you know, he always said that big wavewriters were born and not made, that you were born with that mechanism that you had it in you. And then it was just a matter of if you were exposed to the situation to develop it. So, but I had a certain predisposition to doing things courageously, fearlessly. Like, I would always just jump off high stuff and wanted to go fast and vehicles and just always wanted to be on that edge of destruction, I think. I would call it that's interesting. I wasn't expecting that. We're going gonna dive into that

and peel those layers back and about your childhood. And I think that's gonna help a lot of people. But before we get too deep, everybody on the show always gets a gift. Okay. You got any guesses? I'm hoping it's something that I really like. All right, well, okay. you've heard of this company.

I don't know. But, okay. It's called, I recognize the name. I recognize the name. So, yeah, open that up. Thank you. I'm excited to see what we got. I love these products.

I just, I'm hoping that you like them too. Yeah. Okay. So, I like it. I like them too. Yeah. Okay. So I like it. I like the cup. I love the greens, but here we go. Performance mushroom. That's my favorite.

My favorite. Is that your favorite too? Yeah, because of the, you know, there's some things that taste better and there's some things that, but it's going to be hard to beat the value of what this has. And I don't know, like, first of all, Chaga is the king of all the mushrooms, like that's the apex and the benefits that that mushroom itself has on the body

is that the list is too long, like it's a, and they say they found spores of Chaga, spores in the stratosphere. Interesting. I don't know what they'd be doing in the stratosphere, but it only, most of it's foundores in the stratosphere. Interesting. I don't know what they'd be doing in the stratosphere, but it only, most of it's found grown in the, like within the Arctic circle and stuff. And it's the only mushroom that actually grows

symbiotically with the tree. It's not feeding off of it. So normally, you know, mushrooms and stuff are feeding off of it. So, and of course, oh, is this a sign, sleep and recover? This is, yeah, that's, I just started taking that and I love that stuff. That stuff is amazing. Yeah. And, yeah, you know, you know what I really like about the products is that it's, they're the cleanest products you can get. And I like that everything is sourced, not everything,

but everything as much as possible seems to be sourced or in the US and the only time ingredients are sourced outside of the US as if they are higher quality ingredients. And you guys are just doing it right. And well, if we had more coconut trees in America, that would be, I would definitely, I mean, we're trying to grow coconuts in Hawaii, but the volume that you need. I mean, the truth is that I know the, I mean, first of all, you and I are working together,

which I'm very honored to, you know, I feel like I have a theory that I told Gabby one time. It's called the honey line, which is when you find a bee, you follow another bee, and then eventually you get to where all the bees are and you get to where the honey is. And so if you follow a wasp, you get to the waspness. So, but the honey line just talks about how that you can get pulled together. And so there's a reason why you and I have been pulled together. I'm not, I'm not completely aware of all of the means of the things that happen. There's a reason why you have been chosen to do what you're doing,

given what you've done and what you're doing now. And I feel like that's, I feel a similar experience to that in my life. Like there's certain things that you just kind of, you're led to. And you like to say, it's because you're so smart, you know, everybody, oh yeah, it's because I'm so smart and tall. No, it's not, you're not that smart. So don't give yourself that much credit.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah, because then pride comes in, you know, what do they say? Great pride, proceed if they're grateful. So, hold back a little bit, but this stuff is, I mean, we work hard, we fight to keep the quality of the ingredients and to make it simple,

it just to make it not be so complicated. I think you can, in a way, nature has provides us. We just need to understand better what's in nature for us. We've lost a lot of that skill. We have. We've lost that skill, but you intuitively sense, when you eat good things that are good for us, we've lost a lot of that skill. Yes, we have. We've lost that skill, but you intuitively sense, when you eat good things that are good for you, your body, before you know it, you're like,

oh, you know what, I need that stuff. Like, I, like, and it's not, on the negative side is, hey, I eat a bunch of sugar, I need more sugar, I eat a bunch of garbage, I need more garbage, so you have both. Yeah. But you have a mechanism that tells you when it's good. So we're just trying to do that.

I mean, the truth is, is that I make this up for me. Like that's what I'm doing. I need to make a company so they can ship it to me. Well, I love this stuff. Well, thank you. I appreciate this. Yeah. You're welcome.

It'll come in handy. Yeah. But before we move on, I just wanted to thank you I appreciate this. Yeah, you're all coming in. It'll come in handy. Yeah, but before we move on I just I wanted to thank you for allowing me to be a part of it. I'm honored to be part of your venture and in the products are amazing and it's I mean I'm always looking for the best quality and you're in. So, you and you also have a, I think a responsibility, but you also have an opportunity to really help, you know, you help help people. I mean, you have a, you have people

that are listening and watching and learning and so, and I feel the same way. If you're in a position that you can have influence of any kind, you have a responsibility. And I mean, you see that people don't always take that responsibility correctly. Like, they have an influence, you have a responsibility, and then what do you do with it? And so, I think that that, for me, I feel like sometimes it's no choice.. It's like you have no choice to conduct yourself a certain way to do a certain thing. And if parenting doesn't teach you that, I mean, you can avoid it until you get to become a parent.

And then all of a sudden, it's like, it's unavoidable because it's in your house, in your bed, it's in every day. So yeah, if it's outside, sometimes you can kind of pretend to ignore it, but when it moves into the house, you know, that's a reminder. Man, I gotta tell you, that's just, that is so refreshing to hear you say that because there's so many people that don't, and they don't take, they don't take the responsibility

of the influence that they have seriously, you know, and I take that extremely seriously with any products that I am endorsing. And I also take it very seriously with the interviews. I mean, I've had interviews that I will not release because I don't know if everything in there is factual. And there have been other interviews that I've done where I'm not sure if it's factual, but it's not going to affect somebody's decision-making process. And so they can take that information, they can believe it, they can not believe it, but

at the end of the day, it's not going to affect anybody's decision making, but when you get into medical stuff and endorsements and just information, whether you're digging into corruption or it's medical advice or whatever, on here, it all has to check out because if it's going to influence somebody's decision, and I'm influencing them to make the wrong decision for a paycheck, then I couldn't live with myself. And so it's, it's, man, it's just great to hear that, because you don't hear that very often, you know? And I appreciate that.

I mean, I, in my, because of the nature of my work, you know, my career has been something where I've had to survive or with sponsors and getting people to support you and sometimes to get people to support you and as something as obscure as writing giant waves or some innovation, I think the key is this sincerity. I think that at the end, that people can smell it, they can sense it.

And sometimes it's almost an invisible thing, but they're like, oh, I don't know why that is, but I lean to this, it's like, and so I think that that's a, and I think you're sincerity in your, I mean, that's what's creating the movement that you have is that genuine. And again, back to that obligation,

back to that responsibility, it's like you see it all the time, especially in sports or in entertainment, you see people have of influence and then they're just looking for the dough, they're looking for the money at the cost of, you know, and that stuff comes and goes. You're gonna, but the effects don't.

Yeah, if you're integrity. Exactly. You're integrity. Yeah, I'm tired of you. Get that back. Yeah, a lot of people don't. But before we start, I wanted to bring up the Mauiwile fires. I mean, you grew up in Hawaii.

Yeah. You spend a lot of time there still. It's been a tremendous part of your life, obviously, within the serving community, your childhood, everything. Did those fires affect you? Well, I mean, I knew people that were in them that died and I have friends that have been dealing with the after-math of dealing with the devastation. I mean, I've been in big fires. I was in a Malibu fire that was the largest

fire that hit, but we didn't have the death. I wasn't in the Lahina fire, but the death that happened in that fire and for people, the exposure to the death and then all the friends and family and the destructiveness of that. I mean, when you're looking for people's bodies that just have vanished, like they vaporize, and then there's that, you know, the questions aren't answered. You don't have, I mean, I think that the level of pain, the hurt that that fire created, I mean, okay, houses, buildings, cool, you can rebuild, you know, make new things. People and kids and, you know, just that stuff, that's a different, those are different

animals. Those are, that's a different kind of thing that you personally, unless you've experienced, can't even begin to understand. And so I have a lot of friends over there that have been dealing with the aftermath of that. And then just trying to, you know, the upheaval of the community. And, you know, when I think when people lose their dwellings and lose their homes and lose that, their foundations,

especially if they've never moved and never, you know, it's the only house they've ever had. And then it's gone. And then all of a sudden, your family's gone. And, I mean, you know, I don't know if they're, I don't think there are words for that stuff. Yeah, I mean, the amount of displaced families and the loss and just the tragedy.

And I mean, it's gonna, it's, people's, their life course has completely changed. You know, no matter what trajectory they were on, now it's a completely different trajectory. And, you know, it would be, and I feel like, you know, they didn't, I wish the government would have stepped in and sent some more aid. We send aid all over the world except to ourselves.

And anyways, without getting hard to believe. Hard to believe, actually, hard to believe. Hard to believe in when I heard things like $700. Like they were gonna give somebody, I mean, we heard things like $700. Like they were gonna give somebody, I mean, that's, it's almost worse than giving nothing. Like $700, like $700, like $700. I mean, have you ever been to Hawaii? It's the most expensive place in the world to live.

You can barely get a hotel room for a night for $700. So, I mean, that's, you know, it'll be interesting to see what kind of, I mean, and this is a long-term thing, right? It's like the aftermath of the mental going through that fire, like how that comes out in the year to two, the three to four, and then the rebuild. Now already, you know, people have kind of, they've lost some of the momentum of the support because it's now it's out of sight and we have so many things going on the world that are distracting us that we're not even thinking about it.

And meanwhile, I mean, it could be five years before somebody even gets to see a house that they had that burned to the ground, that every single possession that they have, that they still probably owe a mortgage to. That they still, you know, like, hey, you owe this mortgage, but you don't even have a house. Like, you don't even, you know, like, you don't have a car. You don't have, I mean, it's, you don't have an income. You don't have a job.

You don't have, so it's pretty, I mean, I, you know, I'm the only fortune that you, that you have is that the community in Hawaii is so strong when it comes down to it. And I've experienced some other hurricanes and floods and stuff and the way the community pulls together and the way that they take care of each other there, it's awe-inspiring. Like, when you see that, it gives you hope

It's awe-inspiring. Like, when you see that, it gives you hope for the human being that you see in the essence of what's made us great as is, you know, the greatness of humans. I mean, you definitely can see the lack of greatness when you look around, but when you see the way the community pulled together and what they did and the way they responded, by the time the so-called disaster relief group gets in,

and unloads their planes, everybody's already clothed and fed and housed and, I mean, pretty much, it's like, what a great example, you know, in the face of tragedy for the rest of the world to see. I, you know, every time I get a little discouraged, especially with all this, go,, going on and going on, I manage to just, I keep running into a smiling face, somebody at a somewhere, and it continues to,

because you can be, I mean, if you spend any time on that device and you're not going the right direction, you can be pretty discouraged, given everything that's happened and is happening and could happen. All that stuff that your brain runs. So I am encouraged that there are there's there's good people and there's a lot more of us than people realize. A lot more you have a lot more brothers and sisters and you realize they're there and they're they're maybe just a little more quiet, but it's you know it's it's something that that quietness but also speak to that that endurance, you know the the guy that runs far doesn't run real fast but he's a steady so it's that that steady, that steady that I have hopes for is just that reliability

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on a beach in the Bahamas, you're covered from the steps of Buckingham Palace or your villa in Santorini you can dial away. And here's the best part, there's no rate increase. Pure Talk still saves the average family almost a thousand dollars a year with plans starting just at $20 a month. And they put you on America's most dependable 5G network so the coverage is second to none.

Stop dragging your feet, switch to PureTalk, a veteran-owned wireless company with simply the best US customer service team. Now, with international roaming in over 30 countries, go to puretalk.com slash Ryan to make the switch and you'll save an additional 50% off your first month. That's puretalk.com slash Ryan to start savings on wireless now. There's a lot more good people in the world than it seems than the media makes it seem, than social media makes it seem. It seems like everybody's divided, but really, I think we're all a lot closer together than what's being projected through media. So they gotta keep us, gotta keep us, you know, at each other's throat, he, he must have distracted because if we're all together, it might be a little too big of force.

Yeah. It's too big of a force. Unfortunately for them, it seems like people are starting to come together. Yeah. And slowly but surely. But anyways, let's move into you. So I want to cover, I want to cover your childhood,

get into your surfing career, and then get into some biohacking stuff, because I am just fascinated with that. And I know you are, you're an expert on it. But, but reason I want to dig into your childhood, and we already, I mean, they just got a small glimpse. But, you know, there's a lot of kids throughout the world who are struggling and I know you didn't have the,

you had a tough upbringing. And to see where you've come in life and from where you've come is, I mean, it's inspiring and a lot of people can relate to that. And I don't think I know it's going to bring a lot of hope to kids out there who aren't in the greatest situation. And that's why I like to cover this. So let's go right into it. You know, where are you born?

Well, I was born in San Francisco. My mother was from Southern California. And like fell in love with her high school sweetheart. They were the Z's in the class. I think it was still you have home room and they were, you know, ABC. And she was in her last name was Zyric and his last name was Zerfus. So they were like two Zs. But my mom was pregnant at 20, 19 or 20 years old. And it was obviously the early 60s and my blood father wanted to be a merchant marine

and so he just kind of split from her my blood father wanted to be a merchant marine. So he just kind of split from her and that forced her to kind of have to figure out how to deal with having me and being on her own. And she went to San Francisco and I think there was an opportunity to do, there was some study there were doing it, the University of San Francisco around pregnancy and they had some weird like vacuum they put on the stomach

for the last trimester of the pregnancy. And then in return she would get free, free be able to kind of have me for free at the hospital. And I think she was working until the very last up there, she would work on the fairgrounds and whatever she could do to survive. And then and then I had, I was born in San Francisco. She had some friends that, and I don't know if it was a boyfriend or a friend of hers, that, you know, the 60s were happening, and I think it was Vietnam, and there was a lot of stuff going on, and

it was a little bit of like the hippies and the, you know, rebel against this, you know, like the structure of, you know, eight to five and do the thing, and just like the whole kind of, so Hawaii was a, you know, for Southern Californers or people that were surfing because there was a surf culture that started that was kind of out of rebellion. So Hawaii represented like this paradise, like coconut trees and rainbows and like this place to escape the rat race. You know, because they considered what was going on the rat race. Yeah. Because they considered what was going on, the rat race. And so she took me as a baby. I was like a couple months old and then took me to Hawaii.

And I got exposed to, you know, I was, we moved to, I think we moved to Lahaina, actually, the place that burned down. And so I lived in Lahaina, which was a defunct whale, wailing town. I should say, they Lhina, which was a defunct whale, wailing town. I should say, they said capital, but it was a wailing hub of Hawaii for a long time. And then eventually it kind of disappeared. There was only a couple of little stores there. And so I kind of year or two years old, I got exposed to my mom's boyfriend used to push me

on the little waves. I think when I was two or three years old, I had, I fell on urchins and had both butt cheeks so in pale I couldn't sit down for a long time, but they would just push me on waves. And my mom said I could probably swim before I could walk. I crawled, I used to crawl to the pool and just go in the pool. No, because I swam. So I swam at a crazy young age. My mom's friends were surf-surf-surf-filmmakers

and surfers because she was around a gadget. And there was the famous surfing Hollywood surfing movies. And so she knew the actual gadget and some of these other girls that were surfers, Linda Benson and some famous girl surfers were her friends. She surfed when she was in high school but when she got pregnant and started to working, she didn't. She had to take care of, obviously, of me. And then so I got brought to Hawaii as an infant. And I wasn't born in Hawaii, which kind of worked against me.

Even though I'd been there since I was in my diapers, it didn't matter. Like I, you know, three months, six months, a year old, like, you know, but when you're not born there, that sets the precedent already. You're not born there. And then you're, and then you're, then you're the wrong color. So then you're obviously, you're not born there and you're, you wrong color. So then you're all of a sudden you're not born there and you look like maybe a descendant of Captain Cook or something. So that's not a great scenario. It sets you up for the grind. It sets you up for the tension. And so that's

kind of the beginning, right? So the beginning is that. And then we moved to another island. So we went from being on Maui to moving to Oahu, which is the main island where like Pearl Harbor is and the majority of the population is the state capital and we happen to move and I was I don't know if when I was like three or four we move to What is at the time was considered the most dangerous beach in the world The bonds I pipeline and it's it's a world famous beach. It's where surfers at the time from all over the world would come to to You know to challenge like it was a challenge place. You were thinking you were a good surfer.

You come and surf pipeline. Pipeline was the most dangerous. It's one of the most dangerous beaches in the world for absolutely. And so I began my... And some of this is I'm putting the other pieces from my mom's, you know, and from my mom's since past, but from just what I know and what, because obviously when you're a little, that, you're not remembering, but I'm remembering, you know, that I would, so we lived at a house, and so then my mom, we lived at a house that

lived at a house, and so then my mom, we lived at a house that was right at this beach. And so all the surfers that would go to this wave to challenge would walk through our yard. And so I was a young, young male watching all these handsome, studly, young guys come to challenge Hawaii. First of all, one of them, you know, premiere places to surf in the world. It's surfing to challenge Hawaii. First of all, one of them, premier places to surf in the world. It's surfing is from Hawaii. It's a Polynesian sport developed by the Hawaiians

that were some of the greatest navigators in the world. And so if not the greatest navigators in the world, before longitudinal attitude, they were sailing all around the world by the stars. And stuff. They had some crazy techniques that they learned about being able to navigate the ocean. That's where surfing comes out of that culture. That's the culture of Hawaii. The ocean is all about the ocean. It's all about your skill in the ocean, your ability to fish and being giant waves and sail and dive. And I mean, this is just, that's what you do when you're there.

Cause it's not only is it transportation, but it's subsidence, it's everything. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And so I'm at that beach, craziest beach in the world. All the studliest guys are walking through my front yard. I'm watching them. I'm like, I want to be like that when I grow up. I

See a guy at the beach that I think Was what my dad should look like. I don't have a dad. I need a dad So I'm like that guy looks like a big dad And I think maybe I I get credit for it But I think my mom and him already knew each other, but I introduced him He had the key knew my mom and so but he so he kind but I introduced him. He had the key, knew my mom, and so he kind of befriended me at the beach, knowing that he might take me home.

I'm not sure which one, but I introduced him to my mom, and he ended up marrying my mom, and so that ended up becoming my father that I didn't have. And so, and that was the beginning of, I mean, that was the beginning of a step having a father was about five years old, so five years old. So five years old, you met this, what's his name?

Bill Hamilton. Bill Hamilton, you met Bill. Yes. At five years old on the beach and said, I want you to be my dad. I want to introduce you to my mother. Yes, sir. What, I mean, do you remember this?

I mean, I remember it because I've told it so many times. And, but yeah, I mean, I remember like him, I'm being, like I used to get, I used to get rescued a lot. I would get sucked out to see like in the current, because I would play at the beach and the waves would come and take me and then suck me out and then the life cards would have to rescue me and then he would rescue me. So I was rescued constantly and I just remember, you know,

having him rescue me and then holding on to him and having him pull me in and then eventually he took me on waves and I would ride his back. And that was probably before I was five, but when he married my mom when I was five, maybe the year before or something like that. So that was the, that was probably before I was five, but when he married my mom when I was five, maybe the year before or something like that. So that was the kind of the foundation of my water. And then he set up a, at one point I was getting taken out so often that the lifeguards would go to my house and tell my mom, hey, Lerid is in the, I'll see you again, and we've rescued him twice

today and we just, we can't, you know, we can't keep rescue, can you just keep him, my mom would be like, no, Lerid's in his room, he's napping. And then they'd be like, no, he's not, he's out there right now and then she'd look and I would have crawled out my window onto like a limb of a banyan tree and climbed and got, you know, and climbed and went and got out. No ocean. I was, you know, I was getting separable of five beyond.

It was, it was, I think I contributed to my mom's early passing to be a speacus of between my brother and I and maybe a couple of the men she raised. But I think that we were, you know, I think, for my mom, I was like, oh my, she was like, oh my god, you know, thank god you made it to 12. And then it was like, oh my god, it's a miracle. You made it to 14. And then it was like, oh my, you made it to 16. You know, because I think I just was like, it was just every day, every time. I mean,

which thing, which stitch, which injury, which try, you know, it was just, that's a shh. Kind of what the toy was. Let's wound up. Let's backtrack a little bit to before Bill. Yeah. And you had mentioned at the beginning about, we were talking about addiction to adrenaline and you think that maybe that started

at a extremely young age. So let's talk about what the home life was like. Yeah. Pre-built. Well, there's some stories of me attacking. Like one of my mom's boyfriend's, or somebody she was going out with was slapping her around or did something to her, and I would attack him.

Like I'd be like two, two, three, two-year-old little tiny, you know, man, to attack. I would just attack the leg and get pushed away. But I think my courage, my ability to not be scared and go at stuff, I would just go at, you know, I would go at an adult as a little child. Like, I didn't really, it wasn't like I was, like, I didn't, that didn't, I was going to go protect my mom. And I think I had that in me, you know, I mean, that was in me. That was in me when I was three, two, three, four, whatever. That was in me. Like, that was, that was my, that, so I think that,

and again, I don't know if that came along with that fearless kind of, you know, little daredevil, like I'm gonna jump off the, you know, I mean, I just always had some, some, jump off, you know, speed, take the wagon down the hill, hit the jump with the bike into the trees. I just always just had that stuff. But I definitely was like I'd put my down, you

know, like the stories were that I just put my head down and I would just charge them. I would charge adults as a little kid. I don't think it's a coincidence. I mean, there's all kinds of studies that show how personalities and personality traits are developed and they start developing immediately. You know, probably insight, but. Yeah, and you were forced to learn how to overcome fear at a very young age out of necessity. You know, I think that's...

Attack the adult because he's hurtin' your mom. Like, are you close with your mom? Were you close with your mother? Yeah, crazy close. I mean, my mom, I did weird stuff. I would undo all the stuff. I would undo the stuff in my crib and get out. Like, she'd have to keep me in a crib when I was young and I would undo them. I would figure out how to undo and I'd be down the street. She said it was like,

I this thing for her, it was just, you know, I mean, she was already, I don't know what, I think it was just like, you know, here's your, here's your new wild animal, raise it. But we know the development, right? We know that that foundation stuff is, I mean, by the time you're four, it's probably pretty cemented in, at least that stuff. So I had that. And then when Bill came along, he would say,

oh, yeah, I took you up to Y-mail falls, like some big 50 foot, whatever. And he said, six years old, you just get back and run and jump off. And they'd be like, you know, and the guys were all, you know, freaking out. So I already had that kind of disposition. I had that, that, that thing in me that, that, that, you know, that I think served me well, but I think it's, you know, it's also how do you constructively vent that too? Because you can, you can just put that in any genre. You can put that kind of radical charge do anything into any category and

You know, where do you go? Yeah, yeah How was life after Bill came in to the family? Initially, I mean first of all Bill was young younger than my. The fact that he took on me, either meant my mom was really, you know, beautiful or or or but he was willing to take that on. I think that was a big responsibility. He was 17 at the time, correct? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, when he first started.

So and then by the time, you know, and then my brother came. And I think that, and also my mom wanted different things in Bill. I think Bill wanted to just, you know, surf and hang out and not, you know, and my mom was like, hey, I need a house. I need, you know, I'm not gonna get food stamps. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna like live on the dole. I'm not gonna just live and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna like live on the dole. I'm not gonna just live and I'm not gonna

do that. And I think that's when their thing started to, you know, Bill was a more like a big brother, was like a big brother. And then, and then my brother came along. And I think that, that, for me, that was more difficult because then, all a sudden my brother was the real son and I wasn't the real son I was so that kind of created Which had his pros and cons you know when things were good it was like well, I'm not I'm not related So I kind of have a disclaimer, but then when they were bad then I'm not related and I have just you know It's like so that I had both sides of it but and like I said him being young and then my mom being young and just the I had just, you know, it's like, so that I had both sides of it.

But, and like I said, him being young and then my mom being young and just the difficulty of all of it and people wanting different things and, and, you know, earning a living in Hawaii, it was, wasn't a lot of choice. It wasn't like there was a, all these opportunities. We moved, so we moved from that beach on a wall who too, the Garden Island, which is Kauai, and we moved into a remote valley, which was probably the only house that we could rent for $100 a month or something in the house that we moved into from there. When I was six, I would think and my brother was just coming. My brother had already come out and so I was six or six, like first grade or something like that. Starting school had been moved a bunch of times by

tidowaves and it was on the hill. It was like the highest house in the area and it was just a bear tin and it was on the hill. It was like the highest house in the area. And it was just a bear tin roof with screen windows. And I think we had an outhouse in cold water for a while. I used to have to go on the roof and try to tar when I got older, tar of the holes. And if it rained real hard, at one point, I think it was a big thing.

We got some kind of crappy TV with antennas. We put tin foil on them And you couldn't hear with the rain came you couldn't even you couldn't hear the TV if you no matter how much you turned it up So but but the valley we moved into was full of Full of just a bunch of different A bunch of different well, there was Hawaiian families, there was Japanese families, there was all different, but we were the only, pretty much the only white family. There might have been one or two other white white.

Really? Yeah, and so that, and then we were in the middle kind of a, the house that we rented from the old man that lived there was a Hawaiian Chinese guy, and he had all these, you know, he was, it was like in the middle of a compound, you're like a little bit of a, you know, you're in the compound, but you're the only white whites in the compound. And, you know, I mean, the, so that's where it, so we go and we're remote, like we're down a little dirt road,

down another dirt road, down another dirt road, like in the boonies, so back on the jungle. In the jungle. And the law of the jungle. We're in the law, we're in the law of the jungles. There is the laws of the jungle. I mean, from what I understand, I don't know if it's still like this, but from what I understand, Hawaii is very, the people of Hawaii are very territorial.

Yeah. Is that would that be the correct term? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's a unique thing going on, which is there are a lot of different cultures, right? So you have Filipinos, you have Japanese, you have Chinese, you have Portuguese, and then you have Hawaiians,

and then you have combinations of all those, and then you have Caucasians, right? And so, and within that, you have, also you have an interesting thing, which, and I never, I mean, I learned it from growing up in it, but I always could wonder how could somebody have said much hate for me that I never did anything to make them hate

and they never had anything really done to them, to make them hate, but they were actually, it was perpetuated hate, like it was passed down, like you realize, you saw a guy that had a lot of hate and you're like, oh my God, I met the dad, the dad has even more hate. Like they just had that. Yeah, they just passed, so some of that hatred or that envy or some of that stuff was passed down,

just like kindness and beauty. And those are, that's passed down too, right? So you had, so some of the stuff was passed down and I also saw experienced that you could, that some culture, some people or even cultures were taking on the the suppression or the things that happened to another culture. It wasn't even theirs, but they inherited it. So you could have a migrant worker that moved to some place that took on

the burdens of the native people because either they were part of it. You could be 1% Hawaiian and 99% something. One other Filipino Japanese, Chinese Portuguese mixture, but you would take on that you were a Hawaiian that had been suppressed kind of thing, but you weren't really,

but you had, so there was all that, and everything in between. So then I lived in that environment, and which just infused me right into an opportunity to be, we lived next to a pig farm. We fished. I learned how to fish and dive with the Hawaiians and farm and kill pigs and clean and cook pigs

in the ground and dry fish and the thing. I saw culturally like for me what the school I went to was that was that out of necessity or was was that you? Emerson himself a culture necessity with my desire to immerse. Okay. So it wasn't that we couldn't eat and we had to do the thing, but it was that's what was happening. That's where you were. You were in a place that this is what was going on. You lift next to a pig farm and you look over there

and there's pigs and everybody, but the boys are over there. You're like, hey, I'm gonna go see what's going on over there. And you, obviously, you're in it and you're learning about it, you're doing all that. So, hey, they're fishing. I'm gonna go down there and help. And you just become immersed in the environment

as part of survival. Part of it's like that's what you're doing. There's no, so I had that thing which was beyond and I wouldn't change one of the thing that ever happened. I mean, not one single moment because it would make it that I wouldn't be here now. I wouldn't have the family I have. I wouldn't, I mean, there I could say, hey, I wish I wouldn't have done that. But at the end of the day, not at the cost of not arriving here today. So I wouldn't change even though during it, it's not fun. And it wasn't great. And I didn't love it. But,

you know, there's a couple, I mean, there's so many lessons and so many things that made me different. Like, I would go to, you know, I would go to California coming from that environment and being, you know, I had giant, I had some of the biggest Hawaiian friends ever that were my protectors. So like at high school, if I got in a fight, the guy would just come and make sure it was like, you know, even odds and stuff and just stuff that that, I mean, I had some butyl, like the lessons, the relationships, the food, the things I learned how to do. I mean, we, you know, Gabby would always ask me, well, how do you know how to fix that and do that? I go, well, because there was no fix it guy.

Like, if you had a broken bike, you learn how to fix the bike. If you had a thing, you fix the thing, you fix the electric, you fix the plumbing, you fix whatever you, otherwise you don't have it. So you learn how to, you learn how to, how to fix it. And so there's stuff that I would never change. And it's made me, that's what's made me so different, like in my approach and how I look at things, what I've done, because I wasn't raised in, you know, Southern California. And I didn't, wasn't, you know, playing football at homecomingcoming and I didn't have any of that stuff.

I had quite the contrary, like you didn't go to homecoming and you couldn't really have a girlfriend because the, you know, because the brothers wouldn't let you be with the, you know, them, even if they liked you and you liked them. It was, that was a no-no. It was like, so we had all that stuff that, that in a way, you know, I mean,

and I had Bill, the lessons I learned from him about, you know, being a man about facing up when you're, I mean, things that, you know, unfortunately, sometimes as a parent, you know, the lessons, you know, the lessons you learn of how not to be, sometimes are greater than how to be. Like, I could look and be like, I'm not going to do that. Like, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't respect that. I don't want not to be, sometimes are greater than how to be. Like I could look and be like, I'm not gonna do that. Like I don't wanna do that. Like I don't respect that.

I don't not gonna be that guy. I'm gonna be this guy, right? So sometimes those are more impactful. I think because it's the negative stuff has more power over us because we wanna avoid it where the positive stuff has less power because It seems like if we've already done it we already know how we don't need to remember But we're not because we're not trying to avoid it. So you know, it's like good news bad news

You know traveled bad news travels a lot quicker and you tell a lot more people for a reason because you you know so but You know being being standing up for myself, I mean, Bill, I was, I mean, there's a bunch of things, but Bill was, was crazy. Like, he was a crazy guy. Like, like, like, like, I'll give you an example. One time I was surfing, and there was, I had a situation with a local guy and he was going to, he was trying to, he was going to do something, I was younger kid and he was an adult. And so I told, I told, I told Bill and Bill was out and then he went over and told the guy like, you know, like, hey, and then they surrounded him with a group of

guys surrounded Bill and Bill was like, well, who's the first guy that's gonna drown? Which one of you? Because I'm I drowned, but I'm gonna drown somebody first, maybe two, maybe three of you. And they looked at him and they went, okay, he's serious. Like Hamilton's serious, and they just would part and go away. And so in a way, I always, you know, it's interesting, the's serious. Like Hamilton's serious, they just would part and go away. And so in a way, you know, it's interesting, the crazy dog is the one people fear.

You can be not even that vicious, not even that big and strong, but he's just looking, oh, that's a crazy dog. You better stay away from him, because he's, you don't know what he's gonna do. You just don't know what he's gonna do, right? So I think that his, that saved us a little bit and he wasn't acting, he was for real.

And so that kind of, I think that also, I looked at that kind of, a little bit of that craziness, that having that temper and having that kind of incontrollability, like that, I felt that that was a, that was a little bit of a weakness in my mind. And so I think I use that as something to, to, because I have, like we all do have tempers and have a thing, but I, I always thought, I came to realize that that was something that was something that was

a vulnerability. And that if actually you could keep yourself really centered and be the more chaotic that got in the more radical stuff got, the more you were able to center and be aware and be the better and more effective you are. And that ended up helping me, like that's helped me throughout my whole life. And especially in heavy situations, no matter what they are, didn't matter what it was.

I'm just not good in the Gabby always laughs. She says, you're just terrible in the day today. Like the day to day manani, I'm just like, oh, here we go again. It's just like a monarchy. Like if it's all a wreck and, you know, everything's on fire, I'm just perfect. Perfect.

Yeah, I feel like, hey, I got a real purpose. There's a reason for me to be here. The rest of the time, I'm just like, what, you know, here we go. What are we doing? That's home for you, okay? It's just this home. Yeah.

And it started in the ocean. It was on land. It was everywhere. And so I feel like, and I have to seek it out. I have to be careful, because sometimes you ask for it and then you get it in a way like I was a one few years ago It was like I need some chaos and then it was like all of a sudden you're in a giant fire I'm like well, maybe not this chaos and then you're like hey, I need some chaos and these are huge hurricane You're like oh, maybe not that chaos, you know, it's like I need like more controlled chaos like in the bottom

My swimming pool the dumbbell or you know or or an a giant wave where I have you know a little more experience but the it's interesting how humans will recreate where they're comfortable and if you're if you're comfortable and stress and chaos and everything feels like it's fallen apart, you will recreate that exact scenario over and over throughout your life because that's where you feel at home. And I can relate to that. Yeah, I can relate to that.

Well now I just, so now I'm trying to do that with real, like let the environment do it, have it be controlled, like whether it's in maybe it's chaotic a little bit in your super hot, super cold, you know, got to hold my breath, I'm underwater, like that. So there's some stress stuff that we can do kind of

in a little bit of a controlled environment that makes it more constructive and less destructive and more, you know, like either you, but and then also have it be something that there's only positive can come out of it. you, but and then also have it be something that the, that there's only the positive can come out of it. Because a lot of times those chaotic situations, the aftermath is there's damage everywhere.

And let's not let's try to avoid that. So you've been, you know, it's like you go through that, but the ocean is a provider of that situation. It can, it's ready and available and willing at any moment. You want to go get yourself into something a little bit grabby. It's there. She's just ready and willing and, you know, this.

Yeah. She's ready and willing for you anytime. But that's my upbringing, my high school was crazy. You know, there used to be a thing called Kill Howly Day. That was the last year of school. So it was like, Kill White people pretty much. So it was Kill Howly is a white guy.

So Kill Howly Day was last year of school. No, you have Kill Howly Day at my school. I go, yeah, I go there in Kill Howly. So I you know, but the reason why the last year of school was that was Killholy Day was because you couldn't get suspended. Yes, you were already summer. But, you know, I went to a... I mean, I had a bunch of...

My school was really a giant school. We had a bunch of kids, like 2,500 kids. I think at one point it might have been, you know, third or fourth in the nation for crime and violence. So like we had like a crazy, like he's the lady, the Bronx, and then some like, like my school had, you know, knives and shoot and, you know, just crazy, 40 kids in a class and one, you know,

and then seven through 12 altogether, some cradian, and then I had to write a bus for like two hours to get there. It was just a disaster. So I was just like, the schooling thing, this sucks. I ended up eventually having my mom sign me out, my mom signed me out of school because I just wasn't going to go and I went to work. So I went in the 11th grade. She was like, she, because she was a single parent at the time, she was able to somehow get me. I just wasn't, there was nothing good about it.

So did bills, did bills stick around? No, my mom and dad, they parted ways probably when I was 12, something like that, 12 or 13. So, or no, they were, no, I'm sorry. I was a, something like that, 12 or 13. So, or no, they were to know, I'm sorry, I was a little older than that, but by then I had already, they were kind of off and on, and I had already, like by the time I was 16,

I was already kind of out the door. I had opportunities to go and try to just, you know, go be somewhere else, and my brother didn't. He was there, but my mom, but then they were broken apart. And later my mom got a really nice guy for the last about 18 years of her life before she passed away.

But she ended up starting a helicopter company with as a first tour company in the state and then built a house. And my mom was an animal. She pulled out of it. My mom was an animal. Like her work ethic and her, my mom was a, was a, you know, I mean, my mom read the book, the wall, that's a book she read. My mom would read a novel, like just a big, thick book

in a weekend. Like she'd start on Friday and just read, like, perfuse reader, you know, just a smart, a smart lady. And, you know, one of the things that she did for me as a young boy was develop my imagination. So my mom used to read me, and I think that's probably why I started other than I had some educational issues, but with reading, they messed me up. One of the programs definitely messed me up, but then my mom would read to me. So I really had no reason to read, but she read me like the Lord of the Rings, the entire trilogy. When I was really young, she read me, Dune, she read me, you know, Jonathan Livingston. She read me all these crazy, crazy books growing up that really kind of opened my imagination,

which, you know, which I think had a really profound effect on me later on just in my creativity and all of that. Are you still, are you and Bill still close? I try to be close to him, but I don't think he really wants to be close. I think part of his upbringing and his thing about intimacy, I think it's hard for him to, you know, and maybe we're like, I'm a reminder, I have daughters that he's getting older and he maybe I think part of his thing, he still wants to be, you know, a young handsome surf guy. And I don't know if that comes from not being fulfilled maybe as a, as you know, not getting everything out of it that he wanted or could have or I'm not sure. I just know

he has granddaughters and you know, and like what you realize is that you, it's your responsibility to develop the relationship. If you wanted a relationship with your granddaughters, then you got to have a relationship. You got to go and take, you got to make the effort. Like at the time. Yeah. And I see, when I was 21, I found my real dad and I found him and... Really? Hold on.

What triggered that? I mean, obviously, you want to meet your real dad but why at 21, what happened? Just, I think at that point, I was in California. I had some connections that might have known where he was or something like that. I was just interested in meeting my biological father. I just wanted to have that. I just had a curiosity. interested in, you know, meeting my biological father.

I just wanted to have that. I just had a curiosity. It was like a weird thing inside, like curiosity, like, hey, and so I found him. Were you worried? Was there any fear in finding and meeting your biological father? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe a little, a little bit, like maybe a little, a little, you know,

I think it's unknown, I think the unknown, like how are you gonna respond? Like, hey, where were you? Why can't we do anything? I didn't help mom, you know, like all those things, where were you? Why come you didn't do anything? I didn't help mom. All those things, I think, you have a, I feel like I was curious to meet him and like, I wanted to know

like why he wasn't, didn't participate, wasn't interested. If he wasn't, was he, was he, was he, was he, you know, was he wasn't interested? Like, maybe he was, but my mom was like in Hawaii and didn't make it so he could. And you just don't know, it's a domestic, right? And you so you don't, but I had, I had, I wanted to meet him. I wanted to look at him and see him.

And, and kind of answer maybe some of those, all those questions that you have, when you have somebody kind of just, that you're related to, that's your father, birth, I mean, you know, that your blood related to. And I went and had a met him at a, like a cafe and sat down and had a breakfast with him. And how'd you find him?

I threw some people that knew, that knew, like somebody that my mom, one of my mom's friends that had, you know, that had word and then I called and I'm like, okay, well, you know, where is he? And then, oh, we heard he's here call so and so. And I just, you know, dictative, I just did my detective thing.

And eventually he was, I got him and I'm like, it's layered to the, I called him and I'm like, hey it's layered. You called him. Yeah. What was the initial conversation like? You know, I mean part of it, I just block out, right? So some of it was like, there's a block out. I think he was a little bit like,

hey, how you doing or something like that? It was kind of, you know, it was like, I mean, how awkward is it gonna be? Pretty much it's gonna be awkward. Like no matter what, it's gonna be like, hey, where were you? How could we go? Well, hey, how's it going?

You know, it's like, yeah, I'm 21 years old. I'm a man already. You haven't even seen me for, you know, ever, maybe saw things of me or whatever, but, but, you know, ever, maybe saw things of me or whatever, but, but, you know, the truth is that once I had, once I sat with him and had eight and spent some time, I realized that we didn't have anything, there was nothing that we didn't have any experiences.

Yeah, that we had nothing. Like we didn't have any, we didn't go to the park, we didn't go to a movie, we didn't, so we had nothing like we didn't have any we didn't go to the park we didn't go to a movie We didn't so we had no experience and we had some similar First of all visual traits like look like each other Probably some behavioral stuff like some of the issues that I that I've had to deal with were probably a gift from him You know the But that really kind of made it like, oh no, I'm good.

I'm okay, like cool, okay, you're good. Like I answered that question, I went, I found, I saw, I talked, and I went, and I wasn't ready at that time to go, hey, I wanna establish a relationship with you and try to develop a thing, I'm going like that, and you're over here, and so that almost like made that good. Like I was good with that.

And in a way, it kind of harsh, I guess, but I was just more like it was like an answered, it was like a door that I looked behind and went, okay, cool, and then you shut the door and I'm good. And so later on, did any of the questions get answered? Like why he had left or... I think part of one of the things that came out of it was that maybe he wanted to go so my mom just went and cut tie. Like she's like, oh, you're not gonna participate.

Boom. So it wasn't like, you know, because I was always like, well, how can we didn't send a thing or did it send a card or didn't try to support you or didn't thing like that? I'm like, maybe if he had tried, maybe she, you know, again, it's a domestic is between a man and a woman And it's like, and so I think There's that which is like maybe it wasn't just straight up like he just went didn't care and didn't go like didn't participate So part of it was that but the other part was Maybe he was incapable of it, but I realized that we just had nothing in common like other than maybe a couple propensity to like

You know have a bar fight or something like you know like like we just didn't have anything. And so I was good with that. Like I was good with, I was okay with, with, and, you know, in the conversation that we had, there were things that I could relate to, like, that I was relating to traits that I was like, oh, I have potential to have that trait or that trait or I see some of my thing in, you know, that I, some of the things that I have from him, that trader. I see some of my thing in, you know, that I, some of the things that I have from him, I could see it other than not just physical, but, you know, because emotional things are downloaded.

I mean, we have, they say we have 14 generations of trauma on our DNA. I mean, you know, you can download a, a, a trade in emotion. There's no doubt that that stuff. It's not just physical. People always say, you look like each other. Yeah, you download, I mean, the information's,

I don't think we can even measure it. But so I was good. Like I was good with it. I answered, and I, in fact, and probably not really that great of me, but later on, a few years later, I guess he was trying to reach out to me, like, on his deathbed or whatever. And I was like, I was like, yeah, okay, cool, yeah, sorry.

You know, okay, bye, like, but I didn't have any urge to like go there and be there. And I just didn't, I didn't feel like that kind of obligation. And, you know, it made me realize like how that's why adoption works, right? That's why adoption is real. Because when you take and you cherish and you love and you experience, that's the connection that you've, you build, you build through time, through investment. You don't just, you know, you don't just get because you're related. You don't just get it. You don't get it. It's you don't just get because you're related. You don't just get it. You don't get it.

You have to earn it. Like you earn this thing. Like you earned it. And so, and I, you know, with Bill, I think with Bill, I love Bill. I just him and our values are so different that, you know, and I'm like, I'm focused on my, you know, my wife, my daughters, my work, my thing. I just feel like, and my brother and him, they now have a a civil relationship, and I have a civil relationship with them.

And I realize that maybe that's just all that we can do. That's the end all we can do. That's the end. All we can have is that. That that's the highest level that we can get. We can't get to anything beyond just like a civil understanding and relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I have a great friend, Mr. Wildman, and I've had more than one in my life, men that

were my mentors, but that I looked up to like father or grandfather or those kind of men that represent, and you don't need to be related. But he always used to say, if you want fair, you go to the fairgrounds. It's not fair. We're not that fair about lining up this stuff. It's not fair. It's this doesn't. But yeah, it is.

It is, you know, I mean, it's your, you want a daughter, you want a relationship with your daughter, you better have a relationship with your daughter. You want a relationship with your son, you want a relationship with your, you got to put this is, this is, you got to put the time in. This is a, this is a very interesting conversation

that I didn't plan on digging into, but when you met your father, your biological father, I mean, did you sense any guilt or regret by him? By him. I don't know if he had that capacity, but he did reach out to you. He did reach out to you on his deathbed. Yeah, he did on his deathbed. But it's the next time you're on. Now you want to know that you're going to die? Yeah, you're going to put this on me. No, no, you want to know you know that you're gonna die now. Now you want to, I mean, I appreciate it. And, you know, but. But.

That was the next time you heard from him. You met him at a coffee shop, but then you didn't talk to him again until, hey, I'm dying. Yeah. What did he want? What did he say? What did he say to you? What is deathbed. I mean the bandage you as a kid. Yeah, met you once at a coffee shop at age 21.

How well how much time had passed between that and probably you'd had a 510 12 years something like that some decent time over a decade later and the next phone call is, hey, I'm dying. Yeah. I mean, how did that conversation go? Short. You know, not a lot to talk about. Like, hey, sorry about that. You know, have a good, what may I'll see there? You know, I mean, you know, not a, I mean, it's in a way,

I guess there's a harshness to that, but that's the reality of it. The reality of it was that there just wasn't, I didn't have a huge thing about it. Like, I did. It was an emotional connection. No, no, because I didn't, because I, because there was no, I have friends that I have deep,

that I mourn. Like, I didn't, I just didn't, there was, it was almost like barring a phone call, a breakfast, that was about the extent of the relationship. I mean, there's not a lot there. Like, it's, you know, minute, two minutes. I mean, and I think, I don't know if I part of it was, and I, and it may be because my mom was a little bit of strain from her family.

And so we, our family was always the immediate family. And even now, like, we don't really have grandparents, barely Gabby and I both have, you know, the our relationship is pretty much us. I mean, we don't, so we don't, it's not like we had all of the associated guilt that gets developed with a lot of the, hey, weren't thing in this and that, you know, having like, hey, you weren't here and you got to be like that and all your parents passed away

and that's what you do and you, like, we didn't have a lot of that built in. I mean, I didn't just given that I had barely even, we lived in Hawaii, my own my mom, and I had some relatives, I had grand parents that were bills things that I wasn't even related to because it was bills. And my mom's, I saw my grandmother

and she was meaner and a rattlesnake. I mean, it was like, but minimal contact because we didn't live where they were. We were away from them. So I think some of it was that. I think the piece of it was that we weren't, we didn't have all that interfamily, see grandma and the weak grandparents have a barely

in the structure of mom and dad. So I think that that also didn't make me have a huge, I've had dogs that I mourned more. And that's the truth. That might be harsh,, that might be harsh, but that's just the reality of just the level of the depth of the relationship was something that was just we didn't have. We had no, it wasn't like, hey, remember the time we did the thing and all these, we didn't have that, that sometimes that stuff is invisible, but it's the bond that we build through the layers

of experiences that we have with each other, the things that we do, the Christmas, the movie, the scary thing, the injuries, the, you know, the, the, hey, I took you to the, I mean, I remember one time I broke my leg and I had been, I had ditch school every, I think I ditch school every day for a whole quarter. I had some crazy things.

So I had dinner with on Sunday night, and I'm just using this an example of developing experiences together in relationship. So Sunday night I had dinner on Sunday night, and I'm just using this an example of developing experiences together in relationship. So Sunday night, I had dinner, and my mom and Bill and my mom aren't together, but Bill has to give me the, hey, you better go to school thing. So I get to, hey, you better go to school.

But he lives in another house with another person down in town. And so, yeah, on Sunday, I'm, okay, I'm gonna go to Seattle go to school. Then the next day I'm in the bus and the waves are beyond good. Like it's as good as it gets and I'm like I just go like that. The bus stops, I get off the bus, I go straight, I go out, I get run over, I get off the bus, I go straight, I go out, I get run over, a guy runs me over, and I'm probably 16, 15, 16, compound my leg,

break my, break compound my leg, I gotta walk across the reef, I get thing, I finally get to the car, my friend takes me and drives me to my dad's house. So this is at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, after the Sunday night, talk about going to school. My dad goes Get in the car and I swear he hit every pothole For the hour and a half ride to the hospital that he could find

He would just turn off the road to hit bumps just ah You know, but we haven't I have that we we we have that talk about. Like we have that experience that we had. I mean, and all the ones that we had over our relationship, all the times, all the things that we had over that process, we have that, no matter what. So we have that bond, even if we just, hey, how you going, how you going?

We still have this thing that we built with all of these experiences, right? And so when you don't have that, there's none of that. Zero? Not what to talk about. Yeah. And less, and actually not a lot to feel, more importantly, because this is an invisible thing.

And so you don't even feel it. You're like, you look, you go, I have no feeling towards that. I just don't have any. I like. The reason I want to dive into this so much is So I have no feeling towards that. I just don't have any. The reason I want to dive into this so much is, and don't quote my statistics here, but if I'm a 5-remember correctly, I believe it's damn near 25% of the US population is fatherless.

You know, they don't have a male role model in the family dynamic. And it's, I mean, you see it today, it's created this situation where there aren't a lot of positive male role models to begin with in the country, in the world, I believe at this point. And so, and you see it, even the ones that do have homes, a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of deadbeat dads out there. You see, I talk about this all the time, but you go to the store, you see kids have male teenage kids with zero self confidence, you know, they can't look in the eye, they look at their shoes, they don't know how to communicate. And all of these things are because they don't have a, there's no male figure to look up to. And it's becoming more and more scarce as time goes on. So another thing that I want to ask you

about is Bill, I mean, was he a male, did he fill a role in your life that you looked up to? Definitely a male. Definitely a man. Like, and, you know, like. It doesn't sound like it was the whole case. It's a relationship. When you're wrong, you put your head down

and you take your punishment like a man, when you're wrong. And when you're right, you lift your chin up and you go to the death. Like that's, like, so there's some values that he had that as a male. Now I had other fortunate males as well. Like I was fortunate to be around. I was also in a time when there was more

of these male figures that I would, that I respected and I looked up to. And other families like that we were near that I was like, that dad is, like that guy is, you know, and I would say a lot of it is, you know, I have tried to become the father that maybe I thought I wanted or maybe the thought or what I think of what a father should be or whatever that is, right? So, and it doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It just means that, it doesn't mean that I didn't have a dad,

but it just means I want, I've been trying to be the dad through either dads that I looked at, that I thought, well, that's a good father, or I like that about that guy as a dad, and I like this part about this guy as a dad, and I like that part about that guy. And I try to, you know, amalgamize those and put those all together into one thing and be that. But, you know, Bill, there were things, of course, that I didn't respect,

that ways that he was that I ended up using as things of how to be. So I did that too. Like I went like, oh yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not gonna do that. That, that, that doesn't work out well. You know, I watch, I go, oh, that, don't do that. Like, I mean, you know, most of the time we need to learn from our own mistakes. It is cool if you can look and go, yeah,

that doesn't work out well. Let's try to learn from that and not actually have to go through it. Some of it I've had to go through, but some of it I haven't. So I had that, but, you know, that doesn't work out well. Let's try to learn from that and not actually have to go through it. Some of it I've had to go through, but some of it I haven't. So I had that, but, you know, there were things that built on me that for sure were masculine traits, male traits, respectable traits, and that was a big one was just being a man and facing stuff.

Hey, you did something wrong. Gotta go to the house, knock on the door, go tell the guy, hey, yeah, yeah, I was me, I did it, or, you know, to face it, you know, I mean, I think the consequences. Simple. And by the way, we make it complicated. Some of the stuff is very simple. Let's like, let's not complicated.

Like, you, you know, like honor, respect, like, you know, these values that make us men, I go, like honor, respect, like, you know, these values that that that make us men, I go, it's not tricky. Like, don't try to like make it all elaborate. I always, I believe that when you're trying to make things too elaborate, you're disguising in perfection. When perfect, things are perfect, it's just a square. It can be perfect. And it perfect square is aesthetically pleasing right and you have to decorate it when it's not when it's not Square and perfect so I think for me that there are some male traits that Bill gave me that I that I obviously Was blessed to get and that Bill was put into my life for a reason to get those There's no doubt that I would and I would only thank him for that.

Some of the processes that I had to go through, I didn't love it and I would and but that doesn't mean that I didn't I haven't benefited from that. So, you know, and I had some other great male role models as well in my life that, that, you know know I was able to cherry pick through. How did you how did you find those masculinity roles? How did you find the male role models? Because there are. Yeah, it's not easy. I know you. Yeah, it's not easy. It's not I mean, you know, I of it, I think, you know, the best way to describe it is is that, because people talk about looking for the truth, right?

We talk all the time, we're saying, we're looking for the truth, how do you know it's the truth? I go, it's a little bit, it's like being a hunter. If you're a hunter, you know and understand the behavior and the characteristics of the animal. You just do. You know where the animal goes. You know where the the behavior and the characteristics of the animal. You just do. You know where the animal goes. You know where the tracks look like. You know the call, you know all the stuff.

And the more you do that, the better you get at it. And the better you get at it's like being a good fisherman. You start to just understand everything, right? So if you're looking for the truth, you start identifying the truth and looking for the truth. You get better at the truth. Pretty soon you can just see the truth everywhere. You're like, oh, there's a truth over there. There's

a truth over there. That's not the truth. That's not the truth. There's a no. That's a no. You know, it's like you start to be able to identify that stuff. So I think as if you see things, if there's things that you respect and traits that you that you look for those men, use all of a senior PUB surprise, hey,, I'm really like I really think I you know But you have to have those other values, right? You have to be able to know like I'm looking for a man that You know that's that has a certain kind of respect and the people that you know that that has discipline Okay, I respected man. I always respected man with discipline I go look I and then I'll say you look right

Oh, that man has a lot of discipline. You look at that. Well, there's another one You know, and then you try to gravitate towards those those guys that have those traits. Oh, he's got he's got You know honor. Okay, I honor discipline. Okay. Yeah, he's got that those values You'll find them. They're there. You just have to first you have to know what you're looking for You have to be able to go. Hey, I'm looking for somebody that has those foundational things. I mean, I don't, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? I mean, I don't know. Do you learn it?

You know, I mean, I had men that I respected that people would be like, well, how do you, you know, how can you be with that guy or how do you, well, you don't know? I'm first of all, like I know him. And also, maybe they're not capable of seeing the thing in him, the thing that I can see, that I can see, the loyalty, the honor, those values that at the end are the foundational values of what you

Have done and what you do in your world Same in my world. Those are the same things. Those aren't different. It's not like a Good man as a good man. I got honorable loyalty the truth. I mean that doesn't Doesn't change it's not like it's one over here and something different over there And now it's the the same stuff. Just get the big book and open up and read down the thing and look for the thing. It's like, it's right there. It's in writing everywhere. It's all there for you to see. It's just sometimes it's not the easiest to actually do. That's where the work comes in.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah Would you say Would you say you came from a broken home? Oh Yeah, yeah, I mean you know when I look at it When I when I look at what I think about that I go you know actually it seems like in my life when I look around It's more rare to have what I have with my daughters and my wife right now, that a solid couple that are together with the kids, with the thing, which is what we consider,

I don't know what the word is, but like a whole family or a family unit. Not broken, but I go, well, that's more rare. Like, because you can say, well, 25% of the population or whatever the percentage is only has single parent. I go, yeah, but then you probably have another, however many more that have ones that are like broken within it, broken within it.

So what's the difference if it's broken out of it or broken in it, it's all broken. So, and when you get down to like how many, or how many real, whole families, like family units, real whole family units are there? That's the most rare one. Like at the end of the day, I go to the, everybody who acts like that's the normal

and these other ones are, I go, no, it's more rare to see that, that, and I don't know, maybe it has always been like that, maybe it's always been like that. I don't know if it's, that the real like that. Maybe it's always been like that. I don't know if it's that the real, that's where you're astriving to, that you're trying to astrive to that. I don't think it's always been like that.

I mean, if you look at the World War II generation, they call it the greatest generation of all time. Yeah. You don't see a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah, but it might not have been complete. Publicized. Well, I also couldn't have been complete.

Like, the relationship itself between the male and the female might not have been totally optimum. True. Very true. Very true. They might have stayed together and not got divorced and doing the thing and do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it might have been,

like, and also it was a different time too. I mean, we've gotten ourselves in a time where it's almost like, we both, to survive, you almost have to be mutual breadwinners, you gotta be mutual work. Like there's everything you gotta be working. A lot more, like, I think the provider, taking care relationship has obviously that dynamic has changed. I mean, maybe that's when we're in the optimum because I think it's like with Gabby and I, we, it takes a special

guy that can handle a woman that has her act together. Most guys can't handle that. Most guys, you get a woman that's got her, that's really got her, she's self-sufficient. It can be intimidating for a lot of men. Totally. They're like, oh, too much for me. I need one that's more dependent because that makes me feel as a provider, but that just really speaks more to your insecurity

than it does to there. Like, you just have to be more like, hey, cool, but I'm still the guy and I can, I still do all the things I need to do. I don't even have to be the breadwinner. I can, you know, lift the heavy beam or fix the toilet or whatever it is, like, yes, but having that. So I think that those, I think a big piece of,

if there's the turmoil has to do partly with that, right? It has to do with the dynamics of, that we're not in our optimum positions, that we're not, you know, it's not just so clear, like, provision, subsidence, like we're not able to work so evenly together, or in our, in our proper roles, I think there's some role stuff that, that definitely is of influencing the dynamic. I just, you know, again, having a mom that, the way my my mom was put me in a whole another level with my relationship with, in my relationship and being able to deal with,

you know, having, having a woman that is strong and being, you know, and not not strong, because women have their strength no matter what, but it's just in that, hey, I don't need you. Like I can, I can provide for myself. And you're kind of like, what do you mean, you don't need me? You've got to need me. I need, if you don't need me, then who am I? And you know, like, so we have all that stuff that we have to work out, which is our own, our job.

Like it's our job to figure out, you know, a Gabby and I talk about, I go, I'll go figure out how to be happy. And then I'll come back happy. And then you go figure out how to be happy, and then I'll come back happy, and then you go figure out how to be happy, and then you come back, but not if you be a hailed like this, then I'll be happy, and oh no, if you behave like that, I'll be happy. It's like that doesn't work.

You can't put that on each other. We talked a little bit about generational trauma and generational curses and stuff. Did your mom, what was her upbringing like, was it similar? So you were the one to break the generational trauma. I think so. You know, I think it's extremely rare. It doesn't happen very often.

And listen to your upbringing, I mean, statistically, you never should have made it out of that neighborhood in Hawaii. You know, now, I mean, you've got an entire legacy. You know, you're obviously a very successful entrepreneur. You're serving career as legendary. You have a, what appears on the outside to be a very nourishing family life with your daughters.

I mean, at breakfast and on the way here, you were talking about, you know, fatherhood and what it's like to raise daughters because I have one on the way. And I mean, that's amazing. You know, nobody, there's a very small percentage of the population that breaks generational trauma and you've done it. And I don't know if you. And you've done it.

And I don't know if you know how you've done it, but I'm gonna ask, you know, how did you do it? Nobody does this. And it's important because you can see the trajectory of families, you know, and it's not headed in a good direction. Yeah. So how can people break that curse?

I mean, and I can only kind of try to guess at the things that have that helped me. I mean, there's no doubt that faith is a big animal, like faith and God is a piece. Are you a Christian man? Oh, yeah, I have been for a long time. Yeah. Right.

Of course. Cool. Well, I'll let you finish this. Yeah. Then we'll dive into some of that. Well, the, I mean, like I said, having faith and, and, and, and, you know, that power that you get, like, or the power that gets given to you, or whatever way we want to cut that.

I mean, I think that that's an important, I think, I mean, I think, I think some of its chance, you know, some of it's by chance, which you, but then if you believe in predestined and you believe that it's been written before that somewhere in it, you know, I think my, my destiny or should I say my life, I, I, it's, it's been laid before me. I'm just walking on the, on the path that's been written. And so some of it's that, some of it,

I'm just going through the process. I mean, discipline, faith, fortune, I think I'm lucky to, I probably shouldn't be here more than once. I could imagine you can probably relate to that. You know, I know I shouldn't. I mean, I think I've't. I think I've definitely more than once, more than twice. There's a list, a long list. So I think that there's that.

But having faith, you know, that and believing, you know, like, it's like I told Gabby sometimes when things are tired, I go, you know, it's been okay, it is okay, it's going to be okay. Like, I think that that's a big piece of it, you really have to, and you have to want to, like, you really have to want to, like, you know, I always meet guys, you know, because they talk to me about, you know, quit and drinking and stuff, and I go, but do you want to, like, you know, I always meet guys that, you know, because they talked to me about, you know, quit and drinking and stuff. And, and I go, but do you want to? I go, because if you don't want to, it doesn't, no one can do anything for you. Like, there's just nothing. And you, and you can't say, yeah, yeah, I want to know what do you want to. Like do you want to? Because there's a big difference between, yeah, yeah, I want to,

and yeah, I want to. Like how, how much, I want to. Like how much do you want to? Because if you want to, really want to, then you can. But if you kind of want to, that's good luck. That'll never happen. It'll never happen. So, I would connect it to that. I would connect it to really wanting to have like this family that, you know, what's important to me, like my daughter's spending time

with them, drive being daddy Uber, you know, being the Uber and driving to the school and making that being a priority. It's just like the thing around your health, like taking care of this, like you can't, if you don't take care of this, then this thing doesn't work. And so if you're,

and if you're wondering why you know, you're struggling, it's like, well, you've got to make the motor run, man, you've got to take care of the motor because the motor has all the impact on this, on all the keyboards, the chemistry. And so we're, I think all of that, right? All those pieces, I think I've been fortunate that I just, all the spokes, man, I just tighten, you know, I went all the way, I got this tight in that spoke. And because, you know, any what, I always look at it like a wheel and you look at it like the spokes, any loose spoke, man, that thing didn't, didn't, didn't think there's this

little bump in it. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it happening? Where is it happening in your, you know, are you looking at some crap on the internet? Are you, are you, you know, are you drinking something though here? Are you doing that? Where is it happening? Where, and there's no, there's no perfection.

That's, that's non-existent. There's not everything in nature. Every cell, every snowflake, every grain of sand is different the shapes different It's like there's no it's the Perfectly imperfect. It's like the but you know where are the areas that you can that you because that's your only fighting chance What's creating the drag? It's only fighting chance. It's your only fighting chance. It's only fighting chance It's just reduce the thing reduce all the all the anything that could be contributing to make it more difficult to your. And I mean, like I said, when I, when I, because, because I had, I was, you know,

I love drinking, right? Like I, and I didn't drink until, well, when I was a kid, there's a, I was at a party when I was a little kid and in Hawaii, it was just coolers were open drink when I drank so much beer one night I was like a little kid and vomited my mom and I were vomiting the whole night and then I Didn't drink it all ever until I was like 18 like the smell of beer would or 16 like 17 the smell was just like It was just made me have a flashback. And then I started drinking beer culturally, like hanging out with the boys. It was more of a thing. And then I started drinking wine and stopped drinking beer, fattening. And I had a couple of French things because I was spent a lot of time in France.

I was sponsored by a French company for about 20 years. And so my French habit, one of my French habits was a nice red wine. It's whatever. My mom was an alcoholic. I always talk about alcoholics like surfing. Everybody's a surfer and everybody's an alcoholic. Is this whether you drink or you surf,

but we're all naturally, alcoholics and surfers. What do you mean? I go, there's not a person alive that wouldn't love standing on a board right? I go, there's not a person alive that wouldn't love standing on a board riding away. There's just nobody. I don't care if you're from Russia in the middle of Siberia or from, it doesn't matter.

Just like being an alcoholic. There's no one, there's no human that doesn't like to drink that's wouldn't like the feeling of drinking. That's what it's designed to do. I mean, that's what it does. But, so I had that, I had my, coming from my, you know, my mom having it, and I'm not good without going, I'm just, I, you know, I think I can jump over the building and, you know, I'm just always doing, I just, nothing ever good came out of anything drinking, right?

All the worst things I've ever done, it says it right in the bottle, and pairs judgment and motor skill. Like it's not, it's so, but that was a discipline thing, right? That was a thing at a certain point. My mom said something to me that really stuck with me, that really was one of the contributing things that helped me a lot,

which was if you can't be true to yourself, you can't be true to anyone else. And so I thought, and I would drink, and then not drink, and be like, and then drink, and be like, oh, I can stop any time, and then I'd stop for a couple of weeks, and then start again.

So I'd always had that emotional rollercoaster of, I got control of it, but I don't have control of it, and then I have the guilt associated with it. And I'd drink and wake up at five and train like an animal and justify my drinking, because then I could be like, hey, cool, man, I can, I'm handling it still have a feeling about my work. I'm during my work, I'm dyke and drink and train every day and a lot of it was guilt training, you know, because I'm

training because I'm trying to make up for the fact that I'm feel shady inside that I don't have the discipline to do that. And so eventually, and it was going to contribute to, it was contributing to hurting my relationship with Gabby, who I love and who that's the last thing I would want. And it was also, it was starting to, like, the girls were going to start being exposed to it. They're really young. My young, my youngest, start being exposed to it. They're really young. My young, my youngest, my middle one was young. And so I'm like, you know what? I just don't want them.

A bunch of reasons, right? I just went, but it was a discipline thing. And so I just wanted to prove to myself that I had the discipline. And I didn't have AA. I didn't have any reinforcement, no help, no nothing, just cold turkey, boom, start done, finished 16 years. I haven't and I have no desire, no interest.

And what I really came to learn about it was that it really was a sugar addiction. You're you're you're coming up on 16 years. Something like that 16, 17. Yeah. That's congratulations. I'm almost two years in. Love it. Wish I would have done this a long time. Me too. Absolutely. Did you have a specific, I mean, what was it that triggered it? I bred into some of your story with planned on covering this later in the

interview. I know that Gabby, I believe, said that you turned into Larry. Larry, yeah. What are some wild things that were happening? I just, you know, I would, it's fire water for me. I don't know if I got some kind of wild native something blood or something, but it would definitely, it would definitely, like I just wasn't a good, I would go and drive cars fast and jump off, create,

and you just do critical stuff. I always thought I could leap buildings in a single bound. Like, that was my, that's what it does to me. Like, it turns on that part of my brain of just like a, like a, like a wild animal. I can turn into a wild animal. And, which I'm already, I think, naturally, a little already going that direction,

I don't need any support, I don't need any boost, I don't need anything. No enhancements. No enhancement. And it was just, it was never, it just, it was, it's not, it's just nothing good's coming out of it. I think one night I came back and I had, I always wanted proof that I could handle.

So it's like, oh yeah, I can drink three bottles of wine and drive my truck home and something. I think I banged a pole and didn't set the air bag, but the sheared the pole off. And then I was like the next day the pole was hanging. I came to the bottom and I looked at the pole and I thought, hmm. Okay, got lucky on that one.

Like I was probably just going four, but I had a giant truck with a huge bumper. Just see whatever. Again, being looked after, being fortunate, getting away, it's interesting, because we talk about, you see, it's interesting because I, you know, we talk about you see like in especially in surfing, right? And we see people doing, you see people can doing certain things in your kind of like,

like, like the angels are busy protecting them. Yeah. So you better have your, because they're not, I mean, there's none available for you because they're busy because you knew Watch the way the humans are conducting themselves every angel available is busy, so you better if you have the fortitude to be able to keep your Stuff and be aware and keep yourself good you better do that. So, you know, I think there was a culmination of a bunch of yourself good, you better do that. So, you know, I think there was a culmination of a bunch of incidences, behavior, relationship stuff, health, whatever, just all those things over time. It was

just like, okay, I'm good. Like I'm like I'm and I'm good to the point where I'm going to be good, good and not just dabble good. But that's why I said, the question really is, is do you want to like really want to because people go, yeah, they want them, but they kind of say it out of the side of their face. Yeah, I want to stop it. So there wasn't, there wasn't necessarily a specific incident or an ultimate danger or anything like that. Interesting. No. With, with, with, what triggered mine was, we'd spoken about this, but I did a psychedelic therapy for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. I never thought I had steps.

There was a time when I would wake up and it was vaude committee bottles all day long. And then at night time I would just crack open a fifth and down a fifth or two. And then that got away from that and I got into wine. And it was, yeah, two, three bottles a night. And then I did this therapy. And when I came out of it, it was like I had my body in epiphany that was the shit's poison, quit doing it. And I've not had another drop since. Amazing. And so, it wasn't any specific. No, I mean, I, well, the potential that it was going to ruin my relationship, that,

and that was getting, it was getting to the point where it was going to be like any, at any minute, it was going to be, you know, Gabby would walk out. And so, that, or I would hurt myself, something, just something, I just, I felt like there I was at critical mass. Like enough things had happened, and there was an accumulation that I was at this position where there was gonna, that it wasn't gonna be,

it was gonna just be one straw that broke the camel's back. You know, it was piled up and it was ready. And I didn't know which one it was gonna be, and I think that was it. I think that the thought of the relationship or something bad happening with me or one of my kids or just something, I just was like, okay, I got to, this is, I don't have any kind of control over this.

This is not, it's out of control and, and, uh, how long was that going on for? You know, years, years, like, like, and, you know, ebb and flow, but it was, it was, it was ramping up. I could feel, I mean, I, it was definitely, it was definitely ramping up. And, you know, And I think it was connected to, obviously, it's always connected to something that you're suppressing. You're maybe the responsibility of actually being a dad and being a husband and just facing sobriety

or whatever it is. Who knows? But somewhere, something was getting suppressed. Something was getting, was getting, you know, held down. And then, and then, so I went into it and I just, like I said, stopped. And then I started just getting crazy sugar stuff. And I realized that it was just, it was also the, and I have a thing with sugar, like that, like, about it being like, having some sort of, and it was also the, and I have a thing with sugar, like that, like about it being like,

having some sort of, and it was sugar, it's a sugar addiction. It's the highest level. When you look at alcohol and you think about what is liquid sugar, it just goes right in your bloodstream, it takes the absorption is, you know, and then like having a mom that, that, you know, that was an alcohol like,

being around people watching. As soon as I stopped and I started watching people's transformation, I was like, whoa, wow, it's amazing. Like you don't, and when you're doing it, you don't even know. You don't even realize that you're just what you turn into. And like, whoa, I can't imagine what, because I could see people doing it that I thought they don't even turn into. You know, whoa, I can't imagine what, because I could see people doing it that I thought they don't even turn into anything. And I know I'm turning into something.

It must be just what I'm going. I go, wow, that was a transformation. And they don't even transform. Imagine what I was doing. And then, and then it just, you know, in the beginning, I would be like, I'd wake up and had a dream that I had to sip of something and I'd be all freaked out and mad about it and everything. But it became a real challenge. Like I made it a real like discipline thing.

And what I also did was I just took a Pellegrino bottle and removed the wine bottle and put the Pellegrino bottle. Every time I want to drink, I just drink the Pellegrino. Are you serious? Yeah, that's what I do. I'm not shitting you. That's exactly what I do. No, of course. Because a big piece of it is that. Makes you feel like you have something. Well, it's a I do. I'm not shitting. I just that's exactly what I know of course because it because a big

Make sure to feel like you have something. Well, it's a ritual because a part of it is just the whole symbolic Thing there's a symbolic process to the thing open the bottle get the thing for the thing There's like a there's a whole ritual to it which I think helps you deal with it. So yeah, I just did a You know replacement and like I said So yeah, I just did a replacement. And like I said, 15, and now I don't even, it's like I just, I'm like, yeah, I don't even, it's not even in my- Don't even think about it.

Not even close. It's not even- Not even close. No effort to stay off. No, sure. How fast did it take, or I guess, maybe it wasn't fast? How much time had passed before you saw improvement by giving up the bottle in your life.

Family business. Pretty immediately. Like already you're getting benefits right away. Like it's you're getting little pieces of hope. You just get a little hope, then you hold on to that hope, and then you get a little note of a little hope. Pretty soon you start piling up here. And then yeah, it happens, I felt like it happened pretty quickly. A lot of it was just the, the, the benefits of respecting yourself, you know, the benefits of, of your discipline like, okay, yeah, I did like two weeks, three weeks, a month, two months, three months, four months, pretty soon. You know, you're, I mean, now I don't even, it's not even part of the thing.

And I only bring it up because it's like, oh, we're talking about or something. But, but for, definitely for the first couple of years, you're like, you know, you're counting them. You're like, and you're, you're, you're, the reward is that you, like my mom said, you know, you, you, you are, you become, you respect yourself. You have, you're like, okay, I got some, I have control over this thing that I always said I did, but I never did, but now I do.

And that feels pretty amazing. That's a pretty, and you, you start to build off of that, but that's the, you know, that was my, you gotta use those little moments of, you know, those little pieces, whatever they become. And then all of a sudden, it's like, the girls are never around it. We don't drink at our house, they never see it.

So it's not just socially acceptable, you know, like it is everywhere, like it's just so abundant and everywhere you go, you see it everywhere, you're like, just everywhere. It's like every install, it's all okay. And it's like, it's not okay. It's like, how long did it take you to realize, how fast did you see improvement

with your relationship within the family, with Gabby, with your daughters, with people that are close to you? Did you see improvement by putting the bottle down immediately? I saw incremental improvement as I went. I just would see it incrementally, like you're seeing it within a month or a couple of weeks already within a month.

I mean, part of it is all of a sudden all this time you get, you don't realize how much time, how much time to go get the bottle open, the bottle drink, the bottle, the thing, this is time. Like you just don't, like you start to realize, wow, there's a lot of, it's like when you do fast, when you fast, you realize how much time you spend eating and thinking about food and getting the food

and making the food and eating, you know, it's like, and so the drinking is the same way. They're the time, the time. You're always sitting like it's like you're, you're all of a sudden in the evening, you're not distracted, you're not drinking, you're not also, I mean, I think one of the things I noticed or should I say, a difficult part of the process was my kind of loss of friends, like I lost a friend, like I had a group of friends that, that, oh, I lost. I lost.

I did, I lost that I just, all of a sudden I just, but our common thing was that we were all hanging together, drinking and then all of a sudden it was like, and then I'm a reminder to them that they're drinking so then they don't want to be around me. And then they're telling you, Hey, you used to be fun. You used to be so great. You were so awesome when you were drunk. And I was like, or when you were drinking or whatever it was.

And I'm like, was I? And if you think I was because of that, then obviously you don't have my back. First of all, or maybe you just say you're saying that because you're still drinking. And I'm not. So I'm like a, you know, a beak, I'm like a mirror to you there. You don't like all, yeah, I don't want to. You were so much better when you were drinking. You mean you think you're better when you're drinking or something.

So there was that transition that I had that was a little, and even once a while, I'm like, ah, how come it's weird that I don't have the relationship with those guys that I had that was a little, and even once a while, I'm like, ah, how come it's weird that I don't have the relationship with those guys that I had such a long term relationship with, but it was the foundation of it was, you know, having cocktails in the afternoon, or, you know what I mean. And I was pretty, like my drinking was, drink till it's dinner, eat, go to sleep. So I'm like, but I would train all day

so that I was really, that that first couple of glasses was really effective like you're really you're depleted your body's hungry and you drink a glass and you're just instantaneously buzzed Go tell you know dinner then drink then eat dinner and go to sleep because I never I think I've been my blessing, but I've always Sleeping sleeping is a big thing. So I don't, I don't like to compromise at any cost pretty much, unless you really get wound up and then you're gonna go, you know, in the moonlight

and see how far you can jump your BMW and the pineapple fields or something. No. Oh. You know. You know. How far did it go? They go far. You surprised. It's did it go? They go far.

You surprised. That's amazing actually. Good suspension. Right on, right on. Right on. But well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, I'd like to pick up on how faith played a role in your family dynamic. Yes, sir.

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They got a ton of good stuff. Once again, that's layeredsuperfoods.com. Use the promo code SRS that gets you 20% off. You guys are going to love this stuff. I guarantee it. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. Alright we're back from the break. We're going to talk about faith, or how faith is helped you with your family dynamic.

And so I'll open it up on those. I'll let you process what I just said and think about it while I'm talking. But I'm new to relatively new to Christianity. And I kind of grew up Catholic, the minute I left home, I never looked back and maybe stepped in a church two or three times since 18 to 40.

And then recently I just got back into it. Just looking for some truth with everything going on in the world. And I have a Bible study with just a very few families by house. And one of the families is my friend Todd, he's a pastor, and he had a great way of explaining things. And he says the word, the Bible, Christianity, whatever you want to call it, it's like a plumb line. And so a plumb line is how you tell if something's straight. And he says it's a, the word is a perfect reference to let you know if you're steering too far off course. And then you come back, you know, check yourself,

get into it a little bit, and then start veering off back to the plumb line, so you don't get too crooked. And so that was a, for me, a really good explanation on what it is, how to use it. And so I'll turn it over to you here. My mom was raised strict Catholic. So like nuns with rulers and slapped the hand. And so she didn't push anything on us as kids. Like we weren't, we weren't, like, there was no church, there was no, there was no, there was no,

like because she had had such a, you know, kind of a ruler-edged beating drove her out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and she felt that it was something for us to discover on our own, that we would, that we would just, you know, there was up to us, that we would discover it. And, you know, mine, my first saturation or intimate thing.

I mean, you know, when you grow up on Kauai and when you grow up in the ocean, you're a little, how would I say it's too elaborate, too amazing creation, it's too amazing to avoid not believing in something. I just think that you just can't get away from being in those worlds, the beauty of nature, and the power of nature, and all those, you know, the scurryingness of nature and just all the things that are in it make you, it's impossible unless you're blind or just not observing to not be at least open to that there is a grand architect. There is a plan.

So I think I already had that foundation, right? Being raised in such a beautiful place and such a scary ocean and such, you know, creatures and big creatures in the ocean and just all the things that happen. And then I got born again. I became born again Christian and started to read the Bible. Was there anything that triggered that specifically? I mean, I think it was searching that I had, I was looking.

It might have been a girl. It could have been a girl that was something about her and then I threw her a couple of friends. There was this curiosity that I was something that I was lacking. I just had an interest in it. I had it innate draw to it. Like you do to fear. Like maybe you have it in it. You have a, you have a, you know, it's like,

I tell people, people like scary movies, you know, it's like, I'm sorry, I tell people, people like scary movies, you know, because they're missing fear in their life, because normally we were scared a lot, and we have like a, you know, like you have a space in your stomach for dessert, no matter how much you eat, you know, you have a space you need fear in your body. Well, there's a space for belief and the Lord in your body, all of us have it. And it's just, you know, what are you filling it with or is it empty, is there? So I had that space that I was looking for,

the empty space that I needed to put some answers to, to put some understanding to. How old are you at this point? Probably 18. Okay. 19, 19, 18, 19. Okay. Like early right then my 1819 820

just in that in that That range and then And I'd seen I mean I've been around seven day Adventists. I've been around other kinds of you know I know some friends are Mormons. I mean I've been around some different things but but Got into it like got into the Bible and started to really like the teachings, the parables. They just rang in my heart.

They were truth. It was truth. Truth ring rang in me. I was like, that's truth, that's truth, that's truth, that's truth, that's truth, that's truth, that's truth. Really felt attracted to that kind of learning, you know, that learning, that the parables are such a way to just fit in my, it's way my brain works. I think that's why they're like that. That's why they teach in parables because just those, it's to make it, it's just the easiest

way we learn. It's how we understand. And so those, and then the tools, just every, every, every, it's like a tool case. It's like tools for your, for your, for your life, like tools to, you know, I would see the rewards of that, right? So I would see the rewards of walking when I was using the plumb line. You know, I would see the rewards of when I was on the line, and I would see the lack of rewards or the, you know, the side effects of not being on the line. And then, for a long time, I was like, well, I spent a lot of time reading the Bible and only and it was like, I the only big I ever had. I think I read it. I might have read it twice. Read it like read the thing and read it and read it. It was like, I

go, I tell people, I go, there's only one book you need even worth reading. And that's this book right here. And so, yeah, that was, and, you know, Gabby has faith as well. And that's, I think that's one of the, that's absolutely, I mean, your values, connected to your faith, your faith is what, I mean, if you don't have similar values, which is your similar faith, it's hard to make anything work in a relationship, I think for sure. But I just know in my own personal life that that that those tools,

you know, I said this before I go, if you just looked at the commandments and you said, okay, I'm going to just going to look at these commandments and I'm going to try to walk, walk and do these things right there. It's in your best interest. Like, it's in your best interest that you will have a better life. Like, just like, let's not say where we go, what we do, we just go in me, let's go present day, we're in it right now, we do it. We use these parables, we learn from these lessons. The more you do it and the more you walk the line, the better life to me. It's just it just is. It just will be in, I've spent time participating in a lot

of church stuff. I felt at times the hypocrisy that was in it which drove me away from that structure of it. I think what I've really tried to do in my own personal life is just live by it. Never mind professing conduct. It's about the conduct. It's about at the end of the day,

you can profess all you want. You know, but if you're, you know, don't go, don't go repent on Sunday and then live like crap all week long. It's like, live like you don't need to repent. Like, like live all week long so you don't have to go repent on Sunday. But, but yeah, the teachings, I mean, I love, you know, when I look at, well, first of all,

when you, like, one of my favorite passage of the whole book, and will always be, is first Corinthians 13, just because of the definition of love, you know, hope, faith, belief, and love. Love is the greatest, right? So that doesn't matter if you had, you could have the faith to move around, but you didn't have love, you love is the greatest, right? So that doesn't matter if you had, you could have the faith to move around but you didn't have love, you'd be nothing. And so all this stuff that love is the king and when you, when you,

and it's also not easy to do, right? It's like these are challenges put before us. It's a little bit like looking at the ideal family, or looking at a whole family and saying, how do I want to have a whole family? Well, that's the, you're striving towards that, right? So I look at that book as a manual for life. Like that's a manual for life. And the truth is in it, right? And the truth is in a manual for life. Like that's a manual for life.

And the truth is in it, right? And the truth is in a lot of places. Again, it's, you know, we spoke about being a hunter but the truth is in a lot of places. But the truth is all over that book. Like you wanna see truth, you open those things, you're like truth, truth, truth. And that your plumb line is that your tool

that you can use to help you in this, in, in, in everything. I don't know. I just don't, I don't see where there's ever, uh, you know, judge not that you not be judged. I mean, just, just, they're just no end to the, the, to the, to the, you know, to the, to the parables to the, to the teachings that, I mean, it just rang in my heart and I think that that's the, I know that that's been, and it's an ongoing thing. It appears to me, and I'm not through it all.

So it appears to me it's a roadmap on how to live. You know, and- Yes, sir. And no matter whether you believe in it or whether you don't, it will make you a better person. No doubt about it. Without a doubt. There's no, that's what I'm saying for me. I go, even, you don't need to believe in it,

but will it make your life a better life? Yes, like it's written, it's like you said, it's the roadmap to have, to have a better life. Like when you're here, it's, it's trying to allow you to miss a lot of hazards. It's like it's showing you, okay, here's the hazards. Now if you just go like this and you go like that and you go like that, you're gonna miss the hazards. You're gonna miss the hazards. Like. And so I don't know how, I don't know in which situation that can be bad. I don't know in which situation that you wouldn't wanna do that.

Like I just don't, for me, I would never understand when you wouldn't wanna miss the hazards or why wouldn't you want to live in a way that would allow you to avoid some suffering and heartache and the plagues and the curses and all the stuff that it's trying to help you avoid? Like why wouldn't you want to seem like,

I mean, some of it's unavoidable. It's like, you know, I mean, there's certain things that you just can't avoid. It's like, you certain situations, you're just cannot avoid. that you just can't avoid. It's like you certain situations, you just cannot avoid. So when you can't avoid things, probably a good idea to avoid. Like I'm all about avoiding, let's avoid because sometimes you're not gonna avoid

and you're gonna be just like here I am and now deal with it. Yeah, yeah. Let's thank you for diving into that. I appreciate that Let's dive in you've been you've had a successful marriage 26 years. Yes, sir. You've been with Gabby How did you guys meet She met we met on a TV show a TV what TV show? I was called the extremist and it was a show that she was hosting and she would interview people that were doing all kinds of different

radical things. It used to be called MTV Sports and it turned into the extremist where she would interview a skydiver then go skydiving and she'd interview a shark diver and go shark diving and she would do a drag racer and ride drive dragsters and she did about 60 or 70 shows and I was one of the shows at the end. She had already and I was I was already married at the time actually and so and I was not I wasn't in a very good place in my in my relationship and And so the last thing I was ever looking for was to to be with anyone else. I wasn't I was that was the furthest thing from my mind and and

especially given my and part of the reason why I was married to begin with was had to do with my my faith that I was not wanting to live, you know, in San and until I was like, okay, I'm gonna get married to do the right, you know, just it was some of those beliefs that I, and was living by until I was like, okay, I'm, and then I was in a position that wasn't, it wasn't great.

And so, which so then when I meet her, the last thing I'm even thinking about is like, I'm just like, oh, here we go, we got some bimbo, pretty girl that's gonna ask me some stupid questions, great, and I was just focused on riding giant waves and try not to die and then dealing with a crazy person that I was trying not to live with. And so, and so, she, she, we had an interview.

And so she, we had an interview and I describe it like love at first conversation because after the conversation we had, I think I was hit by a giant love bolt, you know, like a lightning bolt hit me and I was just like, what even, I don't even know what happened. I was just completely like broadsided. And, and I ended up living with the Aviate days later. And, and, and then we were to get we've been together since. What? So you guys hit it off immediately. Yes, sir. It sounds like you thought she was a pretty... Yeah, and from what I understand, she actually thought the same about you initially. Probably. So what was the conversation? What was the interview?

What hit you? Just her intelligence, just the way her mind was working and what she was... just the way her mind was working in what she was just her sincerity, her curiosity, her real, she was smart. She was, and I had a smart mom. So I know what smart is. You know, I don't need, doesn't take me long to know what smart is.

And she was smart. I'm like, she's this is a very smart person. And again, it was still... It was out of our hands. It was out of our hands. It was one of those things that you just, you're going along down a road. And all of a sudden, it's just a hard ride. And you just didn't even have the wheel, the wheel.

This was like, okay, now I'm going down this other road. And so that was it. It wasn't just so uncomplicated to be together. I mean, I moved to California and then she was coming back with me and I was dealing with having, being married and trying to, you know, work that out and I had a daughter. So it was not a simple, it wasn't, if there was any opportunity to have it being kind of not convenient, we could have, I mean, at any second, we would have been just, if I, oh, yeah, we can't do that because that's just not going to happen.

But it wasn't, we didn't do that because that's just not gonna happen, but it wasn't we didn't have any of that that was just it was it was Yeah, it was it was You know it was a complicated relationship I could have been comped divine could have been compromised very easily at any second at any second there was you know and opportunities along the way to that we that we that we that we that we work out You know that we and I mean listen. And I'm so blessed that she can put up with me. I'm just hard to put up with myself. And she can somehow survive it. I'm thankful that she just doesn't respond to every single thing I do and say. Because if she did, we probably would, you know, I'd be alone.

So eight days. So you guys made you do a TV interview eight days later. Yeah, I took her surfing. I took her surfing. That was probably the part that really sent it over the edge, because we were surfing together. And that was kind of intimate, which, which was it, it wasn't meant to be intimate. It wasn't, it wasn't like I was like the last thing in

my brain. And and and it gave me the kind of woman. If there was if there was any any and when I know as I know her now, I mean, the fact that that if I had any little like weird like if I was at all like, like hey babe, where are you going? What are you doing like if there was just a scent of that which I don't have and and I mean I don't know how she Understood me as

Maybe as better than I understand me. Like maybe she knew she knew things about me, that I didn't know about myself, maybe in some ways. I have a feeling like my, I mean, I don't know about my loyalty, but my desire to have a family and be together and all that kind of stuff. Like I think she saw that stuff, like I think only like a woman can. I think that that I think their ability to to to to to know us in a way is far beyond our capacity.

We even we know us for our kind of our more immediate things, but we don't really know ourselves like they do. I think it's part of it. It says in the interest of the species, like we need to survive. We need, they need to know that what we, and when things are optimum, when people are clear in thinking, but,

but we were in some ways, I was like, you know, it was like, I was in a trance, like I was in a, and her friends are like, how do you mean what? Huh, what? Like they just, it didn't, it didn't all, it didn't, it made sense and it didn't make sense, but it was definitely, you know, when she't all, it didn't, it made sense and it didn't make sense, but it was definitely, you know, when she tells the story about her friends,

it said, oh, you're doing a story on that guy and they're like, oh, Mrs. Hamilton and she'd always be quiet, he's, you know, whatever. And just like they had the, there was all this other, there was all these things that went on. External influences. Yeah. What, I mean, eight days, eight days to move in together.

And you left your wife. I was living in a warehouse on my property next to the house. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But yes, eight days later, I was buried and I moved. What was that convert?

Whose idea was it? What was the solely way to be together? Really, so it was mutual. It was just some coming out and I'm moving in. Yeah. And that was it. That's it. How long did you guys date before you got married? Couple of years, because that's how long it took to get

out of the other one. Right on, right on. And she was awesome from the beginning with my daughter. She just took her in like, like no problem. Like made her loved on her and made her part of the family. Really? Oh, yeah, instant, like not even like in a, in a, in a way that you, then a way that you would make you be like, yeah, that's right.

That's why I'm with her kind of thing, you know, like acted in a way that you didn't, that you were like, oh yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's why. Do you think, do you think your oldest daughter felt any type of resentment or for you leaving and going? You know, if she did, it was probably connected more to outside influences than it was her own personal experience. So maybe it could have been some experience. So maybe it was could have been some, you know, programming. So it didn't, it didn't, it didn't, it did not affect your relationship with your daughter and, and, and, and a, an, and a negative, and a negative way. No. No. That's great. But she was, but she was also very young. Like, baby, she was a baby. So for her, she didn't even know, she didn't even know the,

like baby, she was a baby. So for her, she didn't even know. She didn't even know the, she didn't even know, like she really never knew it. She only was more, like I said, if there was anything that influenced it, I mean, her, you know, my oldest daughter's relationship with Gabby is amazing. Like they have an amazing, amazing, almost so amazing that it can be confusing. Because society would be like, that, you know, that's your such and such and that's your, you know what I mean? Like society puts stuff on us, but left to our own thing, we would only go by experiences. And again, the amount of time and the amount of love and the amount of effort that was put into that relationship has made, has created something that you just can't all the social pressures

and constructs in the world can't erase that stuff. So back to that, it's back to the time and the effort put in. The amount of love and the amount of nurture, I mean, it's, even when there is at times that some outside influences, it still can't. You can't, when you get into the thing, it's still that has that core, that core that you built. You just, you built that. You put the time in. It's like you don't, you don't, you, that stuff is, can handle some pretty good rocks. It can handle some, you know, it can handle some shaking when you,

when you put that, again, the time and the effort into the love is, it's, you know, I mean, it's... Man, what a great example. You know, great example of a dad, great example of a husband, great example of changing the trajectory of your lineage, you know, breaking the generational trauma. I mean, you're just a really good example for people to look at. Thank you.

Well, I think it's ongoing. If I get to be, it's only I'm getting to be. I'm just getting to be. And I, and I, and I get a back to responsibility, you know, back to that, that. I mean, listen, what is the good book say, you know, let he,, that, I mean, listen, what is it? What is the good book say, you know, let he without sin cast a first on? Look around, no one can throw anything. So at the end of the day, we're all, we're all in the same boat, you know,

the thing is, is we always look over and we think, oh, yeah, it's better over there. And then you get over there, and we have a saying, it's all grass. You get across the fence, you're over there, you're like, oh, here we are again, back in the grass, back in the grass. It's like, it's the same grass. It's like, no, no, it's better over there and you go over there and you're like, oh, no, back in the grass. It's like, it's not, we think it's, we think it's so much better, but everything has, it's, I mean, it's, we're all in, my friend does the same. We're all in the same boat. We're on Earth. We're humans, you know, and I think because cause it's like even in my upbringing, and somebody says to me, they go,

hey, you know, where are you from? And I go earth, earth, I'm a human from earth. And then if you're something different, then we have a long conversation. Let's, then we should sit down and talk. Then we're, you know, like if you're not from earth and you're not a human, we need to really, like, I can't wait to hear a lot about this story.

But if other than that, let's get past that stuff because we're so caught up in the, I'm hearing, I'm this and I'm from hearing, I'm not, and that's just all division stuff. This just all keeps us all away. When you're really dinged down, I think we all really want the same thing. Like we want peace, we want happiness, we want thing.

Like we want, that's what we want. Like, okay, there's a few people that are maybe a little bit chemically off and they got to maybe, you know, work out, need some good food and get some sleep. But like, we really want the same things. We, we do, when we're in, when we're of, of sound mind and spirit, when we, you know, I have to clarify that because there's some, obviously, there's some demonic forces in the planet. So when you're

Possessed, that's a different story. I'm just saying, but when you know, there's the majority of us who are You know, we're people where we we want the basically the same things that you know that And it's like I like to get by that because I think because of my upbringing and I think the separate, you know, hey, where are you from? I'm from over here. I mean, we used to have crazy stuff. Like if you were from the other side of the island, you were from someplace else.

Well, what side are you on from the west side? Well, you from the west side. What are you doing over here? This is the north side. Well, I'm from the east side. Well, you're on the east side. Well, what on the west side? On the south side.

It's like, you have the south side, the east side, west side. And you're all like acting like you're from different places. It's an island in this big. You're like no you're from the same island You know, and there's a little bit like the same thing like you're from the earth like but Yeah, well, and then you get belief in there too, and you know, that just really again man's you know Another one of man's construct. At least a good book is got the wisdom of the truth, right? Because the truth is indifferent. You know, lately you hear people talk about truth being,

like, there's different truths. No, there's no different truths. There's one truth. If there's differentiation, then these aren't the truth. The truth is only one truth. It's like gravity. You fall, you land. Like east, west, south, north.

Okay, truth, the moon, the sun, truth. Okay, love, truth, peace, truth. Okay, loyalty, truth. Okay, these are truths. There's not a different kind of loyalty. There's not one one loyalty here and this is another don't turn a lot of the over here. No, there's one kind of loyalty. I can there's a certain thing that makes that what it is. There's one kind of love. There's a certain thing that makes that what it is. There's certain, I mean, and I, this all the words in such, I don't know, I think that we're

playing with definitions and stuff, and that leads us, that's just confusion. Again, it's back to creating complication to disguise imperfection. Yeah, divide and conquer. Well, an accountability to get people to actually have to do the work. You gotta do the work.

People gotta do the, I mean, it's, you know, and listen, I've been fortunate to do to be able to ride a surfboard. Like that's like, what a crazy blessing that is. I mean, I'm like, you know, like that's a, that's a, how does that even possible? Like, yeah. So I want to move into your surfing career. Before I do, I get two pieces of advice I'd like to get from you for the audience. One is what advice you have for men to be a good husband?

For a man to be respect your wife. Respect your wife. That, the first thing, you know, they did a study on relationships and they said that the one of the few things, probably the only single thing that was consistent among successful relationships was that the man respected the woman. I think that that, because if you respect your wife and it's ongoing, it's probably something, it's not like you just respect her

and then you don't have to respect her. Like this is probably an ongoing thing. I think that that sets you up for success in your relationship. And, you know, I'm sorry. Say I'm sorry. You're right and I'm sorry. Hey, it works.

26 years. Yeah, yeah. That's the only advice I have. You're right, and I'm sorry and respect your respect, her. I think that that's our, for us, I think that's our challenge, is to have respect, and then also just, you know, and be patient.

You know, I've learned it, and I'm not always great at it, but you need to, women are moving at a different gear than we are. They're moving at a different speed, their clocks, different, their timings, different, their whole thing is different. And for us, the way we are, we're so, you know, we have a certain kind of movement,

and there is a different movement. They're just moving in a different thing. And I'm learning that I'm still continuing every day to kind of try to acclimate myself to that different, that different speed, that different movement, that different, it's just a different, they just move at it, you know, I always, I make a joke and I'm like, you know,

is it man time or wool man time? You know, there's like two different, there's two different clocks. Like I got my clock and then I got her clock and is it like where does the, where does the clocks move? You know, and they're not the same. Like 12 o'clock on the man clock

could be 12, 45 on the wool man clock. You don't know them. Yeah, two different algorithms. That's right. Two different. That's right. Second, second piece of advice. You get three daughters. You're very close with. You guys have a beautiful family dynamic. Yes, sir. Fatherhood. Yeah, the, that's a, that's a, it's an, it's an involving thing. You know, if somebody said to me, you know, being a dad, I said, really, I feel like being a good father is that you're like a post in the middle of the house

and you're just holding up the roof and you're holding onto the beam of the ceiling of the roof. And every once in a while they come in and they kind of touch the post to feel if it's there and if it's steady and so you're just like this this this this post that holds everything up and And that's I mean when you look at the parable of that like how what that represents as as for your for your girls Like that you're just solid and you're a post and then and then

You know I I am all about, first of all, take advantage of the time because it's gonna go like this, it's gonna be gone. And so you just better get, you're not gonna be able to make it up, you're not gonna be able to go back and, you know, be there and take them to school or, you know, every time you get a nut, or whatever opportunity you get to be with them, milk it because it goes beyond fast.

Like they just go, before you know if they're adults and they're out the door and you're like, goodbye and it's like, and you don't get to go back. You don't get to go back and say, hey wait a second, can we just, can we, you know, can we do those things that we got to do along the way? And so, but they're gonna learn, you know, they're gonna learn courage from you.

They're gonna learn, they're gonna learn, you know, your job is to make them courageous, like to make your girls courageous and to give them self-confidence, like that's part of what we do. And part of that post and that is that reliability, you know, that that that that makes them secure. It's interesting because I've watched my daughters have a security when they, you know, they'll go out and they'll be able to go out and stay at a friend's house

or go out when they're even young and never would they need to come home really or anything. They just were, they had a certain, because a new home was there. They knew home was safe. They knew who home was solid and they could rely on it. And so I think that there's something, but that being that rock, you know, be a, I mean, it says be a rock, like be a rock, like be stable, solid there, and then take advantage, take advantage of it,

take because it's gonna, they're gonna be adults. And then you're not gonna go back and say, hey, can we redo that stuff? And yeah, it's the best. I will personally take that advice. It's the best. It's the best. I mean, I'm definitely realizing how fast that all those,

it's a blink of the eye. And it just seems to accelerate even more. It just like, it ramps up and before you know it, they're just like looking at you in the eye and then they're a thing and it's like then they're wanting there. They're in a car and then they're driving and then you know, my oldest daughter's off has a whole life and you know, we, I mean, we get talked all the time and see her, but still it's they're gone. They're just and you don't get to go back and you'll make it all up. Yeah. Is it exciting watching them, you know, when they leave and yeah, yeah, watching them grow as humans and adults and well, you know, they say if you do a really good job,

they leave easily. So that's the reward, right? You do a great job and then they just walk out the door, you're like, what's that? But that's you did a great job and then they just walk out the door. You're like, what the, what the, what the, what the, but that's, you did a good job. If they have a hard time leaving, it means you, maybe, but yeah, and they're also different to each one has a different, it's like, it's crazy how they can be so different from two of the same people. Just how does it even, just each one comes out,

just completely, completely different and and and it's just the But it is interesting to see the people that they're gonna be like you just you and you watch I'm like wow it's gonna be an interesting show. This is a crazy show right now like you get to see them kind of you know evolve and And you go through the thing. I don't think I've ever felt more vulnerable in my life. And I don't think I've never in my life had it. I don't care what situation I've been in,

hanging from a cliff. I just never felt the vulnerability that I have with the girls just because it's not, you have no participation, you have to just watch. And you just, I think that's one of the, I think that's one of the lessons in the process is that vulnerability. You just never, you don't know what vulnerability is until you have a child and then when you have a daughter, you just, I mean, you're just, when mom puts them in a car and then they drive out the driveway, you're just going, like, because you just,

there they go and, you know, faith, the world's, there's faith is in the, you know, in their hands and you have nothing, you're just like, you, but it's, yeah, but at the same time, I think that's what brings us that, that thing, we get that joy from it because of that, because we get that vulnerability. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So let's move into surfing.

Yes, sir. First time on a surfboard. Young, baby, throw them in the throw them on the short break, throw them on the board, you know, urchins in the butt, like super young, super young, just go on the board and then, and then had a board made for me when I was like a actual board. That was my first surf board, which was, in those days, it was,

you know, I, part of it is my age, when I was a child, there just, I mean, there was no such thing as a boogie board. Like, there was no foam boards, there was no porch for kids. I mean, the group of kids that were surfing were few and far between. You could probably count all the kids

that were surfing in the world, my age during my generation. It was just like a non-existent thing. So a lot of it was like pieces of surfboards. Like you'd get a broken piece and that would be your surfboard or some reject thing that was some guy made high on acid or something crazy. And like, here's this weird thing,

and you'd just, but it doesn't work, but that would be your first board. And so I had, I actually got a board made for me when I was a child. And Bill Hamilton made me a board and he shaped and made boards. One of the incidents of the many that I was in was I saw him shaping

He was shaping in the house that we lived in downstairs and he and then I went after he was gone and I took a hand saw Which I saw him used but I took it on these new these ones that were completely finished They had been hand-sandedsanded and I saw big chunks out of the boards, which you can imagine, provoked him in some sort of way, which was probably not good. So it's that bad combination of good temper and misbehavior, not a good mixture, but, yeah, so I had bored mate from him and then, and then just started my, you know, I'm just possessed, I was just possessed to surf, like that's, and I was obnoxious, I had their stories

when I would run around and like, I would, because I think I was obnoxious. There were stories when I would run around. And I would, because I think I was so proud to get a dad that I used to go and bang into people and go, you know who my dad is, I had that in me, because I didn't have a dad. So when I got a dad, that was a surfer. And Bill was a great surfer. And in his day, he was known as a style master.

So he had one of the most beautiful styles in surfing and was very well known in surfing and had, you know, his in movies. And so, so it was like, I got this, you know, I got my hero to be my dad and I would go and brag and know my dad's Bill Hamilton, blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. Then be like, come on, get away punk. You know, that kind of stuff. But, but yeah, so I started that, you know, that I just started surfing as a little rat. And then just, you know, used to be, there's all these stories of me just being obnoxious

and yelling and this out in the lineup and jockey in. And there's a lot of pecking order in surfing. Surfing has a very big pecking order. There's a lot of a lot of, there's a whole hierarchy. There's a whole structure within a lineup. That's pretty normal, especially like in Hawaii and in other surf locations,

but mostly every great wave in the world has a whole pecking order, a structure of who gets the waves, you know, who has priority, and then everybody down, down, down, then you have the guys that are the worst at the bottom, they get the, they get all the leftovers. And so there's a whole like a almost a predatory old structure, who, structure. So as a young surfer in Hawaii growing up, you're having to kind of deal with that and try to work your way up into that into the hierarchy. Okay.

Which is an interesting process. Yeah, it sounds like it. Next on the Sean Ryan show. You know, everything I am and have is some indirect part of the ocean and so I owe it my life. You talk about some near-death experiences. And we go into some of those. I was in Oregon in this white salmon river, and we were doing, there was a river rafting trip. They stopped before this giant waterfall. They pulled the raft in, they made us walk around, and I said to the guy, well, can't we go off that thing? He goes, well, we don't go off that thing.

And I go, well, what if I want to go off that thing? He goes, well, we don't go off that thing. And I go, well, what if I want to go off that thing? He goes, well, I can't stop you. So I swam out into the river and I swam right into the heart of it. And as I was going off, I was going off head first because I was going to go like that, right? And I heard the guy yell, feet first from the shore, so I kind of rolled over and turned around and went, went feet first and I went over the waterfall and I landed underwater on a big stone with the waterfall holding me down. I was just sitting there and I was like,

and I was like, can't move and I tried to, I couldn't press and I was just, and I was sitting there, and I was like, can't move, and I tried to, I couldn't press, and I was just, and I'm sitting there, and I just got a vision of a skeleton with a life preserver on it. And I ended up, after not being able to move it all, I ended up moving my leg, and when I moved my leg, it spun me out from the stone,

spit me out of the back of the thing, and my friend was already swimming from the side below and the pool had come out to the, because I hadn't come up. You're quite the adrenaline, Jelkie. I think we have a lot of coming. you