The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka

235. Kelly Slater: 11x World Surfing Champion Shares His Diet Protocol, Training Routine, and Recovery Tips

96 min
Jan 13, 20265 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Kelly Slater, 11-time world surfing champion, discusses his decades-long athletic career, health optimization protocols including water fasting and food combining, recovery strategies, and entrepreneurial ventures including wave pool technology and an upcoming artificial wave community in Austin.

Insights
  • Sustained peak performance across 30+ years requires evolving motivation—from youthful ambition to mastery to purpose-driven legacy building
  • Water fasting and dietary optimization (food combining, eliminating processed foods) provided measurable performance gains and health transformation
  • Adrenaline and flow state override pain perception, enabling elite athletes to compete through significant injuries (torn labrum, broken foot)
  • Surfing provides unique neurological benefits—grounding, negative ions, flow state—that modern life increasingly lacks, driving addiction to the sport
  • Infrastructure and systemic change matter more than individual effort for environmental problems like ocean plastic pollution
Trends
Longevity and anti-aging protocols gaining mainstream adoption among elite athletes competing into their 50sRegenerative agriculture and land stewardship emerging as lifestyle priority for high-net-worth individualsArtificial wave technology transitioning from niche to destination-based community development modelBiohacking and functional medicine replacing traditional sports medicine in elite athlete trainingPurpose-driven entrepreneurship and networking replacing pure competitive drive in post-peak athlete careersOcean conservation and sustainable brand building becoming competitive differentiator in action sportsCold plunge and sauna protocols standardizing as recovery modality across endurance and combat sportsDecentralized brand ownership returning to action sports after corporate consolidation era (2000s-2010s)
Topics
Water Fasting and Intermittent Fasting ProtocolsFood Combining and TrophologyLongevity and Anti-Aging StrategiesFlow State and Peak Performance PsychologyPost-Career Entrepreneurship and PurposeOcean Conservation and Plastic PollutionArtificial Wave Pool TechnologyCold Plunge and Sauna RecoveryGrounding and Negative Ion TherapyInjury Recovery and Post-Operative RehabilitationCompetitive Mindset and Rivalry DynamicsSurfing Judging and Subjectivity in SportsAthletic Conditioning Without Cross-TrainingRegenerative Farming and Land StewardshipBrand Evolution in Action Sports Industry
Companies
Quicksilver
Major surf apparel brand founded by surfers; discussed as example of brand authenticity decline post-IPO
Rip Curl
Wetsuit and apparel company founded by surfers; example of action sports brands built to fund lifestyle
Billabong
Surf apparel brand founded by surfers; discussed as part of 1960s-70s origin story of action sports industry
DC Shoes
Skateboarding shoe brand; mentioned as part of Quicksilver corporate portfolio expansion
Roxy
Women's action sports brand under Quicksilver; discussed as part of brand portfolio strategy
Volcom
Action sports brand with surf origins; mentioned as example of surfer-founded companies
World Surf League (WSL)
Professional surfing tour operator; replaced ASP and changed media rights and sponsorship model
Florence Marine
Surf brand founded by John John Florence; example of new generation surfer-owned brands
Outerknown
Kelly Slater's personal surf brand; created to align with environmental and quality values
People
Kelly Slater
11-time world surfing champion; primary guest discussing 30+ year athletic career and health protocols
Gary Brecka
Host of The Ultimate Human podcast; human biologist conducting interview on longevity and biohacking
Andy Irons
Rival surfer (deceased 2010); had intense 6-8 year rivalry with Slater in early 2000s
Tom Carroll
Two-time world surfing champion; mentored young Slater on cross-training and nutrition
Shane Dorian
Big wave surfer; invented inflatable safety vest after near-drowning experience in 2013
Dr. Joel Wallach
Health researcher; cassette tape about nutritional deficiencies inspired Slater's health journey
Mike Meldman
Golf course developer; partner with Slater on artificial wave community project in Austin
John John Florence
Professional surfer; founded Florence Marine brand as example of new surfer-owned companies
Tiger Woods
Golf legend; referenced as example of athlete dominating sport over extended period
Michael Jordan
Basketball legend; referenced as example of sustained peak performance across decades
Vitor Belfort
UFC fighter; became champion at 18, nearly again at 36; compared to Slater's longevity
DJ Dillashaw
UFC fighter; won two championships with torn shoulders; discussed pain management in competition
Billy Davis
Two-time Super Bowl champion wide receiver; discussed flow state and focus under pressure
Quotes
"No one dies from old age. There's no such thing. You die of a deficiency of something over a long period of time."
Dr. Joel Wallach (via Kelly Slater)Early in health journey discussion
"I just love surfing more than anything. I grew up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I just absolutely fell in love with it."
Kelly SlaterOn motivation and passion
"When you first make a change, you're in control of with your body. It's so exciting and inspiring."
Kelly SlaterOn health transformation
"Surfing really provides feeling and I think most humans nowadays, with the way life is, we've lost that feeling."
Kelly SlaterOn surfing's neurological benefits
"Finding your purpose in life and living up to your potential. And if you don't know what your purpose is, finding it."
Kelly SlaterOn what it means to be the ultimate human
Full Transcript
When I was first starting out, all I wanted to do was I wanted to be the number one surfer in the world. I won my first world title at 20. I went from 43rd in the world to first. Near the ocean, it's such a big part of your life. You know, surfing really provides feeling. I think most humans nowadays, with the way life is, we've lost that feeling. In surfing, it's kind of more personal because you and the ocean, and there's not other people playing this game that you're in. Whether it's just a speed of the wave, it's a real connection to nature. Whether you knew it or not, and you're spending so much time moving your body and grounded, touching the surface of the earth is one of the healthy things that you can do. I was in a health food shop, and there was a tape by Dr. Joel Wallach. He said, no one dies from old age. There's no such thing. You die of a deficiency of something over a long period of time. I was like, this is fuel from my fire right here. I'm going to actually start being healthy. And then I got into water fasting. I think water fasting is game changers, and there's always these life changing testimonials that we get out of it. When you first make a change, you're in control of with your body. It's so exciting and inspiring. What keeps you passionate and still having that drive to stay at the top of your game? Because I'm sure the entire surf world wanted to knock you off. You're going to hate this, Gary. You're going to hold this against me here. Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, Human Biologist Gary Breka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between today is definitely one of those in between podcasts. Eleven time world champion, surfer, Kelly Slater, is here on the Ultimate Human Podcast today. I'm so excited to run this podcast. Most of my questions aren't even about surfing, which is really odd for the greatest surfer of all time. And we had an unbelievable hour long conversation about shark attacks before the podcast. So maybe we can get into that while the cameras are rolling. But welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Hey, good to see you. Great to have you, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for making the trip. You know, I'm always fascinated by not just athletic professionalism or sports domination, but someone that can actually stay at the top of their game in a sport for a prolonged period of time. Like, you know, like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. It's not like they were great once, but they were great over such a long period of time. And I find it absolutely fascinating that you are the youngest surfer to world champion, chip when you were 20. And you were the oldest surfer to win a world championship at 39. 39, yeah. And I remember I nearly, I very nearly got one or two in my 40s, but just didn't get that. I did you hear close? Came really close. You would have to break your own record, right? Yeah, because you were the oldest at 39 to you. And the oldest in your 40s too. Came close, came close. I mean, that's like some Tom Brady game stuff. I mean, and I remember, you know, I'm in a UFC fan for a long time, and I remember Vita Bellfort. Yeah, good for me. Yeah, he's a friend of mine too. And it became a champion at 18 and he almost became a champion again at 36. And now, within the same book ending career. That was a Jones fight, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's somebody stood in the way of that one. So I wonder if you would, I mean, I have so many questions for you, but I'd wonder if you would just sort of let us into the mindset of what keeps you passionate and committed and still having that drive to stay at the top of your game, because I'm sure the entire surf world wanted to knock you off. Right? There's a lot of young surfers that wanted that championship too. Yeah. That's a deal when you're young, after the top older veterans and then when you're the old veteran, all the young guys are after you. And I surfed against a lot of guys on tour whose dads I surfed against. Really? When I was first on, their dads were kind of like the, you know, the veterans are the older guys in me. Yeah. I don't, look, I've worked hard, but it's not hard for me to want to do what I've done, because I love surfing so much. I just love surfing more than anything, you know. Really? When I was a kid, I just grew up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I just absolutely fell in love with it. It was different than the other sports and things to me. I felt like I had a very different intimate relationship with it, and I felt like I was learning things about the ocean and waves and surfing and how to go about it that no one had ever known or something. That felt to me, you know? That's not to say I felt like as an kid I was better than my heroes or something, but I felt like I had this keen sense that my relationship with surfing and waves was my own. I played football, you know, I sort of told the story to a lot of friends that my dad was our football coach, and I would skip practice to go surfing. I made your dad really happy. That's how you know if your dad's a cool thing about what you do, you know? Was he supportive? No, he was fine, whatever. You want a world championship? Yeah, he was like, all right, you can skip practice. But I played basketball and baseball and football, and I loved them all. I was a big baseball and football fan as a kid and knew everything about the sports. It was actually quite good at football, and I was quite good in the field at baseball. I wasn't a great hitter, but I really understood, I could see the plays almost in slow motion and I loved the game, I studied it so much as a kid. Right, both the games. But funny story, I told someone this story the other day, the ASTROs used to do their training in Cocoa near where we lived. Okay. And so we used to go to some of the games and my brother caught a pop fly one time. I probably shouldn't even tell the story, but I'm going to because my dad has passed away now. But my brother caught a pop, you know, a foul ball. Yeah. And he was probably about 11 or something, 12 years old. And he's like chilling his friends and then this like 15 year old girl comes and swipes it out of his hand. Really? Because he goes running away with the ball. And my dad's got a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and she comes running by my dad grabbed the scroll by the hair. No. Took the ball out of her hand and give it back to my brother. That actually happened on national TV just recently too. Yeah, and the woman took it from the kid. Yeah, the woman took it from the kid. And she was like the most hated woman and all that's why I was telling this story because it was kind of different because my brother literally had possession of ball for a long period of time. It was his, you know, and so my dad was like, yeah, whatever, give that thing back. Yeah. But that was, you know, that was in the 70s. Yeah, you know, well, there's no social media. So 300 million people didn't see it. Yeah, there was no live camera. I literally think this woman was like, you know, I do that this year. But this woman's like the most hated woman on social media. I didn't even see the story. I just saw the hate on social media and then I started digging into it. Now, I saw the video and I was like, hmm, what a bitch, you know, she kind of deserved it, you know? I mean, if a 11 year old kid's got it or any kid's got possession of the ball, I mean, for the love of God, man, you're an adult. I mean, just let the kid have the ball. You were a kid one time too. You know, I sat down with a two time Super Bowl champion. He was, his name is Billy Davis. He was a wide receiver and very dominant during his career, he took the Cowboys Super Bowl. If that tells you the era that he played in. And I asked him the same question and he told me this story about how he would, because I said, how did you fight like the fame and the start of them and the notoriety and how did you not just go after all the pleasures of the flesh? I mean, your boys are going to, you know, nightclubs and the drinkin and, you know, you went from being not someone to means and then all of a sudden you're wealthy. And so you're getting pulled in all these directions, you know, there's women, there's booze, there's, there's all kinds of distractions. And he said there was, there was a moment when I would, I would break off the line. And he said, I'd be running down the field full at 100%. Like literally I did not have one ounce of, of effort left in my body. And he said, I could be in a stadium with 70,000 people, but I could hear one voice. And just saying, go, Billy. And I would look down the sideline and I would see that the trumpet player was too close to the sideline. And I knew that I was going to get knocked out right there and I was actually going to collide with the trumpet player. And he said, I could feel the ball snap. Like the ball would just go up in the air and I wouldn't even look back for the ball. And I could also feel the defender coming across the field to hit me. And he said at that one moment, there was a feeling that I can't describe, but he said, I chased that moment like a rat to cheese. It was better than any drug that I'd ever taken. And I just craved that moment and I pushed out all the noise. So when you were at the top of your surf game and you still are, was there that moment like was, did you feel like this oneness kind of with the ocean? Like was there was there something about surfing that you just didn't get from any other aspect of your life? For sure. And I think, I think anyone in their own way can find that, you know, they say you're in the flow or whatever flow. They stay, you know, but but in surfing, it's kind of more personal because you in the ocean, and there's not other people playing this game that you're in, but you know, danger. Yeah. And there's all that stuff too. That's what that's. That adds to it. I mean, I'm not 100 for ways. That's part of what drives you. You know, there's definitely adrenaline junky and all of us surfers that love it like that. But there is a thing where you don't feel like you're there's no time between the thought and the action or there's not even thinking you're just feeling. And when you, when you really are feeling like what he's just saying is like, he's just going by feeling, that's what we were talking about earlier with, with great whites. You know, great whites on the west coast through into the fall. They, they stay in California and then they migrate south. They think that they mate out off of Mexico and then some of the females go to Hawaii and that's so wild. So how does a great white finance way down to that place out in the ocean where they mate in the breeding grounds area or, you know, maybe one of the islands off Mexico, they go to and then swim underwater for a couple thousand miles and find Hawaii. That is tiny dots in the middle of the ocean. So there's, there's this, I think humans, I think most humans nowadays with what we have a technology and, and the way life is and how fast-paced things are, we've lost that feeling to some degree. And so with surfing, I think you have such a connection with nature and you're, you're back in it all the time and you crave that thing. It's a, it is a drug. Yeah. It's, I remember I got hired to do this thing with Disney one time where I went and spoke to a bunch of people. They were having a convention and I was telling them how I am an addict. I just got addicted to something healthy. Right. And I did compare surfing to a drug and I felt a little weird about saying that at a Disney convention. Yeah. But I was like it cold. It cold plunging my drug of choice. Exactly. But it's, yeah, I think everyone, everyone has, everyone desires to feel deeply, you know, but I think we all have our emotional reasons why we're scared of that with relationships and stuff like that. It's our life being so fast paced. You're not really connected. Most people don't do something where they have those kind of feelings. Right. And surfing, it's not hard to get that. It's, it's a, it's a rush, you know, where there's just a speed of the wave or you're riding nature, you know, you're just riding wind energy that has really come from, you know, temperature variations that cause the wind to create in the first place. You're really part of nature, you know, you become part of this thing. So there is, there's always been this connection between, you know, spirituality and music and surfing and rhythm and patterns and, and, and people who are kind of counter culture. Timothy Leroy was kind of a big part of the surf scene, the beach back in the day and stuff. And so there's, there's always elements. Timothy Leroy, the comedian. Sorry, did I, did I get that wrong? No, the LSD guy. Oh, yeah, he was like a comedian LSD kind of kind of the vulgar guy. Sorry, I got the wrong Larry. Did I get the wrong Larry? Anyway, some Larry. Yeah, whatever. No, no, no, no, just play that one over and over. Okay. Who was it? Who was the guy? No, Dennis Leroy's the guy. Dennis Leroy. Timothy Leroy was the guy who did, he was a, he was, he was, he was, he was just taking tons of LSD back in the day. Mm-hmm. And, anyways, there was a lot of surfers around that era. And that was kind of like, in the 60s and 70s, there was a lot of surfers who were expats that they didn't want to go to war. They were kind of peaceful people, but they loved chasing, surfing in waves and a lot of them disappeared to Central America and Bali and far off places, you know, South Africa or whatever to go surf and not go to war. That's crazy. So they almost became like hated by their country because they didn't want to fight, you know. But, so there's, there's an interesting culture that's always been a part of surfing. But I think ultimately, I guess what I'm getting at is that, you know, surfing really provides feeling and you get a, you get a good feedback from that, whether it's a positive or negative. You know, sometimes you're doing it right, sometimes you're doing it wrong and you kind of know real, you don't question it. You're like, ah, I kind of fix something my metal line here. Yeah. And you know, if it's not going your way, but it's a real connection to the outside elements in nature. There's got to be a time though when you're dropping, you know, down into a wave. I mean, you, you've, you've felt this year power of the ocean. I mean, you've, I'm sure you've been pummeled by waves before. Of course. Um, and you know, some of these waves are 50, 60, 70 feet tall and you're on a, a board. What is it? Six feet by, well, it depends. There's a lot of different, you know, there's a lot of different variables in there. I mean, if you're riding a wave that big, it's generally when you're getting towed in on a jet ski and you'd probably on a board that's only six feet long. It's really heavy. If you're paddling, if you're trying to paddle like the biggest waves in the world, which, you know, the biggest waves ever paddled on to maybe are a little smaller than the ones you can tow onto, you know, you could probably tow onto a hundred-foot wave if you, if you can find one. Mm-hmm. But you can't really paddle onto a hundred-foot wave. Just the logistics of the speed of the wave, how long it takes to get down, all that kind of stuff. And, and a big board creates a lot more friction on the water and, and, you know, you can't maneuver, it goes fast with a, with a big board. So, yeah, prefer like being towed out and being on a smaller board. That makes it easy. You know, that makes it easy. But I think you, you, we've always, my generation, especially, but it, you know, most, I think there's always been this kind of feeling where you, you need to kind of, you need to kind of earn your keep by paddling into big waves first before you tow into big waves. Yeah. But that's sort of starting to change. And you're seeing a lot of people who can just, oh, I just started surfing. I want to tow a big wave. And it, it, it's pretty common now. And people go to Nazare and want to get towed in on a 60-70-foot wave. And they've, you know, probably never paddle a 20-foot wave. Wow. So, I feel like you, you kind of have to like, you kind of got to earn your keep a little bit just to, just for your own confidence and stuff, you know, it's too, it's kind of dangerous to, it's dangerous. But my best buddy invented this inflatable vest, Shane Doryne invented this inflatable vest because Shane had a near-draught, near-drounding experience. himself. Yeah, he almost drowned in Half Moon Bay in California in around 2013. I think it was. And from just being pummeled by a big wave, huge, like, you know, 60-foot wave, he paddled onto and he was under for like a minute. You know, imagine your heart rates like, you know, 150 and you didn't get a good breath or the one got knocked out of you and you, you know, you're CO2's high in your blood or whatever, in your lungs and your upside down. Yeah, and you're in flipped around and you can't get to surf, and another wave comes over at that kind of thing. So, when Shane, you know, had that situation, he's like, I gotta do something about this because he loved big waves and that was his thing and he invented this thing. So basically, every single surf, big wave surf in the world now is wearing a vest at all times that isn't flatable because you don't want to have to completely rely on that. You want to be trained up and have your cardio good enough to where you can handle whatever without that, whatever situation you're in because that thing's not foolproof, you know, it could not work. Right. It's been a few times where they haven't worked. Oh, wow. But you want to be able to be confident that you've been in those situations and you're not relying necessarily on a jet ski to get you or this inflatable thing like you can hold your breath in the old school way, you know. Yeah. But those have made it really accessible for most anyone to be able to toe into a giant wave and, you know, if you can hold your breath for 15 or 20 seconds in a situation like that, you're probably going to be fine. Listen, there's what I share on this podcast and then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here. But my VIP community, that's where the real magic happens. Picture this. 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Your health is your wealth and this investment pays dividends for life. Find the VIP community at the ultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP and step into your ultimate potential. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Was there a time, I mean, during your, you know, championship career and like competing at that level? Were there like waves during certain hours where there were like really great athletes and really great surfers? Was there times when you felt like there wasn't a lot of competition or did that entire time, did you feel like somebody was right on your, your heels? Or did you even think about that? I've had different rivals. That's what you mean. Yeah, I'm saying what those vated you. I mean, just the passion of the sport. Occasionally, it was rivals. Yeah. You know, I had a, there's been a few big rival reasons surfing. That's been spoken by a lot was myself and Andy Irons, who unfortunately passed away in 2010. But Andy and I for about six or eight years had a really pretty intense rivalry. And, and that really pushed me at that time. This is like early 2000s, maybe 02. I came back on tour. I took a few years off and came back and he was world champ for like three years running. I went into starting the first year. I got back on tour. So it took a, it took a big effort by me to get myself into a different gear and catch up with what was going on. You know, whether that's your surfing itself, your strength and your preparation or just your mental state, you know, all those things kind of come together and to create this recipe of ingredients for yourself. But you know, prior to that, when I was, when I was first starting out when I won my first world title at 20, it was my first full year on tour. Yeah. I'd been a rookie because I'd compete a little bit in a two years prior to that, but not a full year. And well, you went straight to a world. I went from 43rd in the world at first. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So the, in 90, the end of 91, they were creating this new transition to where it wasn't just an open series. You could just enter any contest. Yeah. You had to be in the top 44 in the world to be able to be in any of the events. Oh. Okay. I graduated high school and I went on the qualifying series. Or I went on the world tour and you had to be in the top 44. I got 43rd. Oh, so I just made it by one. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. And, um, and the guy who got 44th was a guy named Munga Berry, um, from Michael Munga Berry from Burley heads in Australia. And Munga and I were surfing against each other and the second to last event of the year at Sunset Beach. And he spun around on this wave. Yeah. He was behind me. I was paddling out and paddling over this wave. I'm like, oh, I'm too late for this thing. I can't go. And Munga was behind me and he spun around and barely, I don't even know if he paddling just stood up on this huge wave and free fell into it. And, um, basically by making it through that heat, he made it on tour. And he, you know, he ended up in the last, very last spot. Yeah. But, um, yeah. There's, it, different things drive you at different times. And I was 20 years old. All I wanted to do was I wanted to be the best surf in the world. I wanted to be the number one surf in the world and be a world champion. Like my heroes were, you know, and I want to try to match them. So I didn't have to find any kind of motivation when I went to contest. I was like, oh, I get to surf against Martin Potter. Oh, I get to surf against Tom Kerrne. And you were always. Tom Carroll. Oh, this guy, um, you know, is either somebody I hugely respect it or it was somebody who's surfing. I didn't really respect it. And I thought I should beat him. Yeah. So I got to chip in my shoulder kind of when you're young, you, when you're young, you kind of got to chip on your shoulder for some reason. And when you're older, you got to chip on your shoulder for the opposite reason. Right. And so you, you go through this sort of, um, whole crescendo of, you know, reasons why and, and how you put your energy and efforts out there. Well, for, for my audience, it's not familiar with how surfing is scored. Like to become the community. I'm not sure. Surfers. All right. Well, then we're screwed. I'm not sure if you're watching the Ultimate Human podcast. Uh, we're very hotly debated topic. Yeah. Depending if you win or lose, the judges to worry there for you or they hate it. Because as a layman, I'm like, that guy looked like he did a good job. I'm, I'm lost. I mean, we can, I, I, I suppose it would be like if you were judging music, mm-hmm. You would get people who are good musicians. Mm-hmm. You would hope, you know, relatively skilled musicians and knowledgeable. And they would judge the, the skill at which someone played a song. I mean, because surfing is an art form as well, right? So it's, you're sort of judging this creativity, how they use the wave. But there's also a huge luck factor in surfing. Like, the right wave could come at the right time. It's way better than all the other waves. Yeah. And so the idea behind judging surfing is you're trying to imagine what is the outermost limit of what can be done on a wave. Mm-hmm. What's the most high difficulty in whatever? I mean, are you trying to perform on that wave? Are you actually trying to do things on your board that are, you know, different difficulty levels so that a judge sees you and goes, wow, we just, not a 4.36K. Not necessarily. Because the wave doesn't always ask for the most difficult thing. Mm-hmm. You know, sometimes it's just a nice brushstroke. You know, it's just a nice turn at the right speed. It doesn't have to be the crazy fastest thing in the world. You know, sometimes depending on the pace of a wave, it might want you to go slower fast or do something radical or something that's much more subtle. But it's the control with which you do it. It's the, you know, the efficiency of body movement, all these sort of things. But I don't, I guess the best way to kind of go about learning about judging maybe would be watching gymnastics like a floor exercise. Yeah. And it's the commentators talking through it so you can see how they just stepped when they landed there. Right. Or they flared their arm at a certain place in a high dive or they, or, you know, in these different, different sports that are judged, they, you know, high level people can point out the small little things that did, that detract from what the scoring would be. And so you would kind of hope for that and surfing. But sometimes even, you know, all of us pros will be sitting around watching a heat. We'll see somebody ride away and we'll hear a score pop up that's either higher low and we're like, what the hell is that? Right. You just out of the blue, we're like, what did they see that we aren't seeing? Right. But then, you know, we're all humans with emotion. So sometimes it's your friend and sometimes it's somebody you want to lose and so there's always things that are biased. Yeah. And so the judges do their best to try to be robots. Mm-hmm. They really, they try to judge the skill set. But they're trying to judge in their own right. But then, you know, getting back to the feeling thing, when you watch somebody serve, if you, if you understand surfing and you're trying to score it or decide what's better or worse, you can almost feel what that person feels. And we, there's a thing in surfing about claiming, like, you know, people will claim a ride or claim maneuver and you can tell if somebody really feels it or if they're trying to sell it to the judges. Right, right. And, you know, I need this score. So you just, yes. And, and you can tell that like, okay, that guy's way better than, that's not close to his best maneuver. Uh-huh. So he can't be that excited about that. Right. But it could be a close heat and he needs to get through there for a certain result at the end of the year or in this contest or whatever. Mm-hmm. And so he might be excited not because it was the greatest maneuver, but because he does think that he beat that person or she thinks she beat that person. So there's different reasons why you might claim a wave. But the, the most respect in surfing has always come from guys that don't claim anything at all. And, you know, there were guys like some of the older guys that would never, they would never do a hand gesture at all. And those are the guys you always look back in history. Yeah, you look back in history. I got to respect Tom Carroll. I got to respect Tom Crenn. Like certain guys that just never threw their hands in there. They're just like, hey, give it to me or not, but I did my best. That's awesome. I mean, so when you were pursuing this, um, the sport in these world championships, were you constantly moving around the world chasing the best waves? Yeah. You're like 40 years. Really? Yeah. And what are some of your favorite places in the world? Um, I, when, if people ask me, I just say, like, Fiji's probably my favorite place to go. Really? Yeah. The people are so nice. The surf's really good. The weather's warm. The fishing's good. The diving's good. It's like all the things that I want to do with there. You can even golf on the mainland. Yeah. But, um, but yeah, just in and around the oceans, great there. And, and really the people are just so kind, like the nicest people you'll ever meet anywhere in the world of the Fijians. Like, we had a contest there some years ago, and we went to a local school and the kids wrote a song for us and sang it like 100 kids singing us a song they wrote just for our contest. Really? Yeah. So that's cool. And everyone, I think everyone in every village can sing in like three, four, five part harmonies. Yeah. They're all just like these beautiful voices and they can all play instruments. And, but they're just so welcoming and, and such nice people that you would have to feed you for a certain time of the year and just I can be whenever, but typically through our summer months is the best time down there, which is their winter months. Our winter, their summer tends to be a little bit like cyclonic weather. Yeah. It'll be super hot, really humid. The surf's not especially great that time of year. Yeah. And they can get some cyclones and storms. And I noticed you've been very vocal about conservancy. I mean, and it stands to reason that you love the ocean and you, you respect the waves, you respect nature so much. But how did that come about? Did you just build a respect and a love, not just through the sport, but for the ocean and for the environment? Or was it that you see things going on that just kind of turned your stomach and you came to the evangelist for the environment? I mean, talk a little bit about like you're, you know, why you're so passionate about conservancy. I mean, even your sunscreen, you know, you talk about how they're not, they're safe. Yeah. Well, I guess I, I don't resent that word, but I wouldn't want to be called an in an evangelical about it because I hate when people are too preachy about anything, but I just, we do have to think about generations after us and our kids and leaving a better place for them if we can, you know, I don't think that even needs to be explained really. Yeah, well, some people. Yeah, it's got to be explained. You know, I know, but I think some people are just disconnected from that environment, that nature and, you know, maybe they're just all business and living in a big city and they don't go experience that kind of stuff. But if you go to a place like Bali, you'll see the effects of modern times and classic pollution and stuff. I like, I don't jump on every bandwagon around like climate change and that kind of stuff, but it's really clear. I think we can all easily agree, you know, because there's a lot of things where you can, people don't agree on certain things, but you, we can all agree that there's a lot of plastic pollution in the ocean. Yeah, that's, I think that's different than carbon emission and yeah, and that stuff can be debated back and forth. But when you see an ocean full of plastic and then the wind changes and it all washed up on the beach when the season changes and it's disgusting and you literally can't even walk on the beach, that's when, when everyone needs to get together and go, okay, we need a solution for this. Yeah. And you wonder where all that comes from? It's like, are we just throwing trash into the ocean or a boat's throwing an overboard? No, a lot of it, well, in that particular situation, the ball and knees like to say it's all the job and knees. Somebody else. And it's all coming from Java, but I think it's just, my friend and ball, he explained to me probably best and he said, look, when I was a little kid, we ate all our food wrapped in banana leaf and we would eat the food and then we'd throw the banana leaf out. And eventually that turned into plastic and we just kind of kept throwing the plastic out. And there's not a really great infrastructure for garbage in some of these places. So through no fault of any individual person, it just tends to be that there's not the infrastructure for it and there's a lot of weird local politics around these things even in small areas. But it doesn't go to a central place to be processed, right? And on small islands, like it's not easy to get rid of a bunch of plastic and what do you do with it? You can get a mountain on a tiny island. You've got a barrier, I guess. I mean, there's certainly melted down and turning it into the stuff. Yeah, I think you need to melted it at about 5,000 degrees. So it really turns to a tiny bit of ash. I mean, that's one way to deal with it. Yeah, but stuff burns and it's a big problem. I think ultimately we're going to have to figure out how to take plastic, melt it back down to turn it into fuel more easily, which is not a hard process at all. There's not an infrastructure for it. And that's not a perfect solution because that's more air pollution. But the stuff you can really see is like it makes it obvious for everyone that you need to deal with it. But yeah, I don't know. I don't like to get too preachy about it. But I just try to, you know, in my own life, I do my best to recycle all I can and I hope that when that recycling bingo is at the right thing is done with it, that end. But yeah, I always question that too. Yeah, and I hear a lot of times it's just not. So that is this heartening, you know? Yeah, I mean, we, we, we didn't Miami and we had the condo that we were in, how to recycle shoot and a trash shoot. And for like a year and a half, we would put recycled down the recycle, shoot and trash down the trash. And one day, I had to show up the receiving and I actually saw that they came into the same bin and it was just piled up on one side of the bin and piled up on the other side of the bin and we were going through all that effort. I think you want to, you want to feel like you did the right thing. Yeah, you felt good when you were upstairs when you went downstairs and told it. That's all the real thing. But I don't know, one, one time my mom came over to my house and I was taking part all this cardboard and putting recycling that and then plastic over here and then garbage over there or whatever. And she's like, what are you doing? Just throw it all in one and I said, no, I just, I feel like I want to do the right thing. So then my mom started recycling all her cardboard plastic. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect. And forward, man, I love it. But you know, it's in sometime around September last year, you, you, you had a printover body scan. Yeah. Yeah. And that was actually this year. Yeah, that was it. That was in June this year. Or June this year. Yeah. And it's kind of a shocking health update for you on another you've talked about it, but yeah. And there were these lesions in your bone. Is that yeah, I had a, I'd have to go back over the skin. There was, there was only a couple of mild to moderate things to even be concerned about. But I think the thing that really shocked people was how much scoliosis I have. I have a very curvy back, you know, and, and the people I've worked with over the years have called it functional scoliosis. I have clearly it's working. Yeah. I figured out a way for it to benefit me in some situations, I guess. But now, you know, we, I told you before, but I had a hip surgery six weeks ago. Yeah. Told the replacement. Mm-hmm. And I've been fighting that for 30 years, 30, 33, 34 years. Yeah, you told me you actually tore your labor when you were 19. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many people realize that, but you won the world championship with completely torn labor. Yeah. And labor and you know, torn labor is not something that just heals itself. I mean, it scars around there, but it doesn't really go back to being alive for it. Yeah, I know I'll live my rest of my life, not try. I've torn by sub tendons not even completely. I just actually did a podcast with DJ Dillishall and he, and he was talking about how he won, you know, two championship, you know, C fights with, you know, both his shoulders being torn. And even how he had one of his traps, part of his trap, you know, put into his shoulder to try to replace the, you know, the rotating. Yeah. And, and fighting at that level, and you're like, wow, even he still became a world champion in his case twice in your case for decades. But like I said, the adrenaline takes over. You know, and like, what DJ was saying to, like, once you get in the fight, or you get in the surf and the waves are big, or you're in an intense situation competitively, the, the adrenaline kicks in and you don't feel pain the same way. Your pain receptors aren't waking you up. They're like, you're trying to put them backstage. Yeah, backstage. Yeah, backstage. But adrenaline does that. You know, I mean, I've, I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters and they say that you, you don't feel the pain to left of the fight. Yeah. Right. And I can understand that. I mean, time when all that adrenaline. I know I was, I was watching those fights this weekend with Merob and Petrion. And Petrion had this, his approach was basically let Merob hit him. But he had his hand here. He was blocking and he kept, because he's pepper on him with that. But he's like, well, I'm blocking this. But he was staying within range because that was his plan and whatever. He was staying within range and just taking those shots. Why? Well, because it was allowing him his own counter shots and defensive wrestling and stuff, I guess, but I mean, I saw a breakdown on it online. It was explaining all that, but he was really taking those because that was a range he wanted to be at. Yeah. So like these guys just know, like I can get hit. That's not going to knock me out. If it was the only one shot I took today, I wouldn't ready for it. It probably hurt me, but when that adrenaline's kicked in, you know, like you, you see some of these guys take a couple hundred shots in a fight. Oh, it's, it's unbelievable. And you're like, this is, I got a plenty of fights and I'll never, yeah, sometimes I see you guys. So impressed. It's really, since becoming an MMA fan about 20 years ago, it's really, it's really taken the intensity off of injuries for me. So I see some of these guys just like their freaking eyes hanging out. Yeah, yeah. Like they're just so cut and they're happy and they're expecting each other. And they're like, no, I want to keep fighting. Don't call this fight off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, if my fin cuts me and I got, you know, I need three stitches. I'm like, I could probably serve a little longer. You know, it's like, it gives you a perspective where it's like, this is your case. So yeah, maybe depending where you're at, but it's, it's not as, for me, it's been, become less scary to get injured after seeing what these guys willingly put themselves through. Yeah. Yeah, I've been, I've been, and two of the, a few of the greats in like the, what you really begin to respect at that level is the amount of strategy and, and thinking that goes into it. You know, I've heard Dana White talk about the different stream being a good fighter in a great fighter is composure. And I imagine the hardest time to maintain your composure when, is when somebody's actively trying to hurt you. And it's also hard to not get pissed off. Yeah, pain just immediately causes you to flick your switch. Especially when somebody else inflicted, if you cut it on your board, you're not actually angry. Yeah. But if somebody else cuts you, you be angry at them. I would, it reminds me of a fight from the other, from that last card, Terence McKinney, was fighting and he just starts mopping this guy in the first minute of the fight. He's just so aggressive. And the other guy's just boom, boom, he's just like a punchy bag, you know, and he's getting rocked and you can see he's like covering up and he ends up on the ground at one point. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, one of those guys got a plan, you know, like or if he's just like so dazed right now from getting hit and then a minute later, he wins the fight. Wow. Yeah, he just turned it around. He just, he ended up tapping out. Wow. I think it was a tap out. Wow. You know, after getting completely rocked and beat up for like a minute and a half, right? But then, you know, his plan was, I got to, I got to keep some cardio and energy and then Terence McKinney kind of faded and as soon as he faded, the other guy turned it on. So they, they, you know, it depends on that approach. Are you, are you, you know, you're going to come in aggressive or you're going to come in and be defensive and counter? Yeah. I mean, when you were surfing, did you, did you ever have those moments where like you picked up the board and walked to the edge of the ocean and you just looked at the waves and you're like, I'm over this. Like, you know, did it ever become a knotness? It's funny because Andy, I answered I mentioned before he and I had a big rivalry and then, and then I went off for about six or seven years or something and then so that motivated you. Well, yeah, but then he and I became pretty good friends and we kind of dropped the whole thing. You know, we like kind of got past our, you know, both of our peaks and the rivalry and stuff and, and I remember being in the water with him. We were in Huntington Beach and there's about 30,000 people in the beach and he was really like, he was in a real like personal growth phase and he was like trying to get some things together in his head and, you know, step back from the surf thing like the being the pro surfer a little bit and do some personal growth. And I remember he looked up at the beach and he goes, fuck, I hate this. That's what I mean. Yeah, he just looked at the beach and he was like, fucking hate. I just don't even, why am I even, why did I put myself out here? I don't even want to be here right now. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I've told you felt that before. I've done so many things in my life that I was really excited about when I started like, you know, I was a competitive amateur triathlete for two years, three years. But I got out of the water one time after the Chesapeake Bay half iron man and when I got home, I put my bike on the garage wall and I didn't get back on my bike for like three years. Well, it's just over it. And by no means did I have even remotely the level of commitment that someone like yourself went through for decades to stay at the top of that game and want to do the same thing and not ever feel like you've mastered the sport because at some point you have to feel like, you know, I've been a world champion so many times over such a long period of time, I've already mastered the sport. It's it. And I'm fascinated by the mindset. The mindset goes surfer on the world. Well, that's true. It's like the money's in motorbiter too. Okay, there it is. No, no, no, no. That's what I was looking for. We broke the news on the ultimate human podcast. This is all about money. I mean, I can't go away. It's not all that hard. One of my best friends quit the tour when he had recoup, he had requalified for the following year, but he had decided to retire and go get a job. And about a year later we're in Australia and I'm in the contest and he's working. He had to go to the contest because he had because it was part of his job. He had to fly to Australia to do some work at that event. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? You should still be on this tour right now and he's like, I'm an idiot. Yeah. He's like, I was making more money going surfing. He's like, now I work all freaking day. He's like, I'm here. I can't even surf nearly as much as I want. I got to find a break because I'm working the whole time. And he was like, I should've stayed on tour till it ran out. Yeah, exactly. I'm still at it, bro. Yeah. So he, yeah. But I can't imagine that there's a lot of money in surfing unless you are at the contest. Most of our money is sponsorship dollars and you got to get a certain notoriety and that kind of thing. But the money in surfing has dried up a little bit in recent years because surfing was built on the backs of these originally from the 60s and 70s where these guys wanted to go surf around the world. So they started companies to sell clothes and wetsuits. So they could find their own surf trips. It was really how the rip curls, billabongs, quicksilvers of the world started. All the big brands from surfing. And then if you extend further out, then you go into like Volkham and other brands that were started by surfing as well. But they basically were like in means to an end to get around the world and go surf these places they wanted to go. Quicksilvers started by Alan Green and John Law in Australia and they were getting a couple friends and they made some surf trunks and were selling them out of the back of the literally out of the trunk of their car. And then they make enough money and go on a surf trip. And then they realized like, oh, well, all these surfers need to get around. Yeah. And then all these surfers need gear. And then there are other friends started a wetsuit company and that was rip curl. And eventually then all those brands ended up like Quicksilvers started making wetsuits and rip curl started making clothing. Right. So then everyone's making everything. Right. And then surfing through the 90s and early 2000s really was peaking as far as the brands go. I remember. I remember Quicksilver was OP and Quicksilver. I remember OP, the corduary shorts. But Quicksilver had a big thing because I was a Quicksilver guy for 23 years and it was Quicksilver. Roxy with the women's line and DC was the shoes. So those three brands were powerhouses through our industry and end skating with DCs. Shoes obviously. But Quicksilver is so wealthy. They're making so much money. And so all the surfers and skaters and sponsor athletes and models and all that sort of stuff were all making really good money from the brands. And then eventually a lot of them became public brands and they were kind of chasing stock price instead of just like making what authentically made them great brands. It was more worried about like the company structure than it was about the product. Right. It was being made. And then outsiders came in and started buying, you know, take over these companies and stuff and it really changed what surfing was in the last the past 20 years. And those companies also owned, they didn't own the tour but they sponsored each of the individual tour events. Yeah. And they had the media rights. So they would run their media rights. Oh. You know, Bill Bonger would run them their way they want Quicksilver the way they want. And they would own everything from that particular event. Now we have a world tour the WSL took over from what the ASP, a used to be called ASP. And they took it over and they they own all the media rights to all the events now. So it's not the individual sponsors. So that kind of changed as well. And you know, you could argue good and bad points about that but it changed what our sport is to some degree. But the brands, the original brands are not what they were. And I don't know if there's anybody at any of the companies that would try to claim that they are the same. Right. It just changed the environment's changed. And now new brands are coming in. I mean, I like I created my own brand. It's called out or known. How's that doing? We're doing all right. You got to be, man. You're the greatest surfer of all time. John John Florence created a brand called Florence Marine. And you know, a couple of the other surfer started other brands that are kind of filtering their way into taking over space in the sort of shops and stuff. So there might sort of be this rebirth of some of the origins of brands starting with surfer. And that's that's how surfing became an industry. One of my favorite bio hacks outside of breathwork by far is mineral salts, bio gold sea salt. It's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs. And most of us are not just protein division, meaning amino acid division or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral deficient. So a quarter teaspoon of this and water first thing in the morning will make sure that you get all of the essential minerals that you need. It tastes amazing. In fact, I made a date today. I actually made a grass bed steak with grass bed butter. And I put just mushrooms and a little bit of rosemary and I sprinkled bio gold sea salt all over the top. Try it. It'll be your new favorite for cooking too. It's the cheapest and one of my favorite bio hacks. I don't know. It's $15 or $20 bag of this will probably last you five years. And it's literally the world's best bio hacking secret. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Yeah. I think looking at a career that's banned as long as yours did, obviously conditioning is a big part of being a surfer. And most of your conditioning, I imagine, you just got water by doing your surf. I just surf a lot. But we're the things that you did outside. And I mean, now that you're in your fifties and you're still competing. You know. I'm in my full time now. I quit the full time competing about a year and a half ago, but I'm also not that long ago, bro. That's 53. So I was 22. Okay. 52. So, yeah. I mean, competing to your 52, I can't think of many sports. I mean, not even really golf. Are there a lot of 52-year-old golfers? Well, there's the champion's. 52-year-old NFL players. That's for damn sure. When you turn 50 and golf on the PGA, you join the champion's tour. So that's, you know, all the, they got a little extra legends. Yeah. And Michelle, Michelson would be a young guy in that tour right now. But that would be the Freddie couples of the world and that sort of guys. But what are you doing to stay conditioned? I mean, as maybe a surfing is decarchandering, I mean, I know that you're big and, you know, you're big believer in the biohacking in the long, jevy space. Yeah. I became, I'll tell you my, my history of, I grew up, my mom hates this and she thinks that this is a personal attack on her. I swear it's not mom. I love you. You did a good job. You're in the blue. And he actually spoke highly about you before the podcast, just, you know, off camera. But, you know, we just, we just didn't, and I don't think people in the 60s and 70s really worried about it. You know, my older brother's born in 69. I was born in 72. My younger brother in 78. But back then we were, you know, the first world and we got the best food in the world or whatever. We ate tons of sugar. I mean, I grew up, I always tell people I grew up on Oreos and Doritos. Oh, I mean, literally ice cream, cupcakes, like, you have to cut this out. You realize. I was scared. That's so, started from the bottom now we're here. Yeah, yeah. No, it's so, you were exercising your ass off. Yeah, and I mean, super active. But, but I ate tons and tons of sugar. I used to have, I remember I'd wake up in the morning before high school and you're going to hate this, Gary. You're going to, like, hold this against me here. But I used to make like a chocolate milkshake in the morning from breakfast. And I would literally throw like ice cream cookies, Hershey's syrup. Like, whatever I could find like into this, this would be my, this it, and I would drink it on the way to school. Right. And then by the end of the first period, I'd be doubled over with a stomach cramp. For the record, that was before you were a world champion. Oh, yeah, this one I was a teenage. Okay, good. Yeah. But, bro, I'm a Florida man. I'm a Florida man. I'm from Coco Beach. Like, this is what you eat. You know, I mean, it could have been beer. Yeah. No, it's crazy. When I talk about, you know, it's, it's crazy. I mean, TJ talked about that too. And his early career, like in his 20s, when he was fighting on, you know, the show, it's the fight. Ultimate fighter. Ultimate fighter. When he's fighting on the ultimate fighter that, you know, I was like, that's complete garbage. Yeah. But I mean, I think now, you know, there's too much information. There's too much information for you to be in denial of it. But yeah. So my, my sort of, I would call it a health journey. My health journey started in my early 20s. Did it really? I was in a health food shop. So did your professional career. So good. I was in a health food shop in Salonabita, insanina, cart of, called Kais. And I ordered a juice or sandwich or something. And then I was standing there waiting for my food. And there was a tape. There was, I think this, just this, there was one thing for sale on the, on the counter. And it was a tape by again, named Dr. Joel Wallach, who I, maybe you know the name. And, um, and it was one dollar. And we're trying to make money for it. I was just trying to get people to listen to this stuff from health, from a health guru. So I bought that tape and I, this one we had cassettes in the car. Right. And so I'm driving around. I would just lick this thing. And he started talking about how he had done like 17,000 animal autopsies, 3,000 human autopsies. And he said, no one dies from old age. There's no such thing. You die of a deficiency of something over a long period of time. You get a disease, blah, blah. And, and I just was like, well, this is fascinating. And I had just, I had already become World Champ at this time. But I was like, this is fuel from my fire right here. This, I'm going to actually like start being healthy. And so I got, I got super into, um, I started just trying different diets like food combining, you know, I did food combining for a while. I met, I became familiar with the graces from going to, oh yeah, from going to, uh, real for a contest every year. And then, um, I eventually met Hickson and, and hoist and hoi Ler and all those guys. But I had read their book prior to that, a friend of mine had written a book about them. And, um, I think two different friends of mine have written books about the crazy family now. But I started reading about their diets and, you know, they talk about food combining. And then I started looking into it. What is trophology? And why don't proteins and carbs go well together, blah, blah. And I started kind of like experimenting with Adam myself and seeing how I felt. And I realized I had more energy and I sleep less and I digest better. I don't have stomach problems. And so I kind of just became really sort of fascinated with health in the body. And strangely enough, my mom was an EMT and firefighter. Oh wow. So she went to medical school for some degree of time to, to learn what she needed. And, um, so I kind of already had this like, maybe this genetic thing in my DNA where I wanted to learn about anatomy and, and digestion and all that stuff. So I, um, I was traveling in my early days when I first got on a quick show with a guy named Tom Carroll who was two, two time world champion. But Tom was one of the few guys that cross-trained and really talked about diet. And so he trained off the waves. Oh yeah. He was, he was doing all sorts of cross-training and Tom was like crazy fit, super strong. Everyone talked about how big his calves were and like, his thighs were, I mean, and, and it was actually funny because back at that time, he also wore super tiny shorts. So his like leg muscles would just like, jacked like, like, like explode his like tiny trunk sheet. Almost looked like it would rip him in the side because legs were so powerful. Yeah. And he surfed that way. You know, he surfed with all this power and energy was known for that. And Tom became like a big brother to me and we were, I think I was like 18 years old. I was in Australia with him. I kept telling him I didn't have much energy. And, and, um, we, the night before we had eaten, uh, pasta. I, I did, I had a spaghetti bowl and a's and he goes, well, maybe it's because of the proteins and the carbs together or something. He's like, have you ever thought about that? And I was, that was the first time I ever heard about food. Wow. Like, no, I don't, what does that mean? Yeah. How do you know this stuff? Why, what, what do you mean? You just eat food and it gives you energy. Yeah, yeah. I just never really put the equation together. Yeah. And, and unfortunately, we're not taught that in school. Mm-hmm. You don't really give you any kind of formalization about that, especially in public schools. And so I, I was just kind of, uh, shooting from the hip, trying to learn the stuff, traveling around the world. And I, I became really sort of infatuated with it in my, through my 20s. Mm-hmm. And then I got into, like, water fasting and master cleansing. Oh, that's great. I think water fasting is. Yeah. You can master fasting two, three times a year. I mean, those are game changers. Yeah. I do big water fasts on my platform, take thousands of people through water fast. And there's always these life changing. Yeah. Literally life changing testimonials that we get out of it. I went, about 15 years ago, I was doing a master cleanse for about, I think, I did 10 days with the, you know, the tea, with the kind pepper and stuff. And anyways, the, I was about four or five days in and I went golfing with a, uh, one of my best friends and his dad and his dad's, his dad had a couple groups of friends that were all doctors. Mm-hmm. It was like this doctor out and they go golf every Thursday or Friday, whatever. So I was with them. And afterwards, they're having lunch and they say, you want something? And I was like, I'm doing a fast or a cleanse. You know, what are you, what are you talking about? And I started telling them about it and I was like, why are you doing that? So what? Just, I'm going to let my digestion heal. I'm going to let, I'm not going to be digesting food for, you know, almost two weeks. So that can all just relax and heal and so good settle down. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you know, if you don't eat food for a long period of time, you're doing salt flushes every morning. Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm doing the smooth and the move teas and I'm involved. And they're like, you don't need to do that. You just, you just take the stuff that we take to get a colonoscopy. Oh, and, and that just flushed everything out. You know, in 24 hours, nothing else in your system. And I was like, well, what about mucoid plaque? And they're like, what are you talking about? These are doctors, you know? Wow. And so, um, literally that day, I was driving home and I had to stop to go to the restroom. And it was the first time I ever got mucoid plaque to come out of my body. Yeah. No, I've done that. And it is. I was like, what is that? What I did I just like, didn't my intestine just come out? Yeah, yeah. I mean, sorry to get graphic for people out there, but I think a lot of the people that watch your show probably know this. Oh, they do. And if you haven't, you know, you need to go and Google mucoid plaque and how to get it out of your body. But, you know, after days and days and days of, of hydrating and no food, stuff starts to loosen up. And you're like, comes right off like a snake's nutrient deficient. No wonder I don't digest food properly. No wonder am I, you know, this and that is unhealthy or people getting cancer, left and right. And then you feel the lights come on, right? The lights come on. Oh my gosh. Literally your eyesight changes. Yes. Everything. I tell people that. I think I'm excited, man. I got so excited when I got my first mucoid plaque. Yeah, my body. Well, because afterwards you feel amazing. I remember that damn, I remember exactly where I was. I was like, yes, it worked. This is a real thing because, you know, I've seen all these stores of people online. Yeah. Yesterday I was watching something and this guy was talking about getting parasites out of his body and he's like, I don't want to show you because kind of people don't like to see that stuff. But if you want to, I'll send you some pictures. And but when you first make a change, you're in control of with your body. It's so exciting. It's so exciting and inspiring. And when you feel a shift in such a short period of time, it's also inspiring. You're like, wow, this is how I used to feel all the time. I remember this feeling. It should have been so many years that I've just adjusted my new state of norm. Yeah, there were just so many Oreos between that period of time. Yeah, a lot of them. No, but I tell people, I, that's one thing I'm a little invent. Evangelical about is water fast. And I tell people, oh man, me too. And they're like, oh, so I just shouldn't drink water for 24 hours. I'm like, I mean, I surely drink water for 24 hours. I'm like, no, what you got to do is you got to go at least three days. You got to get past that day too because day two sucks. Yeah. Three is awesome. Day two sucks. Day three is great. It's so true. And day three, you're like, whoa, I'm awake again. I'm alive. My thoughts are clear. I was telling people, I told a few people the past year, a year or two ago, I did one. And on day three, I surfed, played golf, and worked out pretty hard that day on the beach with a couple of my buddies. I never lost any energy. Throughout the whole day, I had full energy. And actually, I think I did four days that one. And I was like, why don't I just go for like 10? Yeah. When you're already there, when you're already three, you can keep going. Yeah. A lot of people come out of my three day water fast and go four or five. Yeah. I tell them, don't go past seven without medical supervision, but because sometimes you think you can keep going and you don't want to get a lecture light and balance. You can go much longer. Yeah. I just think that you need to really know what you're doing. But you're right. A three day water fast is game. I've done three of them in the last year, you know, with tens of thousands of people. And it is always still shocking to me the stories that come back from our three day water fast. In fact, you can download three day water fast. Especially people who aren't already quite healthy. Yeah. And they do it. And they're all said, they're like, wow, just about no one's thinking like I can't go 24 hours to 72 hours without eating. Yeah. It's you're mentally so tired to food. Yeah. I'm going to die on a flight from Miami to LA if I don't eat over Colorado. Right. Yeah. But only before we land, I will expire before we get to the end. Yeah. It's crazy. So tell me a little bit about how like exercise longevity has changed for you. I mean, what is your, what are your go to protocols now? You were talking about cold punch. So I love, I feel like sauna into cold punch like the lazy man's way to work out. You know what I mean? Like you get your cardio hit. You get your cardio hit. I guess that's all you're doing. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, if you typically I'm just like surfing a lot and then I play a lot of golf. Yeah. I don't cross-chain a whole lot, but I do a little jiu-jitsu and I, you know, I kind of, I'm kind of like a, a binge workout person or like a lot, I get into it and I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm going to be lazy and surf for a while. Yeah. Well, surf is still. If I surf a lot, I'm really cardio. Usually when I'm in Hawaii, I get really good shape just because I just surf every day. You know, I might be three to five hours a day in the water. Yeah. And then, you know, try to get myself to run the beach a little bit or how do you keep from just getting fried? You were in your sunscreen. You know what? If it's, if I know, if I'm somewhere tropical or it's super hot, I wear sunscreen. But you know, I am lucky. I've had tanskin my whole life. Like I was like, you could probably have a mistake in me as being like half black when I was a kid. My mom just put me in the sun. We were in the sun all day. Yeah. And I was so darkly tanned when I was a kid. Yeah. Much darker than I am now. And there's a picture of me and my brother in the bathtub. I'm like two or three and we're both naked and you can see our butts and like my butt is white and the rest of my skin is like dark, dark, dark, really? Like I look Hawaiian or something. Yeah. And but I've just always like, I like me and tan. The more tan I am, the less I get burned. I don't know. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. That's your natural and the fact that I went to I went to Bali years ago for three months. And the day I got there, my friend who's like kind of pale was tanner than me. Because I'd been surfing at wetsuits for the past like six or eight months before that. And I was so angry. There's no way you're darker than that. Yeah. And so I just made it my mission to get super dark again. But that's easy to do when you're surfing all that time. Especially in Bali. Yeah. Yeah, certain places, the sun is just so violent. You have to be covered up. Yeah. No matter how good your skin is. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, I mean, I've seen I've suffered some skin damage and stuff like my I got spots in my head. Actually, I went to the dermatologist yesterday and trying to address it now. Just 50 something years of just in the sun as much as I could possibly. Is there things they're concerned about or? No, nothing that's like turned up to look bad or anything. But it's just discoloration and stuff over long period of time. Yeah. Like, pre-cancerous. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like they just keep it on. Yeah. So, what are your go-to's now? Sauna cold plunge. Do you do red light therapy? Do you do a cross-sharp? Yeah, this is a red light therapy. I sometimes sleep on a beam or mat. Mm-hmm. PMF. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, you know, the thing is whether you knew it or not and you were spending so much time, you know, moving your body and grounded, you know, I mean, touching the surface of the earth is one of the healthiest things that you can do. Yeah. And then, you know, all that time, you're just discharging into the earth. Your body was very grounded, you know, I mean, all that time on the beach and in the water and the water. Ion's for the water. There's so good for you, man. There's a reason why you feel great at the beach. Yeah. You know, I mean, sometimes at the beach, you just smell the ozone. You know, it's like, it smells like that ozone. Yeah. You know, the negative ions. Yeah. And do you feel disconnected when you're not near the ocean? It's meaning it's in such a big part of your life. Yeah. To some degree, I do. When I was younger, I would feel it much more if I didn't surf for a few days even. It would go crazy. Yeah. But now I mean, I haven't surfed in a couple of months because of this. But I caught two waves the other day. I'd get it. We were at our surf ranch and I caught it. Since your, because this is only two weeks old, right? Six weeks old. Six weeks old. Yeah. Like five days ago, I caught two waves. Really? It didn't feel right. And, you know, I can surf to where I'm putting no pressure on my hip, you know, if I want to push it, I can. But I can also surf and it's about as much pressure as if I'm standing. You know, I'm not manipulating it. You've perfected. I think it's fair to say. Well, it's pretty easy to stand there and feel like I'm just standing there. So, you know, I don't have to work hard if I surf. I could go, so I just rode a couple of waves just to see how this thing feels. And I did a couple little turns. I'm not ready. Right. So I'm going to just wait another few weeks. Are you rehabbing it right now? Yeah. I go to the gym. I go to the gym. I go to the gym. I go to the gym. I go. I go. time and I just I compare it before and after but I usually go home and take a hot bath or sauna right afterwards and show me electrolytes and I'm going to get you on the hydrogen tablets. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I change your inflammation. You just make sure you repair. I always don't remember my water. Let's leave a little guys right here. Yeah, I'll throw one in your water there. I see your water glass. Boom. It's there two in there. All right. Just select to be any oxygen. I'm going to help with the inflammation. Perfect. Do you have any pain anywhere right now? No, just to my lower back, my lower back's been really affected by the hit. So let me know how that is when you're when you're done that. Yeah, when it's it's going to take about a two minutes to dissolve and then just whack it back. Cool. But you know, I if I'm not totally out of pain tomorrow, I'm going to let you know it. If you're totally out of pain, you better tell me. Yeah, well, we're working out in the morning. So I'll check him with you. You know, I had an I tore my ACL, my MCL, and I actually cracked the lateral half of my tibial plateau off cheese. I'm pretty bad knee injury. Oh, dude, I knew we were going to say that. I was going to try to talk fast so you wouldn't ask. Yeah. I wish I had a better story, but I mean, this was years ago, 2008, I think, and I had had a few cocktails. I was actually had an insurance convention. I had a few cocktails. And I think I had taken. I had taken three. I had taken three jujitsu classes, like including the first day where all you basically do is stretch and meet your instructor. So I had this previously. A free bio hack Gary Breck. No, this is way pre bio hack, you know, and I had taken three jujitsu classes. And so I thought it was a badass. I knew how to pull somebody by me and then choke them. And that was it. But you're supposed to kind of stand there and let me do it to you. Yeah. Yeah. You got to come up like this. You know, I know. You know, I know. I'm going to punch like this. And then I'm going to up lock. And then I'm going to chop you in the neck. And I sweep your foot. You have to fall down. You know, it's like, help me out here. So I had three jujitsu classes. And I'd watched a lot of EFC. So I felt pretty good about myself. And I had a few cocktails and I was at a insurance conference. And my business developer, who was a division one wrestler, oh, here we go. We started like mouth and mouth to each other. He was like, he goes dude, just so you know, I would mop the floor with you. And he's like, this does not even have this conversation. And I was like, well, we could go up to the suite and figure it out. You know, and I hit the presidential suite up there. They're like, I'm going to. I'm going to kill a teen this guy. Yeah. I'm going to grab his wrist to two. I'm going to pass him and then I'm going to be behind him. I'm going to re-enact your chocomit. It works so good in my second jujitsu class. And there's this thing called the Kimura. I'll get him. Yeah. James. And he was a little spark plug. This is a little musketeer spark plug. And he was actually fresh out of grad school. And he wrestled through grad school even too. So we push all the furniture aside and all my whole staff went up there. And it started friendly. And then I really started trying. And he wasn't. And he hip tossed me in my leg. I stuck on the side of his knee. He did not mean it at all. And everybody heard it go. I mean, it was just this big popping tearing sound. One girl actually got sick. And then I was sitting on the floor. I'm so glad. And my knee was cocked to the side. And I was like, oh, this is not good. So maybe we can cut all this out of it. And terrible for my career. And your body's like, hey, tell me about it. And jujitsu class. It's 20 years ago just for the right. All three of them. Yeah. 20, yeah, 20 out of years ago. And but anyway, the point that I was trying to make when you rudely interrupt to being asked me what happened was, I remember my surgeon said this. He goes, the surgery went perfect. Hey, it's like you got great conavitation in there. The surgery went as good as it could go. But he said, that's 30% of your journey. 70% of how your knee will treat you for the rest of your life is how dedicated you are to postoperative rehab. And I listened to the doctor. And I, yeah. And he, he was a great surgeon. Still is a great surgeon. And so I just dedicated my life. And he said, there's going to be a point in rehab where it feels like you're just tearing pages out of a phone book. You know, meaning your progress is in the beginning, you have lots of progress. You start to get range of motion. The pain starts to go down. But he said, when you, when the progress seems immeasurable, keep going. And I took his advice. And you know, a few years later, I was a amateur age group champion for the state of Florida in a triathlon. And I've, you know, knock on woodman. I've had no pain, no loss of range of motion. I never complained about my knee. Doesn't bother me in bad weather. So maybe, you know, with, with your hip, that postoperative rehab is just so incredibly important. Yeah. You know, how dedicated you are. Because a lot of people will just stop when it's just not painful anymore. And then put the muscle atrophy is still there. And you really haven't retrained the muscles and your body still thinks you're injured. And then you're out playing basketball one day. And, you know, you do it. You do it again. All of a sudden, I feel great, Gary. See? I'll give you an affiliate link. No, this is great. This is why I'm so much. Mm. But, um, so you're still doing the rehab for it. Yeah. In fact, I'm just getting to the point now where I can start to actually train, you know, I'm getting a range of motion. Have you battled on injuries during your career? No, I've been, that's, it's really fortunate. I've been super fortunate. Um, my worst injury was I broke my foot. I was really bad in 2017. Surfing? Yeah. How do you break your foot, surfing? Um, I've broken my feet four times, surfing. It's a pretty calm, it's not as uncommon as you think. The board flipping into me this way. So basically what happened with this one, this was the fourth time I've broken either toes or, or, or, meditarsals. Wow. Um, it comes up that violently. Yeah. So the board just flipped into me. So three times. The first two times that happened to me, I was on a wave, I don't, I don't know, um, how you're surfingologist, but I was basically in the barrel of a wave with my back to the wave and the lip of the wave landing here. Um, and that lip when it lands, it explodes back. You know, you, you see when a wave breaks and it explodes, right? Mm-hmm. So inside the tube that comes back up in the tube at you like this. So, uh, the first couple of times I did it, the lip landed there and pushed the board this way and the board flipped towards me. Ah, your foot. And broke toes and, or meditarsals. Ah. The first time I did it broke two meditarsals. Another time I broke a couple of toes. Ah. And then I broke, um, then the, the last one I did, I wasn't on a big wave. It wasn't anything very exciting. Mm-hmm. It was a, a wave that was all closing out like the wave was finishing and I, I pulled into the wave when it broke and I was just going to dive off. And while I was in there, I was like, should I dive or should I ride it out? Cause in a, in a wave when you, if you stand your board longer, sometimes the energy kind of dissipates a little before you even wipe out. Mm-hmm. So like you've, you've kind of fallen after the worst part of it. Mm-hmm. If you fall just before it all breaks, you can get sucked up and over on the, in the lip of the wave and hit the bottom and stuff. Right. This wave wasn't even, there was no factor of that. It was a, not a very big wave at all. Mm-hmm. And I pulled in and I, I was kind of in two minds should I jump off or should I ride it out and my leg was straight. And all I can figure that happened was some part of the wave, I was facing the wave too. So it was a different angle. But somehow the board, violently got pushed into me and my leg was straight. So something had to break in the chain. Yeah. So I broke all five meditars a little across the top of my foot. All five, yeah. You mean you literally snapped your foot? I put a new joint in my foot basically. Wow. It's a brutal injury. I broke the Liz Frank joint. I broke the, that is a lot. Second, third, fourth meditarsal and a line diagonally. And then the fifth one cracked up over here. High in the meditarsal. It was a really, is a really bad injury. Yeah, how long did that take you out? About, about a year and a half. Year and a half. Yeah, yeah, it's very, I had surgery on it like two weeks after it happened. Because the foot swell, it must have been the gnarlyest X-ray. The foot swallled up so bad, yeah, I'll show you the X-ray. The foot swallled up so bad that I couldn't fly because it was like the foot expanded so much. So my doctor basically said, look, just like let the swallowing go down a little isot for a few days before he flies in South Africa. And I had to fly double red eye to get home. Oh my god. So elevation for 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah. And when I got home, my foot was even bigger than right after the injury. So then had you had the surgery? No, no. You had the surgery when he got back. I was going to fly home and see my surgeon. He's a good buddy of mine. He lives right near me. And so he came over to my house to see my foot. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to have to wait because when I do surgery, it's going to blow up again and it's going to, your foot so big, it would rip that stitches out. Mm-hmm. You know, it'll rip them through your skin. So he's like, we're going to have to let that thing settle for a few days. So it was really probably good. We just put in a nice pocket. Yeah, basically. Yeah. But so it was basically like good two weeks before I got surgery. And then it blew up again and then I had pitting a deem of like three months. It was terrible. Yeah. And then, yeah, I started surfing a little too soon on that one. Yeah. I did that in July and I surfed the contest in December. I actually did, I actually did, I write in the contest, but you did that injury in the contest. No, I did it. I did the injury just before I had to compete like an hour before I was going to compete. So I was out of that contest. But then I surfed to contest in December. I did it in July. I did a surfed contest in December. But it wasn't a contest where I had to do maneuvers. You know, we're not turning. We're just pulling in the tube of the wave. So I'm kind of essentially just kind of going straight on waves. So it wasn't really, so for you, that's like a walk in the park. Well, it's just, it's easier than having to move around small waves. Right. It was sort of medium sized waves where you're just going straight in the tube of the waves. And it's a, in a weird way, it's kind of safer for the foot. That makes any sense. Yeah. So I was able to do it. Probably telling me, but I was just so excited to surf that contest. That's my favorite event. So I wanted to surf it. Yeah. And, but then in February, I got all the hardware out. I took all the screws and stayed with three plates and 16 screws or something. Oh my God. So I took those out and then I had to, I swear that the healing, the healing from that second surgery was harder than the surgery, I think, like getting that stuff out. My doctor basically just said, hey, when you're, when the cuts heal, you'll, you should be all right. But I got that whole pitting a demon in my foot again and stuff. Like we push your thumb in it. Oh, yeah. And he will stay in your foot. Yeah. It was disgusting. It was almost like dead tissue. And so I wasn't getting much circulation. So the healing didn't happen for very long. Like the, typically I've broken bones many times and, you know, four weeks of bone is healed, six weeks of calcium fills back in and your bone looks normal on an x-ray. I broke that in July. I got the x-ray done in February and the calcium was just filling in. So it's, because one bone shattering like eight pieces or nine pieces. Oh my gosh. And another one was like four or five pieces. Yeah. So the blood flow was obviously not very good. Yeah, I think it was probably shattered. The doctors who did it were a little concerned. Actually, my normal surgeon, he sent me to someone else. He goes, he's like, I could probably do it, but these guys are really good at it. And they also needed them. So these two doctors and Burbank did it. And they said they were basically like taking tweezers and putting a little piece of bone back together and trying to like glue them back together. Yeah. Yeah. And they weren't sure that my foot would, they weren't sure if the bone would sort of like heal properly. Yeah. And then we all spend one third of our lives sleeping. One third, that's 25 years of your life on a mattress breathing it in, absorbing it through your skin. The US mattress industry is the most chemical heavy in the entire world. 96% of mattresses contain petroleum foams. 92% use chemical flame retardants. You wouldn't eat that. So why would you sleep on it? The ultimate snooze is different. No petroleum, no fiberglass, no boric acid, just GOTS certified organic cotton and wool. 100% natural tala-lay latex and made in America. It's the only mattress that I back. Gary Breka, because it meets my standards for human optimization. Sleep chemical free. Visit theultimatesnews.com and use code ultimate for 10% off. Now let's get to sleep. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. And would you say you got back to 100% after that? No. Still haven't. You're still honest with you. So then 10 months after my original injury, so this is May of the next year 2018. I went to Fiji and I was surfing. There's a really big swell. I went to Chase Big Waves. No problem on the big day. The next day was kind of small. And I just did something dumb on a wave and I heard it all over again and I tore the plantar plate between my first and second toe. Just like ripped it. Because there was so much scar tissue in that ligament. Yeah. Wow. And so I was on, then 10 months after my original injury, I was back on Cretches. Oh no. And I remember, I was like on the island where we stayed. I was walking with Cretches and I just started crying. I'm like, I can't believe 10 months and I'm like, I think I'm worse than I was. Yeah. 10 months ago. Yeah. That injury hurt. That hurt worse than the original injury. Oh yeah. No, that's it. It was tearing the ligament off the bone. Oh my god. It was so painful. So basically that took me till about the end of 2018. Now what did they do for that? Did you go on and have it surgically repaired? I didn't know. I just kind of waited it out. Oh, dude. It's like brutal. Yeah, it was brutal. Yeah. But I still get these weird phantom nerve pains through my foot. They're not weird phantom nerve pains. Well, yeah. They're from injuries. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I'll get like a shooting pain and then it doesn't stick around. It then keep going. But I'll get, I get plantar fasciitis all the time. Mm-hmm. Because I golf and then I'm pushing off that foot off the toe of that foot off the ball that foot and then by the end of the day, if my foot just, if I've walked a lot or whatever, I feel like my foot has shortened up so much and it's like going to, it feels like it's going to tear sometimes. Yeah. Do you see yourself when the hip injury, you know, when the hip repair heals, do you see yourself just even going back into competition for fun? Oh, yeah. You see that a little bit? Not. Or even just going back into competition. I mean, I'll probably compete 53s in that long ago. Yeah, but I'll probably compete for at least another decade, not necessarily professionally or high level competition. But there's a lot of team events and fun events that I wanted to do. But I would say as far as like tour events, I don't know for the next two, three, four years, there's a couple of events I really love that I definitely have a chance at. Really? That's awesome. Yeah, that suit my, that suit my strengths. Yeah. And what is that? Basically, like, a little bit bigger waves with barrels, like hollow waves. That's, you know, that's probably what, after all this time has, has become my, my real strengths. And is there ever that one that like, is it, you know, either you're inside the barrel of a wave or you're dropping down the face of a huge wave? Is there ever that one that's just like, that's it. Oh, yeah. Just like, I'm like spiritually connected to what I do now. Is it when you're inside the barrel of the wave? Because I always think you sent me, you, you, you, it goes like slow motion. Yeah. And those ones today, certain ones are like slow motion. But then you will have certain ways in your lifetime. There's a few waves I can think back in my lifetime over 30, 40 years that really, certain, just individual waves stand out. Really? Yeah. What was it that stood out about it being inside the barrel? Yeah, usually just some, just the sheer size of it and the speed going down the face of it or. No, and just, just how well you connect with the wave. Maybe how deep or how long you get in the barrel. Or you find just the perfect way of looking for years for that one wave at that one location. You know, because every wave is different. Yeah. There's no two waves of light. There's a lot of waves that are similar on the right side that come at the right angle, at the right height, the right part of the reef that you're surfing at. So there are waves that look very alike, but there, there's no two waves of light. And, and it's really about how far you can push yourself to take off deep and late on the wave and still make it. And, and match the speed of the waves of right. You don't always have to be going super fast in order to have a great ride, you know. Yeah. That's maybe a super fast, long deep tube is the most impressive thing and most exciting thing. Yeah. But, you know, sometimes it, you know, like I was saying earlier, sometimes going slow and pacing what the waves are asking you for is the right thing. Yeah. But it is probably always more exciting when you're, you know, as deep as you can possibly be on a wave and going as fast as you possibly can go. And, and the things trying out ratio and you keep up with it somehow. That's what's exciting. That's what it's going to be. Especially on a big wave that's, you know, like dangerous, super dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. So, so where does this go for you? You continue to compete. I mean, are you working on things outside of as far as surfing? I'll just put an ass risk on the competitive thing because there's just one or two events that are on the tour that I really like that it that have offered a wildcard I would accept and still compete on that level. There's a couple of events that are just fun events I'd like to do with my friends who are like teammates. And then, you know, besides that, like I'm a new dad again. I have a 29 year old daughter who lives in Lauderdale actually. And then I have a 17 month old son and, you know, I look forward to him starting to surf. He's ridden seven waves in his life. Has he really? And he also wrote 17 months. It's awesome. He's not on his own. Those are all with me. But, um, foreign the ocean and three in the wave pool. Yeah. And, uh, two in his mom's belly when he was a halfway here. So, so he's sort of ridden like nine waves. Yeah. That's so cool. I would have 17 months. I would have no idea where to even start counting how many waves I've ridden in my lifetime. Yeah. But he's on, he's on seven. That's how he's going to outride you, brother. Yeah. He will. And hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, the wave park doing. It's going really good. It is. Yeah, it's super fun. It's a, it's a super fun experience. Is it, you know, it's like family oriented. Do you have partners in that? I'm actually not an owner. We, I sold my share of it. We, my partner and I started it in 2014, finished in 2015. 2017, we sold it. Oh, wow. But we, we're founders of it. So we still get rights and access to use it. And, uh, if, if, if, what, a few days a year. And, um, and, you know, get invited up there with other groups of friends that are going. But it's a, it's become a real. It's become a destination for surfers that have been there already that want to go back over and over and over again. And, um, you know, the thing with wave technologies, they're not cheap. And ours is the most expensive. I can't imagine cheap to actually make consistent waves and pool. It's getting more and more cheap, but the concrete costs a certain amount, energy costs a certain amount. Energy is not even the high cost. The concrete really is to make pools. Um, and to build out with some of the hardware. And you guys did that on your own in 2014. Yeah. To burn a lot of your fortune doing that. I was worried that I was going to end up. Use it is burning all the money I ever made. Yeah, yeah. That seems like a labor of love. And I definitely would have had it not, um, had it not done well. But, you know, people loved it and it turned into something. And it's become a good business for the guys who own it. But, yeah, I don't own it. But it's, you know, I'm super proud of it. And I still feel like it's mine, you know, like it's ours. Is there anything you're working on on the horizon? Is there an entrepreneur in here that's going to come out? Well, I'm building a, a, a waifu in Austin. And, um, everybody's moving to Austin. I know. What is it? Is it Joe Rogan? Like, what's, what's talking people down there? Literally, I, I did a podcast in the Middle East. Um, uh, with, with a modest influencer. And she was moving from Middle East to Austin. Yeah. Well, I got into golf in the mid 90s in it, in about five, six, seven years into playing golf. I met a guy named Mike Meldman and Mike owned this golf course that I love to go to on the background and built a community around it. A few years later, I got into the idea of making a waifu technology, waif, waif technology. And then I started imagining I could build, you know, insurfing what Mike's done in golf. We could build these communities around a waifu and people want to live there. And so we worked on it for years. That was the ultimate goal for me with, with this waifu technology. And, uh, so long story short, Mike and Mike's group and my group are partners to build this waif in Austin. Oh, wow. And it's going to be a community. Yeah. Build, it's a private community, private waif. And, uh, it's about like seven minutes from the airport. The good thing about it is underway now. Yeah. All right. We're, we broke ground January this year. This is kind of a big deal, dude. You seem to humble about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just building this community home with a waypole. I don't get to that. I don't really anything. I've learned with waifu as you don't get, you don't get to invest in until there's a waif running. Oh, great. You know what I mean? Like, don't get your hopes up too much. You know, like, oh, dude, she kind of likes you, but you haven't gone in your first date yet. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of money and a lot of concrete that's hard to move around if the waif doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. But there used to be a waif on this property. It was a waif called inland. And it was a different technology. And it was like a very early days technology of waifus. And then the guy who owned it also built a brewery there that they never used. So there's a brewery on the property and there's just they have all the permitting and water rights and all that kind of stuff. So it was kind of the perfect place for us because Central America, there's people from all over that want to fly and come surf these waves. Yeah. And there are a lot of people who are going to be members that already do have some kind of like either a business or some for some reason go to Austin. Some members that live there already that are going to be members of our club. That's cool. So, but yeah, it is like a boom town. I mean, I was there a year or two ago and you know, you get invited these parties and it's pretty much every person you see in the media and biohacking world and podcast world. Yeah. No, no, it's it's I mean Austin seems to be taking off and what's cool is you can get outside Austin you can actually get a lot of land and yeah, you know, there's a. You know, I know I know a lot of folks that are actually getting like outside of Austin into the countryside and you can actually still get decent lots of land out there. Yeah. And eventually I want to I want to ride things out on a regenerative farm. So, I don't call this silliness and Miami and eventually I want to be on a regenerative farm. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I want to have some. Well, I've I've looked at two places. I've looked at Tennessee and I've also looked in Colorado. There's 11,000 acre one that I really like and there's another pot of land in Tennessee. The weather's a little bit more sea you know less seasonal in Tennessee. Yeah, you got it. You got it. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. up in the kind of the rainforest up there, like at 3,500 foot elevation. But next to me is 270,000 acres that can never be built on or anything. That's cool. It's really cool. So if you want to hike, and there's like cows roaming at stuff, you know, wild boar. Yeah. I mean, this is not such thing as a wild cow, right? I think on this property, I mean, they're not. This is cow. They got it out. Yeah, they just got out. But they just roam free. I mean, I think once I'm retagged and owned by somebody, but good like finding them on 270,000 acres, if you don't have them tagged or GPS'd. So I have a group I call my VIP group. And it's this is like the group that I really pour myself into. These are the community that I'm really building. And I do private podcasts with them and I do Q&As and stuff like that. So they've asked, they've got a couple of questions that they want to ask you here. So we're going to, as we wind down the podcast, we're going in and answer some of my VIP's questions. When you say private podcasts, what do you mean by that? So we just, we shut the cameras off and then I let them submit questions to the guests. So they tell these folks who's coming on the podcast. And then so they knew you were coming and they submit questions to you. So yeah, I normally don't tell the public, you know, who's coming on the podcast. We like to surprise, not even tease it every week. Keep it really entertaining. But these guys, I let know ahead of time and then they prepare questions. And they get some really good questions for you. There's a couple of them here. If you're interested in becoming a VIP, you can go over to the ultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP. I'm just sign up to be one of my VIP's. But as you may or may not know, I'll do that. Yeah, it's 97 bucks a month. It's practically free. But I wind down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. And it's, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? It's funny because when I walked in here, I mean, obviously, I knew that. I know your show and I know it's called the ultimate human. But if you were just a random guy walking on the street and you had a shirt on it said the ultimate human. Yeah. People like, man, that narcissist. Yeah, yeah, he's narcissistic. Exactly. I think some people think that I'm saying I'm the ultimate human. So maybe I should say, I should maybe put podcasts on here so people don't think I'm going to ask all of my best friends. He owns a bunch of smoothie shops. Actually, has one here. Sun life. If you know that, but he lives in Austin, he has one there too. And he wears a shirt all the time, says cult leader. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny because he has a spurs. There's so many people, you know, there's some percentages of people who don't get the joke. I mean, I get it, but I think if I just saw him wearing cult leader, I probably wouldn't get it at that time. Yeah. To what does it mean to be ultimate human? I think it means finding your purpose in life and living up to your potential in the simplest terms. And if you don't know what your purpose is, finding it. And a lot of times it's just helping other people or something simple, you know. But I find myself off purpose a lot, you know. And it takes something sometimes a shake us up to get us back into like what's the right direction for us. And then you also go through phase in life where you don't know what that, what that next thing is. Perfect. And at some level of that from me right now, getting out of pro surfing, where, you know, like I said, I got paid to go surf chase waves, which is great. It's best job in the world. But you know, what's next and where do you challenge yourself and stuff? And I guess I'd like to, for my own self, for my own ultimate human share, I love to network. I love to put people together that have the right, you know, thing that can help someone else out. Like you should meet that person and do this with them, you know, and it could be music. It could be health. It could be surfing. It could be film. Yeah. Anything. I'm passionate about all those things. I highly passionate about all those things. But I think it's, you know, taken all of your own special sauce and putting it in the right place to be able to help other people and help the world. Yeah. I think that's great, man. Kelly, man, thank you so much for coming on the ultimate human podcast. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having you. I think my wife enjoyed the shark conversation more than anything that we even have to go there. It's two knows more about sharks, by the way. We should do another whole podcast on shark. Well, it's just because the surf world is so affected by shark attacks that we, it rocks to the ground. We study that information, you know, because it's some part of some aspect of each one could come in handy one day. Yeah. But there's certain places in the world you go with South Australia, South Africa, northern California, the northeast of the US on the east coast. You know, these pockets of sharks that are, you just know it. Yeah, there's been a lot of attacks and stuff. So it's really good to be informed about where you're at and what the potential is. I mean, you, you, you invested, you've lost close friends to shark attacks. Yeah. And that's shark attacks, drowning, so sorts of things. But yeah, shark attacks are, it's, that's a, it's, it's just that primal fear we all have. And it, it, it jaws, it's probably one of the most impactful movies ever. That was the worst movie ever. Probably one of the most impactful movies ever. It probably really because, um, like, I mean, it came out when I was about six or so. I, I'll never forget it. And I went back and watched it. It would feel, it seemed cheesy. Yeah, right. Because we got AI and, and you know, we had Avatar. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the, the, the way the movie made it seem like the shark was actually hunting people. Yeah. And we didn't know, I think most people didn't know how great whites hunted or what the event would look like. Mm-hmm. You know, so that opening scene with a girl swimming at night and she's by the buoy and then the shark's dragging her and she's above the water and she's getting dragged back and forth through the, it's so unrealistic to what a shark attack actually is. Right. You know, they come in bite you know. Well, they probably had the hydraulic thing moving her back. Yeah. There's only so much they could do about that. But, and then there's the beach scene where they, you know, there's everyone's in the water screaming and running out and you're hoping your kids not in there still. Right. So this is like a place on that ultimate. Oh, they did a great job. I still remember jaws and I remember actually going to, I guess, Disney World, a universal studios and see the actual model of the, and it was this, um, vinyl shark. I mean, yeah, it looked, it looked pretty fake up close. But I guess we needed just to flash pictures of it, really. I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard as a kid, I heard that the story was kind of based on the shark that had attacked co people. Or they think the shark had a lot of them up in Montauk or somewhere. When I was like 13 or 14, I went in this bar restaurant and whatever in Montauk and they had caught this shark and it wasn't the biggest shark in the world, but they think this one had attacked co people or whatever and they had the head of it mounted in this restaurant. Oh, wow. This is a story I was told as a kid, but you know, between then and now, maybe my story has changed a little bit of a neurodegenerative memory of the day. Well, listen, man, we're going to have you back on the ultimate human maybe we'll talk about in a shark attack. It's some point in the future. Thank you so much for coming. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm podcasted. And until next time, guys, that's just science.