Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Mark Healey, Professional Big Wave Surfer/Waterman

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

This week’s conversation is with Mark Healey, a professional big-wave surfer, award-winning spear-fisherman, free-diver, photographer, filmmaker, and part-time Hollywood stuntman.Mark’s made no shortage of major achievements in his career as a waterman.Earning his first surf sponsorship at age 13 and going pro at 17, the 31-year-old has racked up victories at big-wave events like Todos Santos and—in 2008—nabbed the Spearfishing World Cup.While he’s encountered his share of close calls—from shark attacks to blackouts—Mark thrives on the elements of danger inherent to his work.And that is a central part of this conversation.We discuss embracing challenges and why it’s important to face adversity head on rather than run from it.When you get to that edge, that point where you’re uncomfortable, that’s where you really learn what’s possible for yourself.Mark is wise beyond his years and I can’t wait for you to learn from him._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. All the white sharks that I've interacted with, I picked the ones that were showing me all the cues that I wanted to see.

And I never had anything but them being very calm and actually, you know, I know it sounds outlandish, but wanting that interaction, actually seeking that interaction after a couple of goes. But then, you know, there's other ones that have totally different personalities. And that's not the case. I don't want to get anywhere near them. And I don't want to let them anywhere near me. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery

podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind these conversations, behind this podcast, is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, to work to better understand their psychological framework, to understand what they're searching for, what they're driven by, and to really dig to understand the mental skills that they use, how they use them to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms,

one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time. And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals,

helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust. It also helps tap into your own network more strategically,

showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal. For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein.

I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly.

They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day. One a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay.

All right, look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode, by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category.

My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out.

Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay, this week's conversation is with Mark Healy, a professional big wave surfer. He's a legend for sure. Award-winning spear fisherman, free diver, photographer, filmmaker, and part-time Hollywood stuntman.

He understands the water. He understands how to relate to creatures. He understands how to relate to creatures. He understands how to relate to water. I mean, he's a true waterman and he's changed the industry based on what he's done. And he has no shortage of major achievements in his career, earning his first surf sponsorship at age 13, and then eventually going pro at the young age of 17. And at 31 years old, he racked up victories at big wave events like Todos Santos. And that is just a massively scary wave in the Pacific Ocean. And then back in 2008, he nabbed the Spearfishing World Cup. What do you know? And so he's a legend for sure.

And while he's encountered his share of close calls in hostile, rugged environments from sharks to blackouts underwater, Mark thrives on the elements of danger that are inherent in his work. And he describes to us how he does it. And that's a central part of this conversation. That's why I'm excited to introduce him to you. We discuss embracing challenges and why it's important to face adversity head on rather than running from it. And when you get to that edge, that point where you're beyond uncomfortable, like you're at the edge of your capacity, that is really where you learn who you are, what you're made of. That's where you really get glimpses as well of what's possible in your life. And so this conversation has much to do with the glimpses of potential and the process to get there as it does anything to do with water.

Mark just happens to be a person who intimately understands what it means to be a human in hostile, rugged, even calm waters. So Mark is wise beyond his years, and I can't wait for you to learn from him. And so with that, let's jump right into this conversation with a legend, Mark Healy. Mark, how are you? I'm great, man. How about yourself? Yeah, fantastic. Thank you in advance for spending this time. I've been able to watch what you've done in your work for a long time. And so I'm super excited to be able to have this conversation with you. So I can't wait to see where we take it. Thanks, man. Happy to be here.

Cool. So just from like the, the outset, how do you describe like what you do in your lifestyle and like the whole, like how do you, when people say, what do you do? Because from what I've seen, you do so much. So how do you describe it? Yeah, I, I've kind of had to distill it down. Um, and basically what I tell people is that I do things in the ocean that people are either incapable or unwilling to do. Oh my God, that is great. That is so perfect. Cause like like like what i've seen okay so you and i have

some mutual friends right and the way they describe you is far beyond a waterman like a like a legendary waterman but it's almost like when they describe you and this is the first time you and i've met that they don't know exactly how to say it so i love how you just just said it and swimming with sharks, surfing, big stuff, like over and over and over again. What are some of the things for folks that aren't familiar with your work and what you do, um, that are fun to talk about? So I've been a professional big wave surfer since I was 17. So that's coming up on a lot of years now. I'm 36 now. So I've been doing the professional big wave surfing, traveling around the world. During my entire life, since I was a little kid and was introduced to surfing,

I was very much into freediving and spearfishing the underwater world. And that actually became a profession as well at the same time, probably around my mid-20s. So that kind of caught up. It was always a passion I was trying to share, and then I actually found ways to make a living out of it. I've done, I do a bit of stunt work in and out of the water for Hollywood movies. I'm an entrepreneur.

I always got hustles going, so I have a couple of different businesses I'm involved in. Work with the scientific community with shark tagging. I do a lot of underwater filming. Yeah, I'm all over the place. Okay, so before we get into the fun business stuff that you're doing, there's a video of you. What was it? Maybe like five, six years ago that populated where it was you underwater uh underwater with sharks with a gal like swimming

like i do you remember this video that i'm talking about yeah yeah who was the gal but uh her name was roberta mancino and i was basically to launch gopro's underwater dive housings it was amazing like the whole thing it just captured something that was like scary intense real there was a sensuality to it like it like it was that was fantastic like that was did you feel good about that because when i watched it like it's really good well like from from my lens it's like really good well it was really interesting so the whole story behind this was um this all started in fiji um my my girlfriend kim who's was nice enough to weather two weeks of diving in absolutely horrible conditions with me just was a total trooper so i was like okay we're gonna hit tabarua for two days on the way out. And we're going to just go have some relaxing days on the island before we leave Fiji.

And it's right when we hit the sand at Tavaroa Island, this guy comes up to me. He's like, oh, my God, it's you. I was like, what do you mean? What did I do? And he's like, come, come, come. And he just grabs me and runs me up to the restaurant. He's like, man, you have to meet my friend. He was literally talking about you last night.

He's like, you should to meet my friend he was literally talking about you last night he's all you should meet him he owns gopro how good is that he's like oh my god and they're like oh my god like we're having a conversation about a future product launch and he's like i need a guy like mark healy i happen to be in fiji stepping on the sand and um he's like okay you're gonna do the uh all the dive stuff for the launch. And I got to meet the team and that was the first thing we did. I mean, do you, when you look back at that video and what's the name of the video so folks can, can watch it if, um, uh, shark riders, shark riders. That's it. Okay. When you look back at that, do you have that same affinity that I have with it? Like, like you captured something that was dangerous and risky and beautiful and and like i said sensual and sexual even like do you look back at that way or do you see something and feel something very

different well for me for me when i'm when i'm head down on a project like i'm i'm i want to get it done i'll look back at it later but we were doing like eight hours solid a day in the water. Like it was hard work for a good week. And Brad Schmidt, that was my first trip with him. We've been on many adventures since then. Great guy. He was the one who conceptualized the whole story and everything. And it was the first time working with him.

And I was like, it sounded really like out there his game plan for this this whole storyline i was like well we'll see how it turns out but i just got to make sure we get all the shots and everything and everybody stays safe and um when the final product came out i was like damn brad you got some skills yeah it was like that yep yeah but it was like you know it was head to the plow really filming that whole thing it was amazing yeah cool and the reason i'm asking this way is because when i when i'm gripped by something and literally it sucks me into like i don't want to turn it or turn away by i'm not i can't be distracted because it's so gripping i'm always curious if the person that was experiencing it, if they look back and are like, yeah, they captured it.

Or it was like, man, that was movie magic. And they did a great job making it seem a certain way. I mean it was such an awesome trip in that you had to get, Roberta had no experience with sharks before. No way. That was her first experience in it. Yeah. Okay. So people that are listening right now that don't know what we're talking about, seriously, press pause for just a minute, punch over to whatever player and find the video and just watch it. And, and then this conversation will make more sense. Okay. So then let's jump off into like how, why sharks and how do you help people free dive with sharks or, or maybe not even free dive, but how do you help people get

familiar and comfortable with sharks? Can we talk about that? And then I'm going to want to rewind and say, how did you get to the man that you are today? Because I want to get that context to better understand your journey. But let's go right into sharks because I'm scared and fascinated and I love the animal as much as you can. Well, it's just learning their language and learning how to speak back to them in their language. You have to meet them on their ground. Some people are willing to do that and some people aren't. It's kind of like if you spend six months a year at your vacation home in Mexico, but you never bother to learn Spanish. So that's kind of what I try to teach people is to recognize the language that these animals are speaking. And i say speaking it i mean with with their body

language and collecting as much information from the the surroundings of the situation to figure out motivation behind the language that they're telling you and you can get a pretty darn good read on them and a lot of this too is having a like a realistic understanding of shark behavior and and their motivations yeah yeah that okay so that's what i was going to say like i can read when a dog is pissed off or scared or whatever and or a horse or you know like their ears do something right yes um elephants whatever like they they send signals that i think i'm more accustomed as a, as a land creature to be able to recognize. What are the signs or communication strategies that sharks have? The very like kind of foundational shark behavioral cues are where they're swimming in the water column, how they're swimming.

Are they swimming in like a very gliding smooth way? Are there movements, erratic? Body posture? Are they starting to dip their pectoral fins? Are they arching their back? Are they just doing something that looks out of place as far as how they're holding themselves? Looking at their gills, are their gills, some species of sharks like great whites they do gill flaring um some sharks will gape so they'll open their mouth kind of like you know the same way a cat's gonna hiss or a dog's gonna growl like this is my teeth do you want to you don't want a piece of this kind of thing so that's not a friend that's not a friendly sign yeah okay have you been bitten

no no thank god yeah seriously have you been um aggressively nudged or poked or swatted oh i've been nudged plenty of times you you have been okay and then yeah even even with a white shark or is that like i see i don't know enough about sharks all the white sharks that i've interacted with i picked the ones that were showing me all the cues that i wanted to see and i never had anything but them being very calm and actually you know i know it sounds outlandish but like wanting that interaction actually seeking that interaction after a couple of goes but then you know there's other ones that have totally different personalities and that's not the case i don't want to get anywhere near them and i don't want to let them anywhere near me

and it's it's just like humans okay with much much. Okay. I want to ask about Mick Fanning in just a minute, but what, and your, your, your take on it, but what, how do you describe sharks to people that only saw jaws or only heard the, have heard the myths that, you know, sharks kill people? How do you describe sharks? I describe them as wild animals. You's the characteristics of a wild animal. I feel that there's polarization like there is with any topic these days that people will debate on social media. very diminishing side and very small at this point you know that thing all sharks are bad i don't care if there wasn't a single shark left in the ocean and then you got the other extreme that they're wonderful wonderful unicorns that are farting rainbows and they want to hand you marshmallows and you know or will blame a human which most of the time it is you know a stupid maneuver on the human's fault when they get in a

bad situation. But then you have to admit at other times it's not, and they're, they're wild animals. Like why do they have to be one of the two? They are wild animals. You can be in danger sometimes they have personalities. Um, so, you know, you might get that punchy one. You might get that, that street punk one. It's possible. So it's a dynamic creature. Yeah, full capture of your respect and your understanding of it. Like you said, rainbows and it's not full on, I don't know, beasts. They're wild for sure.

Okay, so there was a shark off of my local Uh, there's a couple of fishermen chumming. And so they were chumming. They attracted a shark, which there's not a whole lot of sharks here in Southern California. Um, they're there, but not, not local. And, um, we now have two juveniles, just, I thought you'd be interested in that. They're just kind of hanging out off of one of the beaches here. And so we had our first shark attack in maybe 25 years. And it was because these guys were throwing out raw meat and there was a swimmer near it. They didn't, the swimmer didn't know, had no idea what was happening. Took a nice little chunk out of his leg. So makes sense, right? User error there. In that same sense of not just having a predetermined conclusion about a shark's behavior you know oh it's just curious and i can't do wrong or oh it's just a killer

that totally disregards that set and setting which that is huge that is like probably the most important factor more than anything set in setting like okay i'm gonna stop for a tick and think like what's going on around me like is there a person fishing from up here is there this that or the other how far you don't know if that shark's just traveled 2 000 miles across the ocean hasn't eaten anything in weeks and is borderline starving to death like you just don't know yeah that's right yeah yeah or having a road rage thing that person is just like had something crazy bad day happen and all of a sudden it makes them go off okay um mick fanning one of the most influential best

surfers competitive surfers in the world one of the most influential surfers in the world period was recently attacked. Was it last year? I think it was last year or maybe even the year before that. Two years ago now. And so how do you explain that? He was out in the water, one other person. I'm just curious what your thoughts are really. There was only one other person. There was a contest. It was whatever. And certainly this was uh an aggressive act towards towards him and it wasn't bitten but um you know it was pretty intense so what are your thoughts on something like that well the jeffries bay area in south uh south africa where that happened has a healthy white shark population so there is white sharks there yeah they see them fairly regularly there. And that shark, based on just those frame grabs of when it was happening and the condition of its dorsal fin, looked like a teenage shark. You know, teenage in human years.

So it wasn't, I mean, it's plenty big, but it's not in the spectrum of white shark size. It's, you know know just past juvenile and uh when i see sharks at that size and especially how intact and kind of perfect its dorsal fin is like these animals live in a rough environment and they get banged up they get a lot of scars you almost never see a larger one with a dorsal fin that's perfectly fine and not missing some chunks or have some deep cuts in them so those are a couple things that show you that the age of the shark and what happens is when the white sharks they move from juveniles to adolescents like this one they have to start switching to eating mammals so they've been eating fish the whole time. So you imagine like,

this is, this is a kid learning how to drive stick ship for the first time. Yeah. Great insight. This is the first time I've heard this insight, you know, so that's really cool. And that's when mistakes, they got to learn how to hunt mammals and they've been striking out guaranteed because they're, they're probably, they're trying to hunt seals and sea lions that are still alive because I'm sure they've evaded several attempted attacks before. And they're like, yeah, right. I'm out of here, dumb kid. And they're going to go around and they may have never encountered a human sitting on a surfboard. And they're like, oh, finally, a slow one.

I'm going to try this out. It's like awkward high school dance for them. So they make mistakes. And a lot of attacks are because of this, like, I think of this feeling out period, this like white shark puberty age. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday.

What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that,

they developed what they call the Momentous Standard. drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts, and every batch is third-party tested, NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FINDING

MASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order at livemomentous.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E, Momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood. And that's why I've

been using Felix Grey glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Gray is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones, slipping on my Felix Gr's in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down. And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com

and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGay.com for 20 off now let's let's go backwards just a little bit why sharks for you why big wave surfing um why doing things that most people won't do in the water what about your history and your path and your upbringing has led you to at least those three extraordinary behaviors? It's really, I guess, exposure and enthusiasm got to me at a very young age. So since I've been like four years old, I'm born and raised on the North Shore of Wahoo. My dad has been taking me, you know, as a kid, you know, I would go with him. I was with him and his friends, helping out like cleaning fish and getting dragged along on a dive buoy or surfing would go with him. I was with him and his friends helping out like cleaning fish and getting dragged along on a dive buoy or surfing outer reefs with them. So it was,

it was never like kiddie gloves used with me. It was like, you're hanging with men. And, um, so I have like a lot of exposure to being underwater and in larger surf. So it was very natural. And the fact that I do have the personality type that I do, it kind of fit perfectly. So I never left it. I stuck with it. I enjoy it.

I'm still as enthusiastic about it as I ever was. I never set out for the shark stuff. The big wave surfing stuff, I did set out for. I did go after it. But the shark stuff, it just kind of happened naturally through spearfishing you know you're doing you're creating the perfect storm to have encounters with sharks you know you're being quiet you're not being intimidating you have struggling fish you have the smell of fish blood usually on your person and um so it creates the perfect set of elements to have

encounters with sharks. And especially like, you know, all sharks are wild, but there is a certain amount of habituation that happens at different dive sites and feeding sites where the sharks show up, they know what to expect and they don't act like i know there's a difference in how they act and some of the ones that i see when i'm just out spearfishing and the ones that i see a site where they're somewhat habituated habituated to so i got to through firsthand experience get to see a lot of different shark personalities and then things just came up and you know i volunteered to help out on a shoot and go to guadalupe or you know go spend a month in fiji living in a village spearfishing like i had a real passion for it i wanted to be a marine

biologist when i was a kid i didn't think i was going to be a professional surfer okay and you know i grew up on nature documentaries and that stuff is like what i'm super passionate about so i found a way to fund it all through surfing and go actually live it which has been great okay so phenomenal organic just like probably much of your life and then except that you said like i set out to be a big wave surfer. Okay. So I want to go back to two things related to that is I want to know mom and dad. Like I want to know a little bit about mom and dad and I want to know what it was like to be a boy in a man's world and what the benefits of that and the cost to that are. And then I want to know like how when you said I set set out to be, um, or maybe that's the word I

used. I don't know, but what you were determined. Yeah. Yeah. You were determined and you, you reached that goal by 17, like to get on, there was no, I don't think there was a pro surfing. There was not a big wave surfing tour at that time. That's only like 10 years old or something or eight years old. So yeah. Yeah. So that had to be like sponsored, like video clips, right? At that point, it was paying your way. Okay. So let's go back to, let's go back to mom and dad for just a minute. Give me a context. Like who is mom?

Who is dad? Are they together? Do you have other kids like in the family? Give me that like tone of the upbringing. So yes, I was the first. I got a brother who's seven and a half years younger. My dad grew up in Hawaii here because my grandfather was in the military. He was stationed on Oahu. My mom is from Mississippi. She showed up here 37 years ago. First day on the North Shore, went to go buy some weed, bought it from my dad. The rest is history. Okay. some weed bought it from my dad the rest is history okay um did this i was born they that

is unbelievable all of that and became you know very committed to the christian faith and and so i didn't grow up in like that kind of setting but yeah we grew up at sunset beach which is a legendary big wave you know typically breaks when it's bigger and you know legendary big wave so you grew up looking at something that was pretty intense on a regular basis yeah you know we were broke i think our rent was 200 bucks a month holes in the floor like that you'd fall down into um you know like missing window when you'd walk into the house there's a spear shaft like almost at forehead level right by the entry of the doorway that was stuck up in the ceiling from my dad changing his bands on his gun and accidentally fired and just buried in a beam. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Okay. It was just – they had – put it this way. They had like low-income housing for like homeless families and our rent was 250 cheaper than that so that's like the condition of the house but you have this amazing uh world-class legendary surf break that people travel from around the world at my front door so it's like you know you have all this, it's an amazing place in Hawaii where you can, you can be poor, but have all this access at the same time.

Okay. So with that, with those conditions, what was the tone of the family structure? Was it stress because of lack of money? Was it, was there deep love and it was like hope or anxiousness or frustration? What were some of the, the, the tone and emotional components? lack of money was it was there deep love and it was like hope or anxiousness or frustration what were some of the the the tone and emotional components um i i feel like it was always just fun my parents were very like like we did a lot of stuff you know besides surfing it's like i played soccer i wrestled i ran track i did gymnastics i did like a lot of stuff and we would go and you know like we just did a lot of things together i guess and um obviously all like the somewhat dangerous stuff was with my dad and mostly in

secret and um yeah i mean i don't, I think that's one of the, and I always tell people, one of the biggest benefits and legs up that I've had in my entire life is being able to experience having little money and not seeing any change in my happiness chart the whole time. So, and I really feel like that's a hindrance for a lot of kids that grow up with money because there's i see and i see this in wealthy people sometimes where they're not scared of anything more than being poor they never experienced it i think being

poor equals like always having to be stressed and being unhappy. So you, you've like fundamentally changed your family's social economic status based on your talent and your dedication to refining those skills. And, and you, I will get to this part in a minute where you curate experiences for legitimately billionaires. And so you, you've seen the bottoms to the most. Yeah. And I, let me tell you, it's like bottom economically speaking, but it is not the bottom. That's right. That's what I wanted to, yeah. That's what I was in my heart. Yeah. And okay. So if there was a thought or yeah, let's go thought first. Was there a thought that your parents installed in you? And that's a weird word, but dropped in or watered or seeded in you from an early age

that you're like, God, I wish other people would get this for their family, right? Or they could just adopt it now. Like what would be that thought or two thoughts, you know, three thoughts, whatever. There are a couple of moments on that, that that i grew up on like very it's so interesting because they're like my earliest memories but i remember them like vividly one from my mom and one from my dad one of them was i just tripped and ate it on the sidewalk and my knee was cut and it was bleeding and i remember crying crying i'm like mom come and grab me and this is this is interesting because this is like somewhat

out of character for my mom actually no she she's it's it's an interesting one she was clearly trying to teach me a lesson and she was like uh and she was about 10 feet away i don't she was like just get up and walk over to me and i remember like something clicked in my head i was like wait a second my knee actually doesn't even hurt that bad yeah it's bleeding but it doesn't hurt and i can totally get up and walk to her i just stopped crying walked over i was like all right that's it like it instilled something in me that like, you know, there's no use in whining about your situation. Like you're the one to change it.

And then another one was we were driving back to our house on our street. And I mean, North Shore was pretty ghetto back then. Like there's, it could be a rough neighborhood. And I remember my daddy, there was this giant local dude, like big dude walking up our street. And I don't know what the context was because there's a guy I'd never seen on my street before. I don't know if there was something else to the story that I'm not aware of.

But my dad, he's like, hey, Mark, look, see that guy? Well, yep. He's a big scary dude, huh? Like, yep. It's all just remember, it doesn't matter what any guys look like. They're a little kid just like you inside. Never forget that. It doesn't matter what they look like.

They're all little boys inside how did that shape you so the the skinning the knee and mom saying you can still operate under some sort of pain like come here and like okay so you got that lesson what did that lesson teach you that no matter how scary and big they are there's still a kid in there it really it taught me that whether it's physically or with status or mentally people use a lot of mechanisms to i guess put the scales in their favor dominate you intimidate you push you around but to just see past that at to okay what's what's at this what's at the center of this person and to not kind of see that superficial facade that that people may try to put out to you and does that lead you to compassion does that lead you to you're not gonna punk

me just because the way you look or I I'm not going to lose, I'm not going to lose my footing just based on your reputation. Like where does that take you? And I want to add one more quick one on this, Mark, which is, I want to see how this, and maybe it doesn't, maybe it does, how it stitches to you being an incredible taker of risk, you know, or experiencer of risk. And then I know I need to temper that because the things you do might not be risky to you. 90% of 95% of what you do is not risky probably, but I know you get stretched because of, you know, who you are. So I just want to see if there's any link inside of the two. Well, it, it was an interesting journey like this concept as a lot have you know it hits another level in that you know it's it's a defense mechanism it's a useful defense mechanism or

protection mechanism to know that about other people or to in the same ways just because that person has that uniform on doesn't mean they know what they're doing like question things it's don't take things at surface level don't be afraid to question things and ask hard questions i come to you but as far as you asking whether realizing that there's just a kid in the center of somebody who might be looking intimidating or might have an intimidating title or uniform on or whatever it is does that lead to compassion and i'm glad you brought that up because as i've gotten older i've realized more and more that a lot of reasons that people put that out there is because they're insecure it's because maybe their their dad told them they're you know not worth shit their whole life and now they're trying to overdo it like it usually comes from a place of

like self-protection or pain or insecurity and so it like i think it helped me have compassion for people that are hard to have compassion for in the end. Okay. It's easy to have compassion for people that are vulnerable. And for those that don't demonstrate it and use other tactics like anger, frustration, intimidation, whatever, righteousness, it is hard to have compassion there. Okay. But it sounds like it helps you deal in some kind. I'm imagining this. It helps you deal in some kind of i'm imagining

this it helped you deal in some kind of way with intimidation and whether it's intimidation of sharks maybe it changed the way you see you know intimidating some things i don't know uh big waves sharks like for for me both are really intimidating yeah like and they can be me too oh i know yeah for sure like and when i said like you know when I was going with that 90% or 95% of what you do, you probably don't think is dangerous. But for the rest of the world, it really is. And the way I liken this is that some of the folks that I spend time with and work with that do extraordinary things, we missed. And maybe we only see it on tv we missed the rest of us missed when you know like felix bomgartner jumped out of space at 130 000 feet the red bull stratus program we missed when he jumped off the curb when he was two we missed when he climbed his first tree at four and jumped off the branch we missed when he you know like we missed when he jumped from the top of the stairs at age seven you know missed all of those progressive growth-related activities that he's done.

And we've missed all the times that you've spent scared from sharks and fearful from your first shark or whatever. And I think something key to that too is what we missed is how many people inundating him with their doubts. Oh, keep going. Yeah going yeah yeah keep going with that you're you're that that's the one that like gets by they're like oh you're crazy it can be dismissive you're crazy it could be like why are you doing this and then it could be like you're selfish you're gonna go and get yourself killed and like you know for what? You're going to make all these people sad in your life and everything.

Is mom alive? Is mom still alive? Yep. Is dad still alive? Mom and dad are still down the road. Okay. And are you in an intimate relationship? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And any children on board? Yeah. We have two kids, two goats. That's it my lady kim and i have been together for seven years now i think yeah no no kids though no kids yeah no kids okay so but you i bet you get this all the time you can't love your mom if you're doing this you can't love your

you know your i don't know girlfriend i didn't know if it was married or not but you can't love your intimate loved ones if you're're doing these things, that's what I, I hear that a lot from folks like you, you know, and I get it from people, um, my peers as well, because my travel schedule, this, that, and the other that like, what am I doing to my family nature? And it, it, it, it's confusing for me at some time as well. Like, what am I really so how do you how do you and how do you answer that and i don't want the pc politically correct whatever i want the real like how i struggle with this is what i'm saying mark like how do you answer that well it's i know when i'm doing these things that i am like i have a very like when the waves are really big, I have this undeniable sense that I'm doing what I was built for.

I'm like, ah, I can, I can like relax. Like it's me, you know, like it might be a really weird thing for, you know, to liken it to, but like maybe some people that thought they were their other gender their whole life and finally got an operation they're like oh it's me you know like yeah good really good insight yeah i'm like i can i can be me this is like me at the core i can let this out i'm in an environment where i can be me without like without judgment honestly how did that come to be that clarity? I will tell you, I feel that way about my craft. And, and my wife recognizes that for me as well. Like, that this is your gift, and you've worked your ass off to have the skills to support the gift. And like, this is what you should be doing with your life right so how how did you get that clarity

that that you are built for and let me let me try this intense environments hostile environments rugged environments you know it's not just big wave surfing like you you've taken those sub components that allow you to be great in big wave surfing into other intense environments as well yeah i've kind of always been that way not to say that i haven't had to like overcome a lot of nervousness like uh non-beneficial anxiety to to get progress but i've always operated better in chaos. Like drop me in a third world country that's just a mess and I'll thrive. You put me in a suburb in Orange County, I'm going to go nuts. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you that

they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is F Mastery for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make

my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash findingmastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20 off your first order that's caldera lab c-a-l-d-e-r-l-a-b dot com slash finding mastery talk about the anxiety and your relation and then your relationship with chaos well obviously that's it that's a big misconception is like people often say you're fearless or or whatever it's like everybody has edges like the edge of their ability the edge of

their experience and you experience anxiety coming up to that edge so i do experience anxiety like all the time it's a it's a process and it's funny because I'll be teaching somebody how to surf and recognize them doing the exact same thing on a waist-high wave that I do on a 65-foot wave. It's the same process. That's right, which is hesitation, which is overthinking, which is not being smooth, but trying to rush through it and not all of that. Right. Absolutely. And there'll be so hard on themselves. And I'm like, you really need to understand that I do this myself all the time. Like what a cool human thing. Yeah. What a cool insight. Yeah. But your, your scale is, is different, but your edges. So you know what, I'd love for you to calibrate this with you, is that I talk often about the importance of running

to the edge of instability. And if you can do that on a daily basis, you push your boundaries, your edges further away, so that when you push them further away, that there's more space to play in your life. And would you agree with that kind of relatively easy formula absolutely okay so then then layer two of that is what are the edges of instability that are available for all of us it's emotional instability vulnerability you know and would you nod your head to that as well oh absolutely like one of the one of the most beneficial things that I did is sing karaoke for the first time. I was terrified of that. That would make me quiver. Did you do it because you got put up to it? Or did you do it because you're like, you know what, it's just punking me out. Like, and that's why like some of my my personal breakthroughs, a lot of them are because I was forced to,

or it was like I had a yes or no decision to make. And I forced myself to do the yes decision. And I've never ever regretted that once go into that. How do you what's the mechanics if you spread open that process of yes or no and go into the space between that that decision because we can all say no we can all say yes as well the yes has well okay let me stop how do you make that decision or what's the process to make that decision i think it's a similar process to when you're in a situation kind of like maybe you're at a cabin that you're renting up in the mountains and you have no skills working on a house or something. For some reason, I always think about this like being a man. It's cold out. It's 2 a.m.

You hear a pipe burst outside. You're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't have tools here. But there's nobody else around. You have a yes or no situation. You can get yourself up out of bed and get your ass outside and try to start the process of figuring it out. Or you can act like it's not happening.

You'd say yes or no and uh i think facing those things and instead of hemming and hawing at a certain point and it's the same thing like dropping it on a big wave you just have to go screw it i'm going like you have to flip that switch. That's a great insight, Mark, which is you can act like it's not happening. I, you know, you've dropped like four pearls in this conversation and that one is massive. And I remember when I was a kid, the first time I felt that, I don't know if you'll appreciate this, but I heard something in the closet and I'm talking, I was a little kid. I had the same kind of experience. I want to hear it. Yeah. So, so I, and I was like, I was a little kid. I've had the same kind of experience. I want to hear it. Yeah. So, so I, and I was like, okay, there's, I remember as a little kid going,

what do I do here? And either I get really quiet. I remember processing this, right? Like I get, should I get really quiet? Maybe that person that's in my closet or the monster, whatever, won't recognize me or see me. Should I go, should I try to leave? That was option two or three was, should I go to the closet door and open it and face it down? And I tried all three of them as a kid and all three of them were terrifying, right? Like standing there, pulling the cover slowly over my head, trying to slow my breathing down so that maybe the monster or the person won't hear my breathing. It sounds like I was a tortured kid. It wasn't that it was just like a Creek in the closet, right? But I remember trying to slow my breathing

down. That's awful. It's a good skill that I've learned, but it's awful. And then trying to sneak out of the environment, that doesn't work as well. Maybe sometimes that is the right approach. Yeah, but not for a growth approach, right? Yeah. So I love that insight that pretending as if it weren't happening. cycle snowball effect if you will um of people who don't face face problems and they act like it's not happening then they never they don't develop this active reference point of the last time i faced something that i didn't want to and how it has benefited me then Like the longer you go past it, the further away your memory is of facing a problem and the beneficial aspects of it. So then you have no, you know, you're lost in the wilderness. Like you're just thinking all negative as far as facing the problem. So like classic denial is what you're talking about. Like deny it, deny it, deny it. And people

that, that struggle and we all have blind spots, me included. We have a ton. Yeah. And so, but, and I think that you might say that just acknowledging that you have blind spots keeps you curious about what they are. And then when you're curious about what they are, then you recognize them and then you make an informed decision. Is this something I want to work on? Okay. Sport and performance psychology is born out of studying the most extraordinary people in the world. That's where we learned as a discipline. Then the science lens got put on it to say, let's put what we think we're learning in through a scientific frame to study and research it. Okay. If you were to have the full institution of,

let's call it human edge development, like, like helping people grow, what would be one or two of the top themes that you would want to share with people? Like how, how do we do this based on just your organic way of growing? And we might've already covered them. And that's why I'm asking the question. Like if you, if you were to sit in front of the most brilliant minds and say, Hey guys, you really need to study this. And this is how I'm asking the question, like, if you were to sit in front of the most brilliant minds and say, hey, guys, you really need to study this. And this is how I've been doing it. The way I teach people is I don't want to be talking to them and them nodding their heads and I can see it in their eyes that they don't fully understand things. I believe just from personal experience that somebody has to believe themselves and understand the subject matter.

They have to believe that they can implement this. Part of that is, how should I word this? Something that's really helped me is being able to break down my thoughts and my emotions. And freediving and breath holding really helps you with this. And just life experiences has made me face things that I probably would have left unfaced otherwise. But really being able to break down my your motivations like okay it's i kind of look at it like how when they when they're doing studies on fish they'll pull to see their diet they pull them up they shove a pipe in their their mouth pump water in and all their stomach contents come out then you sift through it you're like oh here's a little shrimp here's a little squid they They're feeding this, this, and that.

It's like having that fish gut idea with your motivations. Oh, this is ego. This is because other people want me to do it. This is because I think it's my identity and people are not going to value me as a person if I'm not the crazy guy all the time or whatever. What a great mechanism to think about a personal inventory. Like who am I? What's driving me? What am I actually consuming? Are they healthy for my sustenance, for my future? What am I choking on?

What am I eating that's not feeding me and what am i eating that is really efficient okay with that with that inventory what have you and i love that i want to get to this last thought you had which was people see me as the crazy guy and so that probably worked to get you at some level, your adolescence level to push further. But the path of wisdom, I think it changes in some kind of way. So I want to hear that. But I want to go to just before that is, what are some things that you have said to yourself or felt or been driven by that you have recently let go of? And that could be a really cool gift for, for me and others listening. Like what are some things that you've let go of?

Things that I've let go of something definitely like from a career standpoint, things that I let go of are the, a lot more than nagging need to like, you know, to produce small snack type stuff, whether it be content, whether it be just garbage, like,

yes. Yeah. I mean, come on. Yes. That is rad because you know, I got pressed so hard, Mark, on this podcast, like early on, don't do it like this. Don't have like have bite size snackable bits of information that fit in the modern person's consumption model, which is like under

three minutes, under six. I can't, I can't figure it out. Like I gotta, the only way I know how to get to the real stuff is by getting real. And that takes a little bit of time. Oh, absolutely. And, and all signs point to the, the modern consumption model being negative. Like what's the positive benefits that anybody's getting from it yeah it seems mostly negative to me but yeah stuff like that just just being like you know what i'm willing to take financial and career risk to do what i think is the right move here regardless of what everybody's chirping about and i'm willing to take it on the chin if I'm wrong. And I'm willing to acknowledge that I'm wrong later, but I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to do things the way I would like them to be done. I love it. What are you searching for?

What are you most hungry for in your just live a fulfilling life and not not get caught up in all the bullshit you know it's pretty it's pretty interesting like how you know you do better I'm economically I'm doing not too bad I got a house i got a lot of stuff that i never thought at a younger age that i would ever have but it's not without a a cost and a cost that's uh you know non-monetary it's like every single thing you get and everything you get into is it's just one more string it's like uh what was you feel like the the giant what was that old story with the giant and he wakes up and he's tied down by all the little people like it's uh not jack and the beanstalk was it was it yeah

yeah it's just one more lashing point that just lashes you down and anchors you down to one place. I don't know. I just want to have the curiosity of a child and go and explore and make the most of this human life we got. What is your spiritual framework? My spiritual framework, I grew up in a christian household i grew up going to church i've read the bible a few times cover to cover um i i do have a you know a definite spiritual side to me i don't think i i'm i've definitely changed my views in that I don't think anybody has an accurate manual for what God necessarily is and how we could even get our brains around that. are going on than uh than we think i i do believe in the fact that you know you can say it from a just as like a purely what we know in this day and age basic scientific point of view and that

energy never dies it's only transferred and just learning how information is transferred and how even concepts like mozart could do uh you know write a symphony how many years ago, and you could take that recording from how many years ago and play it for some kid in a village in Indonesia, and he's going to experience the emotions that were meant to be elicited in that music. This guy is communicating from being dead for a long time. Like, how do you? You know, how do you make spirituality or like,

how do you define it? I think it's just a problem with humans being able to define and communicate what this whole concept is, but I know it's there. And is there is there life after death you know i know you said there's a transfer of energy i think so and is there is is the world as we know it is it created by a being or is it um do you have a different way of thinking about it i think the concept of uh like a physical being that's personified and looks like a human and has a gender is kind of ridiculous for us to assume if if a consciousness or or being if you will or whatever words that you know thousands of cultures have tried to put on it is it's something that's far beyond our detailed understanding but I think in a spiritual sense I think

there's definitely something to be said about connecting to a power that's greater than you and connecting to others in that way. I think we do have a sense for that. It's something that's built into us. You've been exposed to and experienced some of the most far-reaching cultures of the world. And which one or ones are you most attracted to that you're like, wow, this culture is really on it. And, you know, they might not, they might not have any modern proclivities, but like, which cultures are you most attracted to that you've been part of? Man, I'm, I'm an Island boy. So I love the South Pacific. I've always been in love with the South Pacific. I've loved Fiji since before I went there.

That was one of my actual, that was a game changer for me when I was a kid and I didn't expect to be a professional surfer. And I tell people this is that, you know, in third grade, in fourth grade, in fifth grade, I had to do essays on a country. You pick a country. I picked Fiji every year.

I always was fascinated in it. I read every library book on Oahu about Fiji, all the old missionary accounts of cannibalism and crazy stuff. What happened is I got a sponsor, and the first trip I ever got sent to, they were like, hey, you want to go to Fiji? I'm like, 14 or 15. I was like, oh my God, it's happening.

College was just out the window as soon as that happened. I went to Fiji, had an amazing week. The whole group was going to leave. I ran into the office and begged. I was like, let me stay. Let me stay on the island. I'll work. This is on Tavrua.

And they're like, yeah, okay. You can stay on the floor of the boatman's beret and just do odd jobs. And so I ran back. I was like, sorry guys, ain't coming. And then I called my parents like a couple hours after I knew the plane left and told them I wasn't coming home for another week.

All right. So was that a risk or not a risk? It was a no-brainer for me. Yeah, that's right. It was a risk that my parents would be like, what? You left the country by yourself for the first time and you're already not coming home? But it made perfect sense to me. I love it.

All right. What an extraordinary life you've had, really. It's been wild all right what what an extraordinary life you've had really it's been wild yeah what an extraordinary life i feel like i that's the interesting thing is like i literally feel like i've lived at least five lifetimes how do your friends and loved ones describe you like what is what are the words that they use to capture you? I don't know. Probably, I guess, consistent thing would probably be strong-willed. Has there been a dark side to your pursuits? Yeah, well, sometimes, I mean, you can get your blinders on so hard with something sometimes that it's just you look back and you're like oh wow i missed my dad's 50th birthday i missed this or that like oh my friend's kid last time i saw

them they were newborn now they're like a human walking around. So there is definitely things that you miss and things that you sacrifice for what you're going after. Sometimes that sinks in when you miss something that you know you can't get back. Yeah, I think when it does sink in, that's why I wanted to ask, how do you reconcile with that? You just described the hardest part of my life.

You don't. You just try to not miss those later. You can go crying about it, but that already happened. It's there and gone. Learn your lesson. Adjust accordingly. Very cool. How do you get in your own way?

You know, extraordinary life, extraordinary experiences. But what are the ways that you get in your own way? In my own way would definitely be – there's probably quite a few ways that I do. I know there are. That's why there's so many to sift through. I get in my own way in that sometimes I can be like Captain Ahab with an idea, just like go down with the ship kind of thing. Like I have a, I can have a tendency to want to stick something out and ride something

out longer than I should have. And that's probably something that I've worked on more than anything. And definitely the second half of my life, uh, I have, I've had to learn through experience. It's like, it's easy to stay at the table and lose money. It's hard to walk away when you're up. Oh, cool thought. Walking away from the table when you're up is like, that's a tough one for me because it's not in my nature.

I'm good at grinding. I'm good at pushing against resistance. One more wave. Let me catch one more wave. my nature. I'm good at grinding. I'm good at pushing against resistance. One more wave. Let me catch one more wave. And that's the one that ends up breaking your board in the middle of the ocean or whatever, right? I've just struck that phrase from my wife, life. I don't even say it anymore. Let me get one more wave. I don't even say it anymore. I don't know. Nothing good happens when you ever say it. I'm going to get one more wave. What's that? That's up there with hold my beer. All right. What challenges you the most? And I asked coach Carol, which is the Seattle Seahawks head coach when I first met him like eight years ago. And I said, what's the hardest part of your job? And he had a really clear answer. What is yours? What's the, what is the hardest part of your life or your craft or

your job? The hardest part is trying to force myself to create structure. Yeah. Makes sense. By far the hardest for me. Yeah, for sure. Like trying to get us pinned down to get this podcast. Yeah. Please. You know, oh, sorry. Mark says to me, like, I'm going to be gone for the next six weeks on whatever. Like when we get back, like your life is pretty unbelievable. But so do you have any routines in your life or they're not?

Like when you wake up, is there something you do when you go to bed? Like, do you have any routines before you leash up with your surfboard or whatever? Unfortunately, the routine that really sticks is I wake up and I'm probably making phone calls and emails for a good couple of hours just because I'm on Hawaii time. So the rest of the world is ahead of me. And if I want to get anything done that day, I have to get ahead of it. So, yeah, and that's what I'm trying, you know, more than anything, to not be stuck in my pajamas till 10 a.m. every morning. So for me, it's like I just I grind and I let everything that's work is like is mixed in with my life all the time. And then I just go, OK, draw the line.

I'm going to be in the mountains for three days hunting. I'm going to go out on the ocean all day today on the ski. And I'm just not picking up my phone. So it's just trying to find a balance between work and passion. Is there a phrase? I'm getting into philosophy now, is there a phrase or a word even that guides your life? Like, do you have a philosophy that,

that, that you live by? I guess the philosophy that I, or like if I have a really hard decision, I just try to base it on whether I can lay in bed at night and be happy with the man I am, you know? And it's like, I've, I've, I've given up a lot of money because of those decisions and I don't regret it at all. Where do you find inconsistencies or conflicts with, with that? Like when you go to bed at night, is it about money? Well, it's just like career choices. One example is getting away from a traditional energy drink.

Did you do that? Away from a bunch of money. And everybody, even people who know how I think and people who I would imagine would be like, yeah, right on. They're like, you're sure you need to do this? Like, you don't have to be a martyr. It's not going to really change anything. You know, you're not going to change the world. But I was like, you know what, I just don't feel that it's right for me to do it anymore. And it comes back to how we were talking about Felix and him jumping and how you didn't see all the people who tried to put doubt into him. But when you have something that's an ethical question that you feel like there's something not right, and the people closest to you, because they're looking out for your own good, are saying, do you really have to do this?

You're not going to be making your life any easier, man. And is it going to make a real difference and like that's hard because you know they're not trying to just put doubt in you they're trying to look out for your own good and all of a sudden you're like i'm the only one there's a voice inside of me saying that i need to do this and nobody else thinks it's a good idea am i crazy or yes then you have to start wondering like, am I nuts? And they've told me I'm crazy. So maybe I shouldn't listen to myself. Yeah. Oh, okay. And then, and then how do you, how do you like, what do you do?

Do you get quiet? Do you write, do you talk it out? Do you like, what do you do to get to clarity to be able to make a decision? I do it the same way that we discussed earlier. I think about it and think about it until I haven't seen another angle. And I know it's a yes or a no. And I force myself to face that. And when I say force, like, I really am forcing myself. I don't want to face difficult decisions just as much as anybody else doesn't want to face them but i've forced myself to it's like a separation of who you are like you know it's an it's another part of me the same part that you know will fight for survival is going to force me to make a decision that i know i need to make so let's

take it underwater what's the scariest condition you've been in where you've been held under? Where was the wave? What were the conditions? And if you could spread apart the moments between the moments about what it was like when you were under and held under for too long. The closest one I've had for sure, I think, was first time I ever went to Piahi and surf Jaws on Maui and it was huge I had had a flu for like two weeks like a debilitating flu so I was just weak physically and this is in my younger years not as smart if I was in that shape now I would have never gone out there but I really wanted you know to experience Jaws for the first time and

when I was that age it was like every swell was the last swell ever you had to be on it and um I went we had a really long day totally tired body cramping all over the place we had a little bit of gas left this is back when towing was still the deal and I told my buddy I'm like one more let's just i got one more in me so let's make it a huge one i'm just going to try to pull into a barrel um because i think it's possible no one's doing it but i think it's possible and uh wave came i kind of faded the section so i like it it's i'm going right but i'm fading the opposite direction to let the wave catch up and then I go to set my line to go in the correct direction hopefully hoping that it the wave built up and it's going to create a big barrel and I just see out of the corner in my eye I see this lip landing on my ankles the next thing I know I remember looking at my feet as god knows how

high up in the air just because I got blown up it was like stepping on a landmine. So I came at my feet and my board with the backdrop of the black cliffs in the background. And watching my board disengage from my feet and go twirling off and getting enveloped by white water, hitting the water and just feeling like my head exploded. And I realized through the violence that it must have been my eardrum rupturing, and I had this little thin toe vest. The zipper basically just ripped off, and it was coming off of me, and I grabbed it with my hand, luckily. You ever really get hit hard by something and or or just yeah i get completely blindsided for a moment you're just like ah fuck it like you don't even like i remember having this like slow motion

it must have taken half a second but this thing was coming off of me and i was like oh my god like your body's almost numb you got hit so hard and I but I'm like I should probably make an effort to grab this thing I grabbed it and I just hugged it to my chest and just it sounded like a jet was going off in my head I could feel all this cold water free flowing through my eardrum and into my throat and like making me choke and just spinning and spinning. And I was underwater so long. And I was like, both of my legs completely locked up in cramps. I started, you know, getting, I blacked out before. I know through free diving and training, like, what it feels like. I'm like, I'm dying.

Like, well, I never say that. I'm like, I'm getting close. Like, this could not end well for me. This might be the real one. And fully did the slideshow. Here's your life, Mark Ely. See the slideshow and everything. And I remember thinking, I'm like, I have to stop the slideshow.

I have to get myself into a different frame of mind. And so what I immediately thought is there's this these fish called uku it's like a snapper really good to eat hard to spearfish in hawaii and they have this tendency to like come in you'll you'll usually be diving deep and they'll come in and they almost know exactly the range of your spear gun and they'll kind of come in just outside that range go away and you'll be ready to go up and And then they start coming in again and go back down. And they just always sucker you into the longest dives. So I stopped the slideshow in my head and went to, okay.

And I made this vision so perfectly, I can still see it today. Like I can remember it better than any dream I had. And this is a completely fictional scenario that I made in my head. But I just owned it so much that I still remember it better than any dream I had. This is a completely fictional scenario that I made in my head, but I just owned it so much that I still remember it. I can see this fish. I can see the detail in its eyes and its scales. I can see the reef structure, what the bottom looked like around me. I just imagined that thing coming almost in, going away, coming almost in.

I got myself so focused on that. The next thing I saw, there was just really bright white light. It must have been on the surface. My eardrum was blown. No equilibrium. You can't see. You're just spinning. It's just white light, and you can't hold your head up.

I just remember really bright white light and trying to suck in a little sip of air and getting foam but a little bit of air and then the next wave hitting me and then the second one i went through it all over again and that was worse and then i don't remember how many waves after that point and i ended up next thing i know i'm in the channel on a jet ski i'm like vomiting in my mouth and then swallowing it back because I didn't want to be vomiting in front of everybody and, you know, look like a wimp. Because that's what they're thinking. Yeah, because I was spinning so hard. Wow. Like I couldn't even stay up on the jet ski because my eardrum was blown out.

I had no equilibrium and um and it was funny because i saw my friend sean lopez at pipeline like two weeks later he was like man my dad said grab you by the hair and threw you on the sled and your eyes were as big as baseballs i was like he didn't pick me up my friend jamie picked me up that i came with he's like no my dad said he grabbed you by the hair and threw you on the sled i'm like no way okay we're gonna settle this and i called my friend jamie that i was towing with that day i was like you picked me up right just tell sean he's like what are you talking about i never picked you up i couldn't get you so i didn't even remember getting put on the ski or

any of that wow dude wow so so how long what was your process to get back on that saddle? Like what was the thinking and the behaviors that you did to, to face that down again? And maybe it was easy. Maybe it was like, Oh, I can't wait to do it again. That sucked. Or, but maybe it was, there was a challenge. Well, it was, it wasn't hard for me to come back after that. It was, it was hard for me at jaws Jaws to see if I could still have a relationship and find some love in that wave, which I've been through that up and down with Jaws solid three times. Yeah, it's a volatile one. But that wasn't hard for me to come back from because I was like, okay, yeah, I need to

wear more floatation. If I have more floatation, yeah, I need to wear more flotation. If I have more flotation, that wouldn't be a problem. I could psychologically let go and, and be like, I'm coming to the surface no matter what. And just that mechanism of knowing, like, even if I lose consciousness, I'm coming up is going to help you. Um, so I could adjust accordingly for me. The hard ones were when you lose friends and you're on site for it and you get to see people that I know full well and spent a ton of time with that were super humans. And when you see that happen, you're like – you can't lie to yourself anymore. You're not 10 feet tall and bulletproof anymore.

You've seen it. It's there. So then you have to go back and start digging into all those questions. And those are the times that made me realize how to do that, how to dig into those questions. Why do I do this? Is it because of my ego? Is it because this is the only way I feel that other people value me? How did you answer both of those? Because obviously both of those are involved for you, right? Because there was things that you had to question.

So how did you wrestle with those? I thought about it a ton. I asked myself a lot of questions and tried to be honest with myself. But as I guess all, there's this theme that we keep having to where you can think about it all you want but you have to have a point of action you have to have a yes or no and the way that I I uh got I guess closure to that internal conflict was always okay I'm gonna go out again on a big day, and I'm just going to see what happens. And I'm not going to put any pressure on myself, no pressure on myself whatsoever. I'm going to see what happens.

And it's so weird being such a strong-willed, determined person and independent person like I am. I've never been in that situation where I'm like I got to be here I don't know I don't know what I'm gonna do it's it totally reminds me of like when they have those rescue animals that they nurse back to health and they open the cage and they're like is this thing gonna go run out or you're gonna stay in the cage and it was just through going out and doing that and i get in it and i'm like i love it and i i had amazing like some of my best performances during those sessions it was pure me being me naturally and joy and no strings attached just in the moment thank you mark yeah it's pretty rad mechanically now switching gears a little bit like how many hours of sleep do you get

on a regular basis not much yeah i didn't i imagine that for you that just kind of the way you're living well yeah I have weird hours just from travel and you know sometimes you just got to get up and make things happen early but since I was a little kid I wake up an average night I would say I wake up between 10 and 20 times okay that's the sounds like a sleeping disorder it is i have a full sleeping disorder it's brutal oh god like and especially when i travel so for i just went and did a speaking engagement in bermuda and i didn't sleep for i slept three and a half hours out of 48 hours before i had to do the speaking engagement just because i got so twisted up in jet lag and my weird insomnia.

It just gets brutal sometimes. Awful. Oh, God. Okay. How do you manage it? You just grit it out and then fall asleep later? You can't really make up sleep, but how do you deal with it? I finally figured something out and uh it's so funny because i've never wanted to take any kind of drugs or anything like i would take ambien on flight sometimes before but ambien would

be like exactly five hours on the dot asleep then i'm up and i feel like crap the rest of the day melatonin i just drag afterwards the best thing and i wish i had been using this earlier is weed no kidding if i smoke marijuana one hit in the evening the only time i smoke i don't like i don't like day drinking. I don't like being stoned. I like having my faculties up and running. But if I smoke marijuana, I will sleep so much better. My sleep is like at least 400% better.

Wow. Did you buy it from your mom? I travel, so I'm screwed. Do you buy it from your mom? No mom no no no they they stopped doing that years and years ago all right good so all right um okay so how's nutrition like how do you think about nutrition and fitness and i got a couple more mechanical questions nutrition and fitness i just try to eat natural foods so i bow hunt a lot and uh so i eat a lot of wild game as far as my red meat i get my own fish all the time so i have a chest freezer and i got months worth of my protein in there um try to eat clean vegetables stay away from the gmo

and heavily sprayed stuff uh try to get as much local food as i can at home it's no problem i eat great at home kim my my lady is like an amazing cook she makes really good healthy food for me the struggles on the road sometimes you know uh so i'll just take supplements with me so I can skip me bad meals on the road. Do you have a supplement that you're using right now that you're a fan of? Yeah, well I'll do, um, I, I do some progenics for meal replacements. Uh, I like that. And then I kind of like, I bounce around it to be totally honest. I'm a full fair-weathered health nut. I have a hard time staying on one single thing all the time.

But pretty much what I just try to do is find good food in the location I'm going to be and find adequate replacements for the crappy food in between during the traveling part. Yeah, that's a good strategy. I've been using meal supplements for a long time, i'm using one now called athletic greens and they became a sponsor of the program and i'll send you some and see if you like it it's got like all the stuff that's hard for me to get in and um like it absorbs really easy because there's no i don't get like bloated or any of that kind of stuff that sometimes you can get from those those supplements so i'll send you some over and see if you like it oh cool thank you yeah for sure okay so here's some like more mechanical like where does pressure come from pressure comes from more than anything pressure just comes from keeping a lot of different fires burning at the same time.

That's where pressure comes from. Yeah, so managing that. Yes. Managing a lot of different commitments at the same time and just making sure that you feel that people are getting their return on their investment and at the end of the day you feel like you did your job better than anybody else could do it how important is the mental part of the game for you like for your craft for big wave surfing free diving whatever like how important is the mental aspect the mental aspect i would say is least 50% of either of these games. But I'm lucky in that, I guess.

Not to say that I haven't developed that a lot. But I'm good on the mental side. Yeah, you are. Is there one mental skill that you feel like you've got your arms around, or two or three? Is it calm? Is it confidence? Is it deep focus? Is it clarity of intent? Like what are the mental skills that you feel like you you got them pretty well switched on? Awareness, awareness is a mental skill as well. Yeah, I would say awareness of the big picture.

I mean, it depends on the scenario, but being able to slow things down in a chaotic, stressful situation. But there's tons of chaotic situations that I'm not used to where i might maybe weaken but i would say that that's a strong point and i would say my just mental endurance if i put my head down on one thing like i can weather a lot physically and mentally if i if I'm looking in one direction and I'm not distracted, I can just weather a lot and almost like time just passes by. And I look up and I'm like, oh, wow, I've been grinding at this for a really long time. Do you like a slow-paced environment or a fast-paced environment? That's hard to say because I think my most natural environment is like where I've been like, okay, this is my skin as far as day to day living. And it's like being in the villages in Fiji and stuff. You're just learning, worrying about keeping a fire going and going out and getting food and stuff that feels the best to me.

Cool thought. best to me um cool thought i think yeah that's my my resting environment but then i need that other side i need that challenge but that's part of going out and getting food every day that's that's that challenge aspect the challenge do you consider yourself a risk taker for sure yeah and then are you a risk mitigator or risk taker? Are you skilled at risk or are you good at gating out dangerous elements? I'm definitely a risk mitigator. I do not create risk. I take risk, but I do not create it.

I make it as minimal as possible. There's a certain amount of acceptable risk I'm willing to take in any given situation. And if the situation, you know, leaves a little bit of room, you know, to hit that acceptable risk level, maybe I'll push it to there if I think I'm going to achieve more or stand to achieve more because of that. But, yeah, I'm a risk taker. And I think the foundation of me deciding to be a risk taker is because I recognize what skills I do have and what perspective I do have that arm me uniquely to be a risk taker. One of them is dealing with those chaotic or stressful situations and keeping clarity of vision. And the other one is I feel like I'm playing with the house's money because I already know I can be poor and happy at the same time. So that creates a safety net for you. Yeah. Yeah.

And then can you think of a recent time where the risk was pretty intense for you? Recent time where the risk was pretty intense for you recent time where the risk was pretty intense i feel like there was recently let's see asked to a man who dives with sharks without any weapons 60 foot waves 70 what's the biggest surf you've – what was Jaws, that story you were sharing? Was that 50 – I don't know. There's waves that day that they claim measured out to like 70 feet. But it's so hard to tell.

Recently, I don't know. It depends how you break it down because I, I break down real risk to me is I'm trying to think of a time of, of an unacceptable level of risk that's precipitated. And what I consider an unacceptable level at risk is when I don't have any outs anymore. When I, when I hit the, okay, it's up to luck now point, which I almost never, ever let happen. That's what a lot of people that don't know me don't realize. And people who do realize, do know me, do realize is I don't leave things to chance. Another, another gem, like, like, God,

that is so on the money for making sure that your skill is on point so that you don't die. You're not trying to – well, I don't know. Are you chasing adrenaline or are you chasing something else? No, I'm chasing – Most people that I know that are as successful as you and have done it as long as you've done it, they're not chasing adrenaline. They like it. No. Yeah.

You don't like it? No. No, I do enjoy it when it's all said and done. But what I'm chasing is I'm trying to achieve something. I'm trying to better myself. I'm trying to walk to that personal edge that I have. I'm trying to create more space. I'm maintaining a familiarity with discomfort,

which I think is key to growth. Awesome. And those are the moments that count to me. When everything is stripped away, when there's no room left for interpretation, where there's no, the human grid and the social grid of your time and place on this planet has zero bearing on your situation when it's stand and deliver and you do it. To me, that's, that's a true takeaway. That's a true personal victory is when you can, when you can excel in that environment. I love this line. And it captures the way of living. That's important to me is to be tested in the most ancient of human ways.

When all you have left is your head and your hands. I love that. That's totally my thing. I know. I think that explains it really well. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. All right me too. Yeah. Okay.

Brilliant. All right. So let's do this kind of switching, but not really. Like, how are you taking what you've learned and your life journey? And how have you brought that into business? Walk me through what you're doing for clients and like, what are the business things and where can people find you? And like, I'm imagining people are listening right now and going, oh, yeah. And like I said before we started this, once you get your nonprofit up and running, like I really want to support it from a business standpoint in a meaningful way hopefully.

Thank you. And I will really want to show you that that's going to a good place so I can fall asleep at night knowing that I'm a good man. So yeah, so a little bit of a background, born and raised on North Shore of Wahoo, of course. And I always found it so bizarre that, and this is back then, it's gotten a little better, but you can go to a hotel in Hawaii, beautiful golf course, well-maintained, good service. But when these people go down to the beach, it's like, here's a foggy mask or a soft top that's shredded and it'll give you the worst rash on your first surf lesson of your life. Like, or yeah, here's your crappy pair of fins and mask go drown on your honeymoon. And it made no sense to me like there's this weird

old mentality like how are they not recognizing that people would come to this this place hawaii for the the ocean and the beaches primarily so i was like man that doesn't make sense it never made sense to me and through my years of traveling and being in so many circles you know i got to meet so many talented people whether it's from the cinematography side this the stunt coordinating and safety side to experts in all these different water pursuits whether it's in the dive world or the board sports world and and also go to different locations around the world and i notice all these locations you go like might be

a surf place but they don't have good fishing equipment if you're like me and you're into everything right or it's a good dive place and they don't have uh good surf equipment if there's waves in the area it's like they're they're all jack of uh you know they're master of one trade not jack of all trades and so i was like you know what there's a of one trade, not jack of all trades. And so I was like, you know what, there's a real opening. Like, what are my tools? What am I strong at? I'm good at going around the world and finding the most awesome, amazing, interesting things in the ocean and, and experiencing them. I'm good at troubleshooting things internationally and new and exotic places. I have lots of experience with that. I have a lot of experience in the safety

aspect of things. And in my Rolodex, I have the best people in the world at any given thing in the ocean, one degree of separation or less, and a fairly solid reputation of treating people well and fairly. So people do trust me i was like man i could i could put together things and experiences and adventures for people that they literally no matter how much money they wanted to throw out they could never duplicate and and i love to teach like i get so excited to see people experience these things that i value so much. And so I was like, you know what? And the only way to really convey these concepts or do this right is to put full attention towards it

and to bring the best people in the world for their prospective disciplines. And just because somebody is the best in the world doesn't make them the best teacher. So finding these people who I know through firsthand experience are good teachers they got a good temperament they're they're great people to be around but they're also absolute experts at what they do and putting together these teams and uh and just top to bottom complete and full dedication to to doing this right because yeah you could go do a surf school and that's like fast food for me. You know, who's to say that I could give a way better teaching experience than Johnny Tsunami

down at the random surf school, because it's just so fast and you got to turn out so many people. So I'm like, the only way to convey the value is to really dive into this and really put a ton of effort into it. And so that's how obviously it naturally has to be a high-end market product because it's very, very involved and customized. So do you have packages or would someone call you and say, hey, I want a water experience? Guide me. So it's a lot about getting to know the person and a lot of questions. Um, so somebody is going to come to me. I'm going to be like, what part of the world and that are you interested in? Do you want to go warm water, cold water, temperate waters? What are the activities? How many people in your group? Is it a family group? Do you want

educational things for your children? What are your goals with your children? How much time do you want to spend together? What is the group dynamic? What do you want to get out of it? Then I start getting a feel through questions and correspondence of what that person wants to do, what they think they might be able to do. And based on the information that I have, how I can facilitate an experience safely, or at least give them the turnkey option of, of doing something that's maybe beyond what they were imagining to begin with. So it's, it's about conversations kind of like this and tailor-making it. So like a super high-end customized concierge experience in the ocean doing whatever it is that your heart desires.

And then what is the range? Is this something that – let's say – I don't even know how to think about it. But is this out of the range for most people or is this something that, you know, I don't know, like how would I, how should we think about that? I would say it would just, a good ballpark to give it is a week long experience is definitely going to be in the six figure range. Yeah, there you go. Okay. So this is, this is a significant commitment of resources to make this happen. Yes. Awesome. Yeah, definitely. And then

where, so where can people go to find that? Healywaterops.com. So H-E-A-L-E-Y water O-P-S dot com. And, uh, just about getting done with the new website um for the last few years i've actually been doing this already i wanted to keep it kind of like fight club like if you know about fight club you know about fight club and it's been going great and it's growing but uh now's the time to kind of unveil it to the world and uh and it should be exciting it keeps me in the ocean keeps me challenged and keeps people connected to our beautiful oceans and want to value it. And hopefully it benefits the communities that we visit around the world. Brilliant.

And shark tagging as well? Yes. So working with my friends, marine biologists, with shark tagging projects and I guess a key point that I always try to put out is a lot of I'm only doing the shark tagging thing because there's a niche that I've found that I could fill to do it more efficiently save them time and money and it'd be easier on the sharks and that's to do it via speargun with a modified speargun shaft. And that is because on scuba, you can't really move through the water column effectively for like the more timid varieties of sharks. Or to get sharks that are maybe like the scallop hammerheads or the pelagic threshers to where they're not responding to chum.

They're very sensitive to hook and line so they can have a lactic acid buildup and there's a mortality rate and you always have the question of whether the data is actually accurate because if that shark was tired to the to the point of near death there's always when did it regain a normal behavioral pattern so um what i've been doing is going and basically using my spearfishing skills to be able i hunt them the same way i would hunt a fish i have to put a little tag in them and it's like a tiny little prick in them in the most sensitive sharks we went and tagged pelagic threshers which had never been done ever before there's no research data and uh nine out of nine of them and i would say this is the most sensitive shark you could do this to nine out of nine visited the exact same location as tagging the following day which shows no change in behavior

not traumatized yeah yeah so that's you know i'm not trying to do it as like hey this is my new career gimmick like it it actually is like a piece of the puzzle that i can help fill and i'm not trying to do it as like hey this is my new career gimmick like it it actually is like a piece of the puzzle that i can help fill and i'm happy to do that either they weren't traumatized or they came back to find you yeah where's that asshole that gave me that shot yesterday what are your sponsors what are your current sponsors right now lululemon i mean let's thank dave goto for putting us together at lululemon yeah what's up dave dave is the absolute man it's been a pleasure working with uh lululemon men's over the last year new relationship but uh my gosh it's different from any sponsorship relationship

i've had in the past they're so nice i thought i was being like fattened up for the kill no no they're legit that way. It's great. Yeah, I visited the office and people are just coming up and they're like, oh my god, it's so nice to meet you. What are your goals? How can we help you with these goals and help other people? I'm like, do you want an espresso? I'm like, whoa, this is like – am I being punked right now?

These people are so genuinely nice here and care about you. It's awesome. Yeah, it is good that way. Yeah, so my other sponsors are Yeti. Those guys are pretty rad. I have so much fun with those guys, man. Good crew. Goyaki, Yerba Monte Tea, Protanix Sporting Club, which is a cold press juice.

Really awesome story about that um this guy tugger who started it he would make cold press juices for us going to surf jaws and we'd take them throughout the session and that's how he honed his whole formula man did it ever make a difference so he took like these two years of us test driving it and he's made a product so it's been fun to see the whole journey and still be along for the ride um wave riding vehicles my board sponsor braymont watches actually working on a signature watch with them which is going to be has been an awesome and really fun project and uh who am i forgetting i know i'm forgetting someone it's like it's like this wedding speech or whatever right i want to thank everyone and then oh aunt suzy like afterwards how can i forget on yeah all right cool um awesome man so where can

people find you online we've got uh hilly uh what was it hilly water ops water ops hilly water ops easy and then social media what else you got hilly surf real original right uh twitter i'd say instagram is my main forum i'm also on uh facebook but i don't use it often okay brilliant mark seriously i've this has been like this is exactly why I started these conversations, is to be able to experience what I'm feeling now. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm stoked to know you. I'm stoked to ask you really hard questions and to watch you work as evidence of the awareness that you have and the ability to explore difficult and challenging

ideas. So thank you. It was awesome. Thank you. And I want to follow up on, I want your advice on how I can tame my unstructured self because I need help. I don't know. It's working.

Yeah. But we'll have some conversations afterwards for sure. Okay. And for everyone listening, thank you for allowing this to happen thank you for being part of our finding mastery tribe and if you're not part of it it's findingmastery.net slash tribe and it's a whole group of community of people that are supporting and challenging each other on their path of mastery and you can find me at michael gerv on Twitter. And then on Instagram is at Finding Mastery. And there's also a second podcast we called Minutes on Mastery, which is just pearls of wisdom.

And you're loaded on those from this episode for sure, Mark. And then, Mark, the question I forgot to ask you is like how do you articulate or think about mastery? I don't want to be a buzzkill, but I see mastery as a rainbow. It's a concept that you're never going to catch. I think it's something to be pursued and never caught. You can't master the external world. You can try to master your internal world, what's going on with yourself, that is possibly attainable. But I think it's a big mistake to consider mastery something that is part of an external exercise, because if you're doing that, you're then only using the litmus test or gauge of of comparing yourself to other humans so you're only master compared to another human at this point in time on earth so what happens if you become master of something and the second best human at that pursuit is that much further behind you does that mean you're the master and it doesn't go up from there like and i think anybody who's actually gotten to that point

knows better than anybody that the real mastery is mastering what's inside your head brilliant so good mark thank you again thank you all right brother take care all right have a good day okay bye Okay. Bye. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify.

We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know

how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.