In Search Of Excellence - Garrett McNamara: Surfing A 100-Foot Wave | E67

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Welcome to the second part of In Search of Excellence episode featuring Garrett McNamara, a legendary surfer who owns the world record for the largest wave ever surfed, 100 feet tall, which is the equivalent of the 10-story office building or the height of Niagara Falls.  He is the first person ever to ride a wave created by breaking glaciers.  Garrett is also the author of the book “Hound of the Sea: Wild Man. Wild Waves. Wild Wisdom.” and the star of the fantastic HBO documentary TV series called “100 Foot Wave."He is also a dedicated philanthropist. Garrett and his wife, Nicole, started an amazing Waves of Life McNamara Foundation, which helps kids to discover nature and be more environmentally conscious and self-sufficient, with a particular focus on disadvantaged kids. Time stamps:02:05 From a hippie commune to a crazy cultBorn in Massachusetts, grew up in BerkleyRaised by a single mom in a hippie communeFound the cult The Christ FamilyHe was around 6, and his brother was 4Those were the crazy times 07:57 Life in HawaiiWas being poor motivation for his success later in life?In Hawaii, mom had a husband DarylLived on welfareAlways wanted to feel secure and not worry about the money 11:14 Surviving elementary schoolFirst went to elementary school in BerkleyIn Hawaii, he fought with Filipino gangsIn high school, fought with another guy and took him outHawaiians and Filipinos fought mostly with brass knuckles and knives 16:30 Garrett’s first surfing boardAnybody with darker skin who moves to Hawaii is accepted fasterHaole – Hawaiian term for anyone that is not a native HawaiianHis garage sale surfboardSurfed for the first time with his friend Butchy Boy Wong, a Chinese HawaiianHe fell in love with surfing at 11 21:25 Falling in love with big wavesHis bad experience surfing at Sunset and his fear of big wavesDidn’t have a father in Hawaii, but had father figures (Roy Patterson, Gustavo Liberte)Was hanging out with Gustavo, smoked marijuanaWhen he was 16, Gustavo wanted to take him to surf at SunsetGustavo literally grabbed him by the neck and took him 27:27 How Garrett quit drugs and alcoholWas using drugs often, but stopped at 19He was invited to a Triple CrownRealized that it was possible to earn a living from surfingQuit using pot, cocaine, and alcohol to become a professional surferHow much money did he earn in Japan? 33:30 Garrett’s brother LiamLiam was better than Garrett, had more sponsors, made more moneyLiam became the most photographed surfer in the worldCaught more waves than anybody at Rocky Point and PipelineHe should have won the Pipeline Masters one year but didn’tBreaking his femur and how it affected his career 41:35 What is big wave surfing?Surfing on big waves became popularAnderson Cooper described it as cruising at the side of a skyscraper but the skyscraper is collapsing on youGarrett describes his best experience with big wave surfingSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

It's super violent at first. It just hits you so hard and it feels like it can rip you apart, literally. And there has been people that have their limbs ripped off their body, but the only thing that held them together was the skin. Everything else, all the ligaments, all the bones, all the tendons, everything was ripped. I saw the opportunity of becoming a professional. I never imagined being a pro surfer until I was 17. Big wave is different. Like some people, a three-foot shore break is a big wave and it can be intimidating and powerful. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, which is about our quest for greatness and our desire to be the very best we can be. To learn, educate, and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential.

It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication, and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving excellence is our goal, and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities, and surroundings. We all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Garrett McNamara. Garrett is a legendary surfer who owns a world record for the largest wave ever surfed, a hundred feet tall, which to put into perspective is the equivalent of a 10-story office building and also the height of Niagara Falls. And he is the first person ever to ride a wave created by breaking glaciers. He is the author of the book,

Hound of the Sea, Wild Man, Wild Waves, Wild Wisdom. And is also the star of the awesome HBO documentary TV series called 100 Foot Wave, whose second season premiered earlier in April this year. Garrett is also a dedicated philanthropist. He and his wife, Nicole, started the amazing Waves of Life McNamara Foundation, which helps kids discover nature and be more environmentally conscious and self-sufficient, and which has a particular focus on disadvantaged kids.

Garrett, I'm a huge fan, and it's a true pleasure to have you on my show. Welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thank you. Thank you for reaching out. And I'm really, I love what your show is all about. So I'm really grateful to be on the show. Awesome. Let's get started. I always start my podcast with our family because from the moment we're born, our family

helps shape our personalities, our values, and the preparation for our future. You were born in Massachusetts and grew up in Berkeley and were raised by a single mom. It went through some really crazy stuff. Can you tell us about the aliens coming down from the sky to Mount Shasta, everybody running around naked and doing drugs when you were growing up, and living on welfare and how that influenced you as a child? Well, it started out in Northern California up in the Casadero where my mother threw together a very broad range of people to start a commune.

And there was, I don't know, 20, 30 people. And we had a scientist studying the whole process. And that was where we run around naked and gardening and really free and really living off the land and really living, I would say, in a good way. Yeah, definitely more how humanity would thrive more if there was more groups of people actually living in a good way and then sharing what they're producing with the next town over the next village or i mean right now we just all have our own house we have our own car we have we want a bigger car we want a bigger house we want a jet we want this this. We want that. And it's like we're just living in the society of convenience. Everything is so convenient. So we don't want to go plant our food. We don't want to go harvest water from the mountains.

So we will pay for it and we want to make enough money to pay for it. And but so then we went to Hawaii. Well, first, then we went back and I lived with our father. And then my mom took us to Mount Shasta, where we were looking for Jesus, like supposedly we're looking for God. She was first in hippie commune was to find herself. She was looking for herself. She was always there. But I guess I don't know.

People go looking for themselves. Sometimes it helps, I guess. And then she was looking for God and seemed to be looking in all the wrong places. We ended up in Mount Shasta where there was supposed to be aliens up in Mount Shasta, so I guess God and the aliens hang out together. So we ended up there, and she found this cult called the Christ family, which she felt really attracted to

and decided to burn all of our live possessions, take all of her money, whatever was left from her inheritance, and give it to the Christ family. So we had no shoes, no clothes. We had a robe exactly like Jesus wore. And we had a little sheet rolled up with a little blanket tied on each end on the top and the bottom. And you put it over your shoulder. That was your only lively possession. Your little robe and your little blanket, and you walk the streets chanting, no sex, no killing, no materialism. That came from the cult leader.

His name was Crite Lightning Amen. Crite Lightning Amen was very elusive. We were always looking for him, but we never found him. The one thing that people would always say is, where did the kids come from? No sex. You know, how are you going to have a child? Where did the kids come from? Oh, now my mom would be like, oh, that was before.

Oh, my goodness. And I'm like seven. My brother's like five or maybe even six and four. We were really young and we're walking bare feet for miles no nothing no food no money a blanket and a robe and we ate out of the safe way or nowadays it would have been whole foods or whatever big store had a dumpster behind it we ate out of their dumpsters whenever we were hungry you'd be surprised at what you find in those dumpsters i actually uh honestly can say there's

really good food in there or maybe i was really hungry um and then if somebody picked you offered to pick you up you could take a ride if you felt it was safe. Yeah, it was crazy. One of the brothers got lynched and I took it somewhere in a Bible belt. Yeah, it was crazy, crazy times. Probably the one part of my childhood where I choose to love it now and I choose to not be a victim and choose to not dwell on it,

choose to actually love it, but set that memory and that experience free and doesn't serve me anymore. So I do love that experience. And then my mom says, we're moving to Hawaii. We're living with our dad now in Berkeley, where we had a pretty stable environment. My dad had a restaurant, he had a house he had everything so we did not want to leave we're like oh no here comes mom again and she's taking us away so we're going to hawaii we went kicking and screaming and uh she's like don't don't worry they're they're surfing uh it's like skateboarding but you when you fall you don't hit you hit water not pavement and so it was very that was the only thing that interested me, the only thing that felt like, oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, maybe we can become surfers. At that time, we were pretty much skateboarding freaks. It was during the Dogtown era, and we were the Berkeley, California Dogtown guys, basically. And, yeah, then we ended up in Hawaii. We'll come back to that in a minute, but I know a lot of people, very successful people, whose parents, mom, dad, whatever the case may be, were on welfare. And that's traumatic for a lot of kids.

When you saw your mom struggling to pay rent and you hadn't eaten things in days, were you always saying to yourself, one day I want to have money, I don't want to be poor? And was that a motivating factor for your success later in life? It wasn't a thought that I consciously processed and contemplated and evaluated. So when we got to Hawaii, her husband at the time, a musician, African-American, black guy, he brought us to he got the plane tickets. His name was Darryl. He was awesome. He brought us his amazing musician. He brought us to Hawaii and he was going to play music with Don Ho's daughter he had a gig set up with her and then as soon as we got to Hawaii short after he left and he was the breadwinner he brought the tickets he got us to Hawaii and he left and we were stuck in the armpit of the

north shores called Cement City where all the military and poor people lived. It was either military or low-income housing, and we were lucky there was welfare back then. There was, and it was almost, yeah, and so we were on welfare, so we did have a roof over our head. We did have our frosted flakes and our craft macaroni and cheese and if she would force us to eat the frozen corn and frozen string beans but um the worst part about that whole experience there was you know there was a little bit of food there

was it wasn't the stuff you wanted but you weren't starving but when. But when we went to eat our cereal, she would make powdered milk. If you've ever drink powdered milk, it is disgusting. And then if we were lucky, she would go half and half, half real milk and half powdered milk. And so that was like a treat. Whew. Yeah yeah that wasn't that much funny either i mean but we weren't starving we did have food christ family is a different story hawaii welfare did welfare back then i mean they pay you your your rent and they um give you enough food stamps it wasn't something you're proud of showing up at the store with food stamps. But I think it always gave me this feeling of wanting to feel secure and wanting to feel like I've made it, like I've earned enough money to not have to worry.

It definitely put that in my mind. It definitely made me worried about the future and where the money was going to come from and where the retirement was going to come from and how is it going to be possible and how do I make it happen. So for a lot of people like me, when I thought about my future, I thought schooling was my ticket to success. Everyone says that the education you get is the best investment in yourself that you can make. I was always taught that by my parents. And while I didn't have spending money in college and in law school, I said, all right, my grades are going to be my ticket to success. You had a little bit of a different kind of schooling.

Schooling wasn't really for you. Tell us about elementary school your first year and being the only white kid in your class the fact you really didn't want to go to school and then tell us about the the fight you had to get in on your first day to prove yourself yeah it was a pretty um lucky to be honest um i was you know started in the hippie commune and then ended up in Mount Shasta in Berkeley. And so we always kind of had to fit in wherever we went or else feel like, you know, we fit in wherever we went. We were lucky. We adapted to the situation wherever we were because we had to. And when we got to Hawaii, most white kids are beat up every day,

don't come back. My first day of school, I'd been, before my mother moved us, we were living in Berkeley, and I went to Malcolm X Elementary. No, Malcolm X, yeah,colm x and leconte so imagine it was mostly all african-americans and mexicans and i mean there was a bit few of us as well a few caucasian few white kids in there but i had to fight every day i had to fight all the time so um and then we had our stepbrothers that we fought with all the time and then we had we fought a lot so we we could fight so and this is elementary school you're not supposed to be able to fight but we did and for survival it was

survival and then uh I got to the school in Hawaii first day of school this Filipino guy I still remember him he pushed we're walking up the stairs to the class and he pushes my chest and as they back then in Hawaii you kind of check the guy you're not really trying to fight him you're just kind of checking but in Berkeley if you're checking a guy that's gonna it's on so then um I pushed him and then he pushed me back, and then boom, I took him out. So then that day forward, I was respected in the school, and I aligned with the toughest kids in the school, and we started a gang, and we all got leather jackets. And it was like a week later off the principal pulled us all into the

office me and Brian Ixolda and Ryan Ishimoto and Shane Donosco and a few other the Hawaiians and locals and um you know we know gangs in my school and he took our our leather jackets away. But, you know, the last day of school, every year that I went to school, was Kill Howley Day. And I chose not to go on Kill Howley Day just to be safe. I remember there was one situation where there was a Hawaiian gang in the high school, and there was a Filipino gang and a Hawaiian gang.

And they warred against each other. As long as they were warring, then if you weren't in the wrong place at the wrong time, you were okay. But if you were upset one of their family members or friends or them, or if you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, they would hunt you. So I, in high school, I got in a fight with another guy, pretty much the same thing. He, and he tried to, you know, he, he wanted to fight and, and,

and then I took him out and then, um, his cousin was after me for a while. So I would walk home on the bridge and he walked down the I would walk home on the bridge, and he'd walk down the road and go up onto the bridge, and then walking, and this is a sugar cane bridge where there's just giant Turnal 2 trucks, they're the biggest trucks you've ever seen with the biggest tires. And I would be always kind of looking over my shoulder. And one time the guy chased me, and was running and he threw a punch and just barely got me and I kept running.

It wasn't that bad. And it was good that it happened like that because then he was like, yeah, I got him. And then he didn't really bother me anymore. But that was the one situation in school where I was like running, scared. When you say gang, I'm thinking of gangs are shooting each other. Were these just fistfights?

Because you used the word like hunt, and that's not a good word to use if you're just fistfighting. Well, they would bring brass knuckles and knives. Wow. No guns. Oh, maybe a gun here and there, but mostly brass knuckles and knives.

The Filipinos will bring them because they're smaller than most of the Hawaiians. Let's go to surfing now. And when you started surfing, can you tell us about your mom going to a garage sale and buying a board for $15? And then what happened from there? And then as well, Butch's three knee boards when you found his dad's knee boards as well? Yeah. I want to share one other thing about the Filipinos. In Hawaii, anybody who moves to Hawaii or has been living here for a long period of time

that is of dark skin, they quickly assume the role of that they're Hawaiian or that they act like they're Hawaiian compared to the white people anybody white is now you're kind of it's weird but the term haole white people didn't it wasn't just for white people it was for any visitor who came to Hawaii any explorer started with the white people coming, but then, you know, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Filipino, the Portuguese, the Spanish, they all came to work for different reasons,

most of them plantation workers, some of them. But anybody with dark skin all of a sudden becomes local Hawaiian overnight, and the Haole's are still Haole's once in a while a Haole will end up more Hawaiian than the Hawaiians uh just by of embodying the language and the knowledge of the history and really diving deep and becoming one with the Hawaiians and and trying to help the Hawaiians so um but it's super interesting that anybody dark-skinned is local hawaiian overnight um for the surfboard that was

incredible we didn't have much money there was just enough to have food and just enough to have a roof over the head and you had to scrimp every month every penny and somehow uh she she uh my mother bought us a surfboard at a garage sale was 15 and it was um it was about 100 pounds and my brother and i were so happy and we would we would carry that thing to the beach together because it was so heavy we'd have to one guy in the front, one guy in the back, and we'd walk into the beach. And then we would hitchhike sometimes. But it was funny, back then you had to wait a long time for a car to go by. Nowadays, you got to wait a long time to cross the street.

It's total opposite. During COVID, it went back to how Hawaii was when I first moved here. It was so amazing. COVID was the best thing that ever happened in Hawaii. So you have a board. It's 100 pounds. I think it was 12 feet long. What happened next?

And what about the knee boards? You're hanging out with your buddy, Butchie. And when was the first time you hit the water and went from your knees to your feet it's funny the guy our best friend butchie boy wong he uh he lives on the big island now and i've had numerous people come up to me and say oh my friend told me he taught you how to surf i mean what's his name and so on so no and this this has been going on for years like all the way till about i want to say it was like 10 years ago maybe 12 years ago i was on the big island and i'm taking a shower and this this old guy older guy a gentleman comes up to me and he's

like hey my brother told me he taught you how to surf and And I'm like, oh, here we go again. I was like, well, what's his name? And he's like, Poochie Boy. And I'm like, oh, your brother did teach me how to surf. And he's like, really? No way, I never believed him. I couldn't believe him. Wow, oh, right on, right on. And yeah, that was Poochie Boy Wong.

His father was Wongi Wong. And his father was a Neib wong and his father was a kneeboard a big chinese hawaiian and uh he took it serious he had these beautiful kneeboards all hung up on the wall with these beautiful waves airbrushed on them i wish i knew where those are still today they were beautiful and uh this was the first time surfing that i recall in hawaii with butchie boy on his birthday and uh he said my dad's gonna let's take out the boards it's it's my birthday and we went out me my brother and butchie on the three three beautiful kneeboards and we went out to this little little small little waves are breaking right on the shore, right on the reef. Just deep enough to surf and just big enough to get a glide and ride the wave. And then we've jumped straight to our feet.

We're like, we're not kneeboarding. We're going to surf. And we jumped straight to our feet and that was it. We fell in love. That was the beginning of the passion. You were 11 years old at the time? 11. My brother was nine. I was 11. So let's skip ahead. You're surfing for a few years. We'll go five years forward. You're 16 years old. And at 16, you said you were scared to death of the big waves. You wouldn't go

higher than 10 feet. So can you talk to us about what you were thinking from 11 to 16 and then at 16 what changed in your brain where you said hey i'm going to go a little bit higher and a little bit higher i think uh when i was like four or five i took some peyote and i think that really helped uh to be honest i surfed about four to six about eight to ten foot faces at sunset on my six four rozo surfboard rasta rat surfboard and i there wasn't really anybody out i don't even remember there being anybody out but there had to be at least one or two people out there and then i paddled for this wave and i came down pretty perfect and then when i went to turn the board slid and then i fell over the front of the board landed on the wall as the wave broke over me and then took me with the white water forever and i was under i was probably panicking trying to get

up it's probably like five seconds but i'm trying to swim up if you i was probably panicking trying to get up it's probably like five seconds but i'm trying to swim up if you if you're panicking trying to swim up it makes it seem like eternity if you just relax you can stay there pretty much as long as any single wave will pound you and um after that experience i was terrified of waves over 10 feet tall and I was vowed to never surf a wave over 10 feet. And so we didn't have our father here in Hawaii with us. And we had a lot of father figures through the years from in Hawaii. And it started out with Roy Patterson and he he built my first really good boards. And then up at Sunset, we had a few different people who kind of mentored us,

but one of them was Gustavo Liberte. He was a big Peruvian guy who had all the surfboards and all the toys, and he was just this really awesome guy. And I'd go to his house every day, do whatever he asked me to do, and we'd go surfing. And to be honest, back then I was about 15, 16. We burned a lot of marijuana back then. We loved to smoke joints.

And he had the best weed, and he would let us roll the joints. So we were super stoked to go to his house. That was basically what he had us do, was roll the joints. And he called me and my brother the Stacks Brothers. Stacks 1 and Stacks 2. And don't let any kids listen to this podcast, okay? I don't share this with many people. Okay.

I don't want to influence kids to do, you know. Smoking is definitely not something you want to do until you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish in your life. And then if you decide you want to take up smoking, then maybe smoke in the evening before you go to bed. But other than that, I don't recommend smoking for anybody. So I'm hanging out with him, smoking our fatties, having a great time, cruising around in his Volkswagen Bug. And he goes, Punky, he used to call me Punky. Besides Stacks 1, he called me Punky. He said, Punky, he used to call me Punky. Besides Stacks 1, he called me Punky.

He said, Punky, today you're coming with me. We're going to surf sunset. And I'm like, no! I mean, I was terrified. He said, no, no, no, don't worry, don't worry. I'm going to give you the perfect board, the right board, the correct board for today and I'm going to take you down to the shoreline.

I'm going to show you where to paddle out and where to paddle in and i'm gonna show you where to line up and i'm gonna get you right in the right spot and you're gonna have so much fun i'm just like no way no he literally you you i don't know if you're ever experienced somebody grabbing you by the neck that back in the day it it was the Volcom neck pinch. Nowadays, it's just when you're back then, if you were misbehaving, your father would normally grab you by the neck and squeeze it pretty hard until you're like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Just kind of keep you in order.

My father used to do that to us. He literally grabbed me by the neck and said punky you're coming with me and nothing you can do about it and so i said okay okay okay okay so then uh he gave me the a sunset point pat ross and 710 gun he probably to the shoreline showed me exactly where to paddle out easily and exactly where to go and and when to paddle for the wave and where to paddle out easily and exactly where to go and when to paddle for the wave and where to paddle for it. And I caught every wave I wanted that day. Every wave that I wanted, I caught and I fell in love with big waves. That was the start, the beginning of the pursuit for big waves. And the passion grew from just surfing because i love it to surfing big waves

because i love it you were 16 when you started when you got over your fear and of getting under or drowning whatever the fear was when you started saying okay i'm now going to go north of that i'm going to keep getting bigger and bigger at 16. 16 years old was when the beginning, the search for the big wave. Sunset, pipeline, lawnies, then Waimea Bay, and then the outer reefs with the tow in, and then there was no wave too big. So you mentioned smoking the fatties, and you talked about the weed. You also did a lot of alcohol.

You liked tequila you did also some cocaine but at some point you're 19 years old you're in japan and you stop what made you stop i saw that the opportunity of becoming a professional i never imagined being a pro surfer until i was 17 when i got um not really forced but invited to be in the Triple Crown. And back then, if you win any money in the Triple Crown, you're automatically a professional surfer if you accept the money. You can decline the money and not be a pro. What is the Triple Crown, just for people who don't know what it is?

The Triple Crown was the most prestigious three events in the surfing it was the jaleba international the sunset pro and uh pipe masters uh the jaleba sunset and pipeline those three contests are held back to back to back and the guy who places highest in all three events wins the triple crown which is a massive trophy and it was the highest honor in competitive surfing and uh my sponsor run ran the triple crown randy rarick and he was sponsoring with a clothing company called catch it and he put me in the contest and i won money in two events and I gladly accepted and I was in high school it's getting ready halfway through high school and I was scared of what I was going to

do with my life I didn't know and I was really worried about what am I going to do go work nine to five somewhere go wait tables or construction or what am I going to do and I uh i contemplated flunking my senior year so i could stay in one more year but when we when i won that money i was oh i'm a pro okay i'm gonna make sure i pass my classes and and uh continue on this career and then when i went to japan and i was with had these sponsors japanese sponsors i already spoke some japanese i was learning japanese i had these sponsors, Japanese sponsors. I already spoke some Japanese. I was learning Japanese. I had Japanese sponsors. I went and got more Japanese sponsors while I was there.

Back then, you had your big briefcase with all your photos, and I went to this Murasaki sports store, and there's this 7-foot-tall Japanese bald guy, and he was just a Japanese businessman who ran the sports store chain, which was the biggest sports store chain in Japan at that time. And it was the toughest sell I ever had. I had to try and convince him to sponsor me, and he did. I had billboards in Tokyo and a wetsuit sponsor and a surfboard sponsor and clothing sponsor, all Japanese.

And it was amazing so I saw that was possible that first year in Japan I was in my room by myself you know the Japanese doors the little futon on the floor with a little rice pillow and laying and hanging out in my room, doing my exercise, doing my push-up, doing my stretching. And I just thought to myself, wow, I can do this for a living. Wow. I mean, I was like, okay, what is going to keep me further from doing this? The pot, I would wake up literally and smoke a fat joint. And then I would go straight in the water.

And then I would come in and smoke another joint and then I would eat my lunch and then I would take a nap when all the cat or eat my late breakfast and take a quick nap while all the cameramen were out and I'm missing all the photos the best time is the early morning from like 7 to 11 the lights good and I would surf from 7 to 9 and then I would go home and eat and smoke my fatty and miss half of the session. And I thought to myself, okay, that's not going to help at all. So I quit smoking pot so I can just have my energy all day and stay focused

and accomplish my goals of being a professional surfer. That's why I quit the pot and uh yeah cocaine was just recreational and we had fun and um but it yeah it wasn't definitely you miss the next day you don't wake up early so you you miss the next day and you're like so i said okay that's out and then um the alcohol as well so yeah all of it was out the window for for a while yeah when you so i could become a professional surfer so i could actually accomplish my goals and dreams when you said you were making money um big wave surfers don't make very much money. They make a lot more today than they made then.

So how much money are we talking about that first year in Japan where you've got the sponsors and you're seeing your picture in various locations? My memory served me correct. My highest was like $1,500 and the lowest was like $200. And then I had a $500 minimum to be on my surfboard. And, you know, you'd have three to six sponsors. The clothing was usually the highest. My brother was making like $10,000 a month. I was probably making like $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

But back then, that was a good amount of money. We actually did pretty good. So let's talk about... There was no guarantee that you were going to be able to resign next year. You got a year contract. So every year you had to produce or you were... Unless you had a really good relationship and they knew how to figure out what your niche is

and market your niche no matter how good you did it every year. So you're making roughly $50,000, $60,000 a year at that point? Yeah. So you mentioned your brother. Let's talk about your brother, Liam. He at some point was a better surfer than you, had sponsors before you. You already mentioned that he made more money than you did. And then he self-destructed because he couldn't get along with people. Will you talk to us a little bit about that and how getting along is important to our success?

And what's your advice to people who know they have a little bit of a sharp personality? Well, I made money first because I went to Japan. I came back, had a talk with Liam, said, hey, we've got to stop this nonsense. And that's when we both stopped smoking and doing coke. And, yeah, I had to sit down with him, and he cried. And then, boom, he stopped. Cold turkey, never partied again. He's very inspirational.

And then he got a fire lit under his butt to be the number one guy at pipeline and the number one guy at rocky point and he became the most photographed surfer in the world because he caught more waves than anybody in the world that's two most photographed spots rocky point and pipeline and um he's a white blonde um he you don't have to fight for everything you don't have to scrap for everything but it was a different time back then and if you didn't fight for what you wanted if you didn't stand your ground and take your waves then they're going to take them from you, especially the locals. And there was gnarly localism at every spot. If you came out to a spot and you weren't a local and nobody knew you and you did something wrong, you literally got punched out and sent to the airport and don't come back.

And that was real. And we were right in the thick of that we were lucky that we were friends with all the boys but when it came to the best days the biggest waves coming the best waves coming it's a dog fight and there's a pecking order and then when it came to the contest Contest, whoever could get behind had the right of way. So Liam would ride a little bit bigger board and paddle behind the gnarliest, most feared person in surfing and take the wave from him so he could win the heat. And then he had to deal with them the next day or that day. So it was really challenging for him because he wanted to win. He wanted to have a career.

And he didn't want to back down to anybody when it came time. During the free surfs, he would back down enough. But still, if it was anybody besides the boys, it was his wave. The boys are taking the waves first. And then us. And then the 50 other guys are sitting there trying to get away so it's not it wasn't an easy spot to be in and he had the scrap for everything and then he would surf the heat and they would they would always give him a little

lower score because he was very vocal he would come up and yell at the judges if they gave him a shitty score. So they gave him shitty scores from then on. And he actually got shitty scores often and was very vocal about what they just gave him. He wasn't afraid to go yell at them. He wasn't afraid to shake the judges' tower. He wasn't afraid to try and rip the tower down. And it was a challenging spot to be in because if you didn't take it, then you weren't going to get it.

And if you were just nice and friendly, like I was more easygoing. So I didn't get much. When Liam was out, I didn't even go out because he was so gnarly. I would sit on the beach and wait for him to come in, and then I would go out. And he would come in and go, why don't you serve with me? I'm like, bro, if I'm going to be serving with you, I'm going to be sitting next to you.

You're going to take it away. What's there for me? There's you and all the boys. I don't give a shit. So I'm going to stay home today. I'll stay on the beach until you come in. And he actually cried. He was so sad that I had those feelings and um so he was blackballed because of his vocalness and he was he should have won the pipe masters

one year that but they gave it to kelly slater they gave kelly a 0.5 higher every heat and gave liam a 0.5 lower every heat every wave and his whole goal in surfing was to win the Fight Masters. Now, he didn't quit because of all of that. That did not make him quit. First and foremost, he broke his femur at Pipeline, where he based his career around Pipeline, basically, and he broke his femur there, which is, if you know what breaking your femur is like,

you never want to have that happen again. It's a big bone. So he slowed his career down then, but he was still very visible and very sponsored and still had very good relationships with all the companies he worked with, so he still kept it going. And then he had children. Once he had the children, that's when he hung it up.

He hung it up to be with his kids. He hung it up to give his kids everything that we didn't have. He gave them and almost went sideways by giving too much and not letting them work for things. And yeah, it's a challenging spot. You know, when you grew up in nothing, it's a challenging spot, you know, when you grew up with nothing and then you have these children. You want to give them everything and then some that you didn't have. So it's been a challenging, challenging go for him. For me, yeah, my three children from my first marriage are awesome.

Everybody loves them. They're local. You know, they live here in Hawaii. They love Hawaii. They're not looking to go broaden their horizons. They want a simple life in Hawaii. They're loving it.

My son Titus might want to get around. My daughter Tiare, she might want to get around. She loves Japan. She speaks Japanese and she's only 14. She writes Japanese. She actually might. She speaks Japanese, and she's only 14, and she writes Japanese. I never learned how to write Japanese. So she might have something going in Japan someday.

And my oldest son, he's definitely interested in cruising around, but he loves Hawaii, maybe another island. And now my three children with Nicole. See, Nicole is just the most nurturing, most amazing. If you're friends with Nicole and you get to experience her as your friend, yeah, she's a different person. She's just the most amazing woman I've ever met and the most nurturing the most caring and i always say if only the world could see through nicole's eyes it'd be a much better

place my our children are gonna she just wants to raise good humans she doesn't care what they do as long as they're good kind humans that make a difference in the world and me i want barrel to be a surfer and blah blah blah but she's like i just want to be a good him to be a good human um yeah so she she did uh barrel and thea and fey have traveled the world they've been everywhere already the barrel had 150 airplanes when he was one phase had about at least 70 and she just turned one. Yeah. They're very worldly. I don't know where they're going to want to set down roots because they, everything is available. Everything is all possibilities.

Everything's possible for them. And for my other children, my other children are happy. I think they're happy in Hawaii, except for maybe Tiare. It's going to be very interesting to see where Barrow, Thea, and Faye end up wanting to live since they've lived so many places. Thanks for listening to part one of my amazing conversation with Garrett McNamara, a legendary surfer who owns the world record for surfing the largest wave in history at 100 feet tall. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of my amazing conversation with Garrett.