In Search Of Excellence - Laird Hamilton: The Wild Life of Surfing’s Greatest Innovator | E166

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

In this raw and riveting episode of In Search of Excellence, legendary surfer and ocean pioneer Laird Hamilton shares his incredible story — from his unconventional birth using a method like a reverse hair dryer, a wild childhood in Hawaii, and surviving abuse and racism, to revolutionizing surfing with inventions like tow-in surfing, foilboarding, and modern paddleboarding.Laird opens up about his near-death experience on Waterworld, why he never competed professionally, how he rescued another surfer by swimming naked, and what makes paddleboarding and foiling $4 billion industry rooted in innovation, art, self-expression, and raw danger.  He reflects on growing up with an abusive father, bullying, fear, extreme danger, the challenges of big-wave surfing, near-death experiences, education, family, mentorship, the relentless pursuit of greatness, and his view on being considered the greatest surfer of all time.From modeling for renowned fashion photographer Bruce Weber and being on the cover of Italian Vogue, to surfing 50-foot monsters at Jaws and Nazaré, this episode delves into what it means to master chaos, seek purpose over praise, and remain humble while pushing human limits.0:00 – Laird Hamilton's Revolutionary Contributions to Surfing19:00 – Laird Hamilton's Unique Birth and Early Life19:13 – Challenges and Lessons from Laird Hamilton's Childhood19:31 – Laird Hamilton's Early Surfing Career and Modeling21:48 – Laird Hamilton's Views on Education and Career25:19 – The Evolution of Surfing and Laird Hamilton's Contributions29:45 – The Popularity and Challenges of Surfing38:10 – The Impact of Big Wave Surfing and Nazare48:26 – The Science and Experience of Big Wave Surfing50:36 – Laird Hamilton's Philosophy and Approach to LifeIn Search of Excellence Podcast - with Randall KaplanListen to this episode on the go!🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-search-of-excellence/id1579184310 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/23q0XICUDIchVrkXBR0i6LFor more information about this episode, visit https://www.randallkaplan.com/Follow RandallInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/randallkaplanTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@randall_kaplanTwitter / X: https://x.com/RandallKaplanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randallkaplan/Website: https://www.randallkaplan.com/1-on-1 Coaching: https://intro.co/randallkaplanGet More Excellence! In Search of Excellence Clips: https://www.youtube.com/@iseclipsCoaching and Staying Connected:1-on-1 Coaching | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | LinkedIn

We've probably got blown a couple football fields underwater in and when I came up he was floating face down. That was the day that changed my life actually. You guys revolutionized the sport of surfing by inventing co-in surfing, paddle boarding, foiling and today it's a 1.8 billion dollar industry and it's expected in 2034 to be a 2.8 billion dollar industry. Yeah. How good does that make you feel? Well it just makes me feel like I'm not crazy. How can you do real, actual dangerous things? You do them safely. You don't like competitions, and you don't enter competitions.

But how can you be considered the greatest surfer of all time without winning competitions? Subjecting your performance to judges, I just didn't like that. My idea was just like if you could surf the best and the biggest waves and what's there to say? You were Kevin Costner stunt double on water world 1995 and you nearly died tell us about that. I decided I would drive I would go home on the weekend after one of the weeks of shooting and then drive a jet ski back. I left in the dark

that morning and I ended up just going off course and eventually put myself in the middle of the ocean. It was super emotional. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is Laird Hamilton, who is considered the greatest surfer of all time. He's a pioneer on the ocean. He co-founded Towend Surfing. He co-founded the foil market. And he also co-founded paddle boarding, all of which were very poorly received by the

surfing communities. He's also an incredible entrepreneur. We're going to get into all of those activities during the show. Laird, welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thank you for having me. I always start with our family at the beginning of my show, but I've never started with the actual birth of somebody's life. Can you tell us about how something like a reverse hairdryer sucked out fluid out of your mom's stomach as part of your birth? Well, it wasn't technically taking fluid out.

What it was doing was relieving the abdominal pressure. So it was just drawing up the abdomen in to create more space for the fetus. It was an experiment they were doing in the University of San Francisco, that's all I know. No longer a thing. No longer, it's said to be useful, just not hard to implement with the volume of people

that are pregnant and the time period, you'd have to go a couple times a week and get that done. So I think it was just inviable in that sense, but proven to be beneficial. We're not sure, you know, if it worked or not, but something happened. When your mom was pregnant, your biological dad left her to join the merchant Marines.

Your mom at that point was a single mom, 23 years old. You were surfing already at two and a half years old. We're gonna get into that as well. And I've heard of setups before. I mean, my mom is 70. I set her up with someone, she was on J-date. But I've never heard of a two and a half year old taking a 17 year old home to meet their mom

to possibly marry their mom. You can't make it up. You can't make it up. You can't make that up. You can't make that up. I was needing a dad and he looked the part. Like he just seemed to be the... And I was exposed to

a lot of young, healthy surfer men and he just looked the part. He just looked like somebody. If I had... I had a dad but I just didn't know what he looked like. So I was like, if I had a dad, that's what it would look like. And I have a dad, and that's what he looks like. So I introduced him.

You know, I think they let me have that a little bit, like I get credit for it. But I think they might have seen each other before. My mom and Bill, I think there was, there may have been something, but I definitely was promoting, getting them together, needing a dad, wanting a father, wanting someone that, Bill was a young, handsome Southern California surfer and a great surfer and kind of a studly guy. So I was like, oh, cool, that guy looks like,

you know, that could be my dad. We both have kids. You know, our kids are friends. Yes. And I cannot imagine my son, Charlie, at 21 years old being a dad. There's no chance. My daughter's at 23.

I can't imagine them being a mom. And my mom had me when she was 21 years old. I just can't even imagine that. Sometimes things that start out great end up terribly. You went through physical abuse and I want you to go back to the moment where Bill Hamilton hit you with a pipe. And then you also, he made you sit on rocks

and he said that you're never gonna mount to anything. I mean, when I look at, when I know about his upbringing and what he dealt with and his father and his, you know, what he was dealing with and his age, you know, how that he was still growing up and what a terror I was, you up, and what a terror I was. I think I would have been difficult to handle even for a well-matured man

who had a lot of patience and not a temper. So when I look at that, obviously when you go through, things you go through, you know, are never pleasant when they're happening, that, you know, things that are... It's never great when it's happening, right? You know, that kind of stuff. But I mean, it was...

It may have been the only way to deal with me, And I have daughters and I'm an older father, and so I have a completely different dynamic. But if I look at how I was at 18, and if I mostly look at his standing at 18 and what he was dealing with, I mean, he took on a lot. He took on a child, a wife, and that was, I think that challenge

combined with my precociousness, I think I was pretty, I was a tester. Like, there are stories that come back that I was being, I'd test you, I'd test everybody to see if, how if I could move them. So, obviously, the level... I mean, again, I think a lot of what's happened to me when I was younger

as a child from my father, those kind of things really kind of built me and made me into the person that I am. I think that I always looked at kind of losing your temper to a point of out of control is a real weakness. Like for me, and maybe that's what's helped me be good in very intense situations when it goes chaotic, when there's just complete pandemonium. I just have a tendency to get real clear and straight.

And some of that came out of that. Some of that came out of like, oh yeah, that's a liability, don't want to do that. And again, it's those lessons that, the lessons of how not to be are sometimes much greater than the lessons of how to be. And so you see that, you're like, hey, not to be are sometimes much greater than the lessons of how to be. And so you see that, you're like, hey, how to be like, okay, it's easy to look at that and kind of slough it off, but how not to be, it can be very clear.

I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google lift and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion.

I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage in my life, I wanna give back. I wanna share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs

who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together.

All right, now let's get back to the video. So let's talk about some of the crazy hellraiser things that you did. So you... There's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot, but I want to talk about two of them. So you tied a rope to a cinder block, hung it over a tree which hung over the highway. And then in second grade You swore made obscenities. Yeah teacher goes down to principals office

While they're down there. You basically said F you open the window through desks and chairs out the window Yeah, you wrote obscenities on the board talk word with charcoal It doesn't and then I've never heard of someone proactively meeting out their own punishment. Tell us what happened that day and what that soap you ate tasted like. Well, I mean, they said they were going to wash my mouth out with soap,

and I figured I'd just beat them to the punch. And I just got the bar soap out of the bathroom and took a big bite of it and chewed it and ate it. And so obviously, that was was not gonna be effective, washing my mouth out. You know, I think growing up in Hawaii the way I did, we ate a lot of radical stuff. We were around a lot of different cultures.

And so there was always, you know, and there was always a little bit of a kind of manhood challenge, like, can you eat that? Can you jump from this? Can you drink that? You know, there was always these tests growing up. So soap was like, yeah, no problem. kind of manhood challenge, like can you eat that? Can you jump from this? Can you drink that? There was always these tests growing up. So soap was like, yeah, no problem.

Eat soap, like that was just, you know, taste terrible. Maybe give you a stomach ache if you swallowed too much of it. But it was just, you know, that was just part of the, you know, that was part of the territory. I was used to that kind of, those kind of stuff. Cause it, you know, because of the environment where you had to constantly prove yourself. But what's with the desks and the obscenities and out the window? Yeah, well, defiance. That was just a defiance thing. A lot of it was because I think it had to do with because I was distinctly different than most of the other kids, just different looking and obviously different behaving.

It was a way that I could kind of decoy the pressure that could be pointed at me, and I would steer it towards the teacher by being rebellious and radical, and then everybody would kind of focus on the teacher's response, like, well, what are you going to do about that? Instead of like, at me, it was at them. And so, I mean, I don't know all of the psychology behind it, but a lot of it was, I was testing the boundaries

of how far would I, and deflecting, I think deflecting stuff that was coming my way, it was a way to deflect. Your mom moved from San Francisco to Oahu when you were very, very young. I was reflecting stuff that was coming my way. It was a way to, you know, deflect. Your mom moved from San Francisco to Oahu when you were very, very young. And you were a white, blonde kid in Hawaii. You experienced bullying.

I was bullied my whole childhood. I stuttered. Everyone made fun of me. I didn't like it very much. I came home crying from school every day. I don't want to go back. You've compared it to being a black person in the South in an earlier generation. Can you talk about the bullying and the racism

and how that shaped your future? Well, I think it's just when you're just different than, no matter what it is, but when you're different than the majority of the people that you're with, and that automatically separates you, you just are different. And so no matter what that difference is, no matter what the culture is,

if you come in and you're an outsider, you have that burden of just dealing with that. And I would say for me, part of the, you know, part of the reason why I did the things that I did had to do with, that was the way I was trying to combat the situation. And so, you know, I always say,

you might not like me, but you might respect me. And so that was my approach. My approach was like, I don't need you to like me, but I'm interested in getting you to respect me. And I think that was a driving force. And respect might just be like, you might fear me a little bit because I'm crazy. I can be crazy. Or should You know, I can be crazy.

Should I say I can do crazy things? Actually, pretty methodically, because you can't do them a lot without hurting yourself. So how can you do real, you know, perceive dangerous things or actual dangerous things? You do them safely. Again, it's all relative. Somebody would think, well, that wasn't safe.

You dumped off the thing. But as the person doing it, you calculated how deep the water was, you calculated that you were going to clear the landing. You calculate those things. And then there's always a little part where you're kind of going past that. And we say there's three ways you go about doing something very difficult

or dangerous and you know, one of them is denial and then there's ignorance and then there's skill and talent and then there's a combination of those. Use a little denial, little ignorance, some skill, you know, no skill, no, no, no, all denial, you know, or just all ignorance. So there's different levels of those. And I think there's always some of those that are in those situations when you're trying to push the edge of things. But when I look back at it, my closest friends, the people I love the most, are the ones that I was different from, you know, that I was different from,

and we have such good, common care and love for one another. But that environment definitely helped me... What I realized is that why would I care what somebody... You know, why would I care what somebody... If somebody doesn't like you for just how you are, like they don't know you, they just look at you and they go, I don't like you, then you cannot be surprised if they don't like you for how you behave.

Because then you're actually doing something. So, but I think that set me up to be able to, first of all, not be peer pressured influence in a way. I'm able to rebel against that. And some other things that really helped me go and do things that were kind of, I would say, outside of the mainstream, or being accepted socially.

I didn't need all that kind of thing. I needed my closest circle to believe in me, my mother, my couple one or two friends or something. But besides that, I wasn't looking for approval and haven't been looking for approval except for the immediate family, the immediate people that I really care about. I can barely deal with that. So once you get outside of that realm

and you're trying to please people that really don't care about you, then you're bound for misery. We're roughly the same age. You're a few years ahead of me. Back when we were in school, bullying was a thing. The teachers really didn't do that much. They'd say, stop it, stop it, stop it.

You stopped it by slamming the kids' head into a desk. And if you look at the mass shootings today, there have been 5,000 mass shootings in the last 10 years. 75% of mass shooters were bullied. Obviously, mass shootings are fucking nuts and most people should all have the death penalty in my view, but where do you draw the line in fighting back?

Well, I think if you don't defend yourself, you know, like I went to school where there was a couple of us that were, that were, you know, that just stood out more than everybody else and that you get picked on and everybody had a different approach for it. And some people would just put their head down and take it and they'd get,

they'd walk down the hallway and they'd get slapped in the back of the head all the way down the hallway and all the way back down the hallway and every day, all day long. And then there were some of us that would defend themselves. And it's a lot more work to slap somebody's head

that's gonna defend themselves. So that was my approach. My approach was like, hey, you might cost me, but I'm gonna defend myself. I'm gonna defend myself. And that was my approach. My approach was to defend myself. And what I found is that that was a much more effective way

to end the... And then I also didn't have the burden of that build-up of getting your head slapped every day for years and years and years, which may result in some psychopathic endeavor that is just... You can't even understand how that's possible. But maybe over time with such volume and, you know, that that builds inside and there are whatever else, other issues there are going on. But, you know, for me, I felt like that I just,

if I had a, if I was, you know, being bullied, you know, and then bullies bully, you know, it's like a, you know, it's always like, it's like a, you know, you get bullied and then you bully somebody else and then they bully somebody else. It's like a whole, you know, it's a whole pyramid, you know, pyramid scam. But yeah, I felt like just defending,

that I had to, you had to defend yourself. And, you know, I'd say that my dad, my stepdad taught me that. Like he always, you know, and I mean, again, some of the great lessons I learned from him that have made me the man I am today, I'd never take back and say, I wish that that didn't happen.

He was always about accountability. You're wrong, you take a punishment like a man. You're right, you stand up to the end. Those were the kind of values that I was raised with. So, for me, I look at those and, okay, there can be exaggerated, maybe things that went a little too far, especially now worth where we're at.

But in the jungle, when the cats, when the kittens misbehave, the cubs, they get a little, like a little grab. And sometimes maybe it's harder than it should be. But again, I think I was just, I was a savage and so you kind of had to, and I was in a savage environment. And so there's levels of it, of course, maybe a little, you could have said that, but again, age, temper, all these factors that came together. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know

if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google lift and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $ billion dollars. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you. I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. School is not for everybody. In 11th grade, your buddy Buzzy Kerbox, good looking guy, introduced you to a world famous photographer named Bruce Weber. Tell us what happened next.

The beginning of that story was that they were doing a luomo vogue, men's Italian vogue was doing a photo shoot and they were taking pictures of me from a helicopter for Men's Vogue Italy. And there's Walter. While you were surfing? They're taking pictures of you? While I was surfing, yeah. There's a photographer by the name of Walter Yost,

who is one of the great Sports Illustrated photographers of all time, taking all the famous shots. And he was shooting out of a helicopter. And then Barry McKinley, who was a huge fashion photographer at the time, saw all the pictures of me surfing and said, hey, I want to see this guy. And then I did a fashion thing for him, which led to meeting Bruce Weber, who was the kind of the premier men's fashion photographer at the time. And I started and I got some modeling work that way. Never, you know, I wasn't... Buzzy is, you know, he's a perfect model. The size is just his whole build and his...

And I'm like, I have a giant neck and a bunch of other things that didn't make me ideal for clothing. I wouldn't go do castings and I'd just be like, I was kind of like a rebel. I'll do some work if I get some work and it comes naturally otherwise I'm not gonna do it. And it was just, you know, that was more of a means to fund my surfing. I was just looking for ways to make money in order to be able to fund my passion and my sport. But you know you are a great looking guy.

Thank you. I mean, you know that, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm thankful that. But again, I think when you come from that world where you're different, like that, you don't use that as currency. That's never a currency. The currency is your skill, your courage, your strength. I mean, those are your currencies. And so, I mean, it's interesting

because sometimes I'll get, you know, somebody will be like, oh, because they look at me and they think I grew up in Southern California surfing down. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just like a different, when I first came here, I was like a different species. Like I come here and I just, my whole, the way I looked at things, the way I conducted myself, I'm just more from the jungle.

I grew up in a jungle. I grew up a little more wild. And so that was, you know, that's, I came with that approach and I think that that's kind of always stayed with me. Back to high school, your kids are homeschooled. We're homeschooled, but your daughter's going to college next year.

Is college necessary? And what's your view on the value of college today? Well, I told my daughter that I would give her the money it would take to run her through college, to start a business if she wanted to. Which is, you know, she's going to school in New York. We don't need to mention that it's going to cost you $400,000. Probably, maybe a little more. Yeah, yeah.

And so what happened then? My youngest daughter is really, she excels in the system. She just does well in that environment and she really, she eats it up. She knows how to study and get good grades and learn in that system. I mean, coming from my background and the men that I've known,

the successful men I've known, I mean, these people are street smart people that are hard workers, that have certain values that have created their success. I mean, I left high school before I was finished and went to work. That was the only way I could get out of school, was to be signed out and went to work. Fortunately for somebody who was pretty generous

and would let me serve quite a bit, but I went right to work, and then again, some men that I look up to didn't graduate from high school. So I'm not a huge... I mean, much to the disappointment of my mother, And then again, some men that I look up to didn't graduate from high school. So I'm not a huge... I mean, much to the disappointment of my mother, I'm not a huge fan of the structure of school, especially given the way it's been built.

Especially for somebody who has a lot of energy. I think for me, and I have learned through trade style learning, if people are good at something, you go be with them and do it. I learned quickly that way and I like that form of learning. I have one daughter that just all homeschooled, graduated on her own, has been traveling and doing a bunch of stuff in the world, like she's been to 32 countries in the last... I have another daughter that graduated from USC in a technical field, LIDAR, and has a job, got a job six

months out of graduation and has been in the career for eight years now and excels in that environment. So I don't think there's any, you know, I don't think there's any one way. I think it's just given the person their unique individual personality and their interest. I'm a believer that... I always have a saying, all is possible for the believers. So let's start there and just what are you interested in?

How can we get you more exposed to that? And learn, find something that you really enjoy doing or that you're inspired by because that will continue to drive you in the low spots. Like when you're not wanting to do it or you've done it and it becomes monotonous. If you have passion for it, you're gonna go the extra and survive the doldrums.

The history of surfing, most people might think it started in Hawaii, California, but it's actually the ancient Polynesians that started in the 12th century. Yeah. I don't know who thought that up. I think, I don't know if they were influenced and where they saw it or what it came from.

I think, I mean, listen, surfing really came from an understanding of the ocean and it came from a necessity of being able to navigate the ocean's waves and how to get in and out of the ocean when there is waves for trade, for fishing, for whatever was going on. And I think it was just a byproduct of that. I think when you're out in the middle of the ocean

and you have giant seas, you learn how to surf the waves and then you learn how to surf the waves coming into shore and learning how to navigate and get out of the waves. So I think it makes sense to me that it would just have evolved from the greatest navigators, the Polynesians who were the greatest navigators that we know in modern time. They were navigating by the stars and could find little islands in the middle of the giant

ocean without longitude or latitude and know how to read the ocean's texture and knew where islands were just by looking at the water movement. And they had such a relationship with the ocean that it makes sense that that group who had the greatest relationship with the ocean that we know of would create this activity of riding waves. I mean, it just makes sense to me. You started when you were two and a half roughly.

Most three-year-olds are catching big balls or hopping on one foot. You're in the ocean on a surfboard. At what point in your childhood did you say to yourself, I'm an incredible surfer? No, I don't think that ever happened. I'd never say, I think it was I Always

Wanted to be great So I never said I never thought I was great. I always wanted to be great and there's a difference between Thinking you're great and wanting to be great. I may never think I'm great, no matter what. I think that's part of a... I look at that as a...

I may have done great things, but I think I'm always trying to... I'm always behind. It's a little bit of the setup. It's like a self-deprecating philosophy or something where I feel like I'm out behind, it's a little bit of the setup, it's like a self-deprecating philosophy or something where I feel like I'm out of shape, I could do better. And even at this point when certain aspects of surfing have already, I've already kind of stopped those disciplines

because of interest really. I'm more interested in what I haven't done. But that's where the inspiration comes from, is just the belief that you can... I like the concept, and I've realized that I like an elusive goal. I like a goal that's elusive, just a summit that always moves.

You arrive, and then all of a sudden the summit moves. And then you arrive, and the summit moves. And so then you're always moving towards the summit and you're never sitting back on your laurels going, yeah, I made it to the summit. Like, no, it's about the journey and the continued journey and then the continued pursuit. And I think, for me, once I lose a pursuit of it,

then I'm done. It's like, you know, time to go to the next place. Like, you know, throw the dirt on the hole, you know? Most people in the surfing world think you're the all-time GOAT, greatest of all time. Do you think today you have been and still are a great surfer? Yeah, I don't know.

I don't think so. I don't think so. Who's the goat? I don't think there is a goat. So many talented surfers. Kai Lenny doing crazy stuff. Yeah. Garrett McNamara, pioneer.

We'll talk about him in a few minutes. Yeah. No, I don't think there's a goat. I don't think that. I think it's people's opinion that they decide that, and when you look at it, it's like art. What art do you like?

You can't say that so-and-so is the greatest painter because I don't like his paintings. And then you might love his paintings. And then I have another guy I like and you don't like. And I think that that's the, you know, I think that that's, for me surfing is art. Like this is art. Like this is our self-expression, you know.

I mean, and we're always trying to box it and you know, compartmentalize it and this big and that thing and this thing. And I'm just like, this is self-expression. This is just, go express yourself, do what you do, and let people like it or not like it. And that's the... I mean, what I've realized at this point is

I do it for myself. I do it for myself. Like I need it, like I can just go and do it where no one can see me and I can get as much, if not more fulfillment from it than I can trying to present it and have it be presented. I mean, there's some of that you have to do because you can make money from it and you can feed your family and take care of your kids

and all that stuff. But I realized I could just do it in the dark. If I have me and a couple friends, I could just do it in the dark. If I have me and a couple friends, I can just do it right off the map, which, you know, it's not always productive for the bigger picture. And so sometimes you have to, you know, participate in that. But after going through, you know, being a child, doing it alone, being lucky to have a picture every once in a while, There was no videos, no cell phone, no nothing. Maybe you got a, if somebody shot some film of you and you got it back

after they, you know, they processed it and you could show it on something, you could see it. That was months, years, whatever. So that, so that part of it. So that, and then I, into the middle of my career where we were shooting everything and every time you go out, you shoot it, you're filming and you're shooting. And then into the middle of my career where we were shooting everything. And every time you go out, you shoot, you're filming and you're shooting. And then what that does to the energy, what that does to the whole experience. And then kind of going away from that

and then just having pursued some moments of just solitude with just friends in a remote place doing the thing you love. I mean, at the end, for me, I'm like, okay, great. I'm good, I can do that. That's all I need, which is beautiful. Let's talk about the popularity of surfing. There's 40 million surfers in the world,

2.5 million in the United States. What are the top three reasons people love surfing so much? Top three? Top three. Number one, the relationship with the ocean. You're in the ocean, you're at the beach. Or you're at, I mean, surf locations and the ocean. I mean, they're normally beautiful places.

The energy you get from being in that environment, there's scientific data around absorption of energy, transfer of things, like the whole what the ocean does for you. And so the top three reasons, like all in one that you get a relationship with the ocean, you're in the ocean. I mean, of course, there is a difficulty about it that people like the challenge. It's unique and different every time. Every wave is different even at the same place on the same day. Every single wave is a unique, different wave.

And I think that, I think the difficulty draws people to it as well. Especially I know guys that like hard things and it's hard. Like it's a, surfing is not an easy thing. And most of the great surfers that you see, they started when they were three years old and they surfed their whole life. And so you see them, you're like, they make it look easy. The better people are at things, the easier they make it look. So I think the challenge of it, the location, the challenge, the uniqueness.

And then there's not a lot of rules. I mean, there's a couple of etiquette rules when you're in the lineup. And some people obey them and some people don't. But besides that, it's freedom. This is a very free place. You could just surf however you want. And no one's going, hey, you got to surf like this or like that

or you got to do this or do that. I mean, we subject ourselves to that constraint, but otherwise it's pretty freedom. It's pretty like, just get your paint brush out and paint whatever you want. I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I wanna know if you've ever thought about

what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including GoogleList and Seagate, and I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey, and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive

advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. So I wake surf. Yep.

We have a boat up in Coeur d'Alene. We're going for the whole summer. Can't wait. On Father's Day. Yep. Fun. Yeah. But I can surf.

I'm not running into people. Yeah. So as someone who doesn't surf on a regular wave, see 30 people out there. They're all trying to catch the same wave. How in the hell do people not run each other over and crash? All the time, every day all day. They're running into each other

and crashing into each other and falling and getting hit by boards. And I mean, that's what a crowded lineup does, especially when there's not a pecking order. You know, like in places that the surf is a lot more aggressive where the consequences are greater, you have a pecking order in the lineup.

So if you're out there, if Laird Hamilton's out there, he's going first. I mean, normally, yeah, one of the whoever it is. Like whoever's the, you know, there's going to be three or four guys that are like the best guys at that break that surf it all the time. And there's a pecking order. And normally, there's a top group that kind of takes turns amongst themselves. And then as you go down the ladder, then you're just waiting for the crumbs on the side.

Like if you're a beginner and you're coming into a place like that, or you're an intermediate surfer and you're trying to enter a lineup like pipeline or tail hoop or... Malibu even, we're talking about. Yeah, Malibu's a little bit more free run because you have a ton of people are just learning how. Yeah. Of course, you're going to have three or four guys that know what they're doing and they're going to always catch everything.

If they're in the right spot, they're going to catch all the waves, but more so at these other breaks. You need a pecking order in the lineup. You do. Malibu has a problem because they don't really have a pecking order, so it's just a free-for-all. So everybody's just dropping in on everybody, and it's a little chaotic, and it ends up making it very difficult to serve because it's just people in the way. When you go out there, the people say,

oh my god, Laird Hamilton is here. I mean, you have everything, right? The thing about it's like Gabby talks about, like if you're great at a sport, you don't go to your local field and go play with some guys where they can just talk smack and ask you questions. You don't intertwine with them. And surfing's weird like that where you can be John John Florence

or Kelly Slater or whoever great surfer and you paddle out. You're going to be with the beginners, the intermediate, and then the good guys. And you're all gonna be like that. It's like Michael Jordan's not stepping on a basketball court and having some guy that's just learning how to play banging into him. You know, in his way when he's gonna go

do a layup or something, right? So we have that. And so that could create hostility. You know, that could create a little, and or just an interaction of just that, you know, that normally you wouldn't have to deal with. You wouldn't have to be dealing with, you know, dumb questions.

I always say dumb questions deserve dumb answers. So. We're gonna get into the details of big wave surfing, but for those people who don't know, what's the difference between regular surfing and big wave surfing? Well, big wave running is just when the level of discomfort is high enough that most of the people

don't want to do it, pretty much. What height is that, for example? Well, it varies at what location. But as soon as the waves, I mean, it happens a lot sooner in California because they don't have consistently big surf in Hawaii it happens later so you could say in California when the waves get 15 to 20 foot faces then that probably is all of a sudden like that's that's that's gonna be a bigger day and you know know, fearing, right?

Most people are going to be fearing for themselves. And then when you go to Hawaii, that's more common. So you're going to need it to be, you know, 25 to 30 foot faces or, you know, and so on. But big is just when it gets, when there's a level of discomfort that gets most people, you know people sitting on the side. That's how I look at it. Go back to the 1980s, and you're with your buddy, Buzzy Kerbox, again. And you guys revolutionized the sport of surfing by inventing toe-in surfing.

Derek Doner, Buzzy Kerbox, and myself playing around in the summertime, which usually I always say the greatest ideas come out of boredom. So we're bored at summertime and Buzzy had a zodiac, one of those Navy SEAL like 16 foot with an outboard on it, like you see. And we're towing each other around with a, you know, like early wakeboarding. This is pre-wakeboarding. There really with a, you know, like early wakeboarding. This is pre-wakeboarding. There really wasn't, wakeboarding hadn't really started yet.

We're just, we called it freeboarding. So freeboarding was pre-wakeboarding, which was just being towed behind a boat with a surfboard. And that happened, you know, I think they were doing it in the 50s or even before that. And so we were playing around and there was a little swell, some little waves, and I'm not sure how it was, but either I whipped one of those guys on or I got whipped on, but

a light bulb went off in our head that we could get pulled onto waves and ride waves. And that we had had an issue with a kind of a barrier that was stopping us from being able to catch bigger waves in the winter time. And we had been windsurfing on big waves, so we had already been able to be on them with power. So we knew that there was a kind of a merger of, and so we implemented that technique the next winter. Explain what it is though.

Like how do you, like what does tow in mean for the people that don't know? Yeah, it's a little bit like the space shuttle and gets on the back of a 747 and the 747 takes off and then at a certain speed the space shuttle can fly. So it's exactly like that. You're getting pulled behind the boat.

The boat positions you or now the jet ski because that's a much better device. Now the jet ski positions you onto the wave. And so now you're on your surfboard. The driver puts you in position, and then you let go, and then you can ride the wave, because now you're already on it. And now you can surf the wave, and then the guy can get out of the wave,

so he doesn't either get in your way or get destroyed himself. And that technique really just revolutionized big wave riding because we have a ceiling in big wave riding due to the size of the board and the speed in which you can manually paddle yourself. Makes it so at a certain size and also in a certain conditions with its windy and bumpy that that size comes sooner but at a certain size of wave you're just it's physically impossible to match the speed and be able to make the wave I mean that that kind of barrier is being trying to pushed at

certain times but you need such ideal conditions. So you might have a day that's the best day in 20 years, you can push the barrier of how big somebody can physically paddle into, and then you might not see that again for 20 or 30 years. So you're not able to kind of get into these bigger waves where with towing in, you can be pulled onto most anything. And there's actually another barrier after that I kind of experienced.

And there's another barrier, which is that the boards themselves become almost physically impossible to ride waves at a certain height. And that's where the desire to foil started actually. Okay, we'll get into foiling in a minute. But of course, there was Jaws 40 to 50 feet. Yep. And then Nazaré officials, they knew there were big waves there. Yep. No one could surf them. They

contacted Garrett McNamara. Yep. They went out there and they said, holy shit, look at these waves, some 70, 100 foot waves. How did Nazaré change the game? It's a spectacle. You know, it's right on the shore. You can see it. It's gotten a lot of attention. So that, I mean, like everything, exposure changes the game, right? I mean, Nazaré's been there for a long time and been killing fishermen in boats.

And they got a church out there that they pray to, all the guys that have drowned over the years that were out in their boats. And maybe the engine broke and the waves came and killed them because they weren't swimmers or they didn't have flotation devices or whatever. So but the spectacle and it's in Europe so they, you know, in Portugal they likes the attention. Portugal likes it's good for tourism, promote. Promote the spot, promote Nazaré.

So it's gotten a lot of attention that way. I mean, I have mixed feelings about Nazaré. I mean, as far as, you know, as a surfer, as a big wave rider, if you talk to most great big wave surfers, Nazaré is not an ideal big wave for surfing. It's just not. And without toe-in, there'd be good days there, but it would be on the smaller days when the waves are closer to the shore.

But as far as it does a unique thing, it has an interesting bottom topography. So it makes the wave double up and takes two waves and turns them in for a moment. And then it dissipates. And so there's some things about it that it's not as far as a performance big wave. You can't compare it to Mavericks.

You can't compare it to Piyahi, which is Jaws. I mean, these are dynamic, big wave, surfing waves. Nazare is kind of a feet wave, I would call it, like not feet, but in a feet, like you've done a feet. And they're going for this Guinness World Record thing that I've always been against since the very beginning, only because I think it's impossible to measure a wave, truly. world record thing that I've always been against since the very beginning. Only because I think it's impossible to measure a wave truly. It's just you're measuring a four-dimensional object with one dimension.

It's like I always say that waves are like dogs. There's all different kinds of dogs. There's big dogs, friendly big dogs, and there's savage little dogs. And there's pit bulls and great Danes and all these. And waves have personalities more like that. So I look at them more like that. But again, I'm an anomaly. So explain to people what's happening beneath the water

and how these big waves form. Well, they're usually in a perfect location to receive a giant swell from these big open ocean storms, these big huge storms that have high wind that generate these swells. And there's a bottom topography that has a certain shape that allows them to come in and usually they stick out. It's like an outcropping. It's a little point, but it's underwater. And so the waves will come

and depending on the shape of that point, it'll either be no good or it'll be a great wave. And most of them have a lot of, they're pretty similar, most of these big waves. They usually have a deep canyon next to them and then a big, I'd say, it looks like a knoll. What happens a lot of the time is when you look at the land on the land, it's a mimic of what's in the water.

So you look at the land wherever, like you go to Nazaré and you see the point of Nazaré, and then you think about that under the water is that same point. And so the waves come in and as the water gets shallower, the waves rise up. And depending on how steep the water gets shallow is how fast the waves rise up. And so like in a place like Tahiti in Teahupo, which is one of the most famous big waves,

one of the most famous tube, which is a cylindrical wave in the world, is on a barrier reef. And the reef is at the perfect angle to absorb the energy of this well. So it makes the wave stand up in the shortest distance possible, which results in the wave having a giant cavern in it.

So if it was long and slopey, then the wave would stand up and march and march and then break. A little bit more like Nazaré has a longer shelf. And so the bottom topography dictates the shape of the wave and the way the wave breaks. What's the sound? Is there a sound when you're surfing of the wave? Is it deafening? And then...

What's interesting, and I've talked to my friends, you know, Makua Rothman, other big wave riders and stuff, we don't hear anything. But there actually is a sound. But we don't hear anything when we're doing it. Now, like I can hear the wave, like when I lived on Maui near Jaws, I could hear it from my house. I could hear like a, it sounded like mortar, like rumble in like in the distance.

You could hear like almost like a thunder type of a thing. So, you know, the bigger the surf is, the lower the decibel. The lower, the more of the rumble that you hear. And so, yeah, that sound calls you. If you're into surfing big waves, when you hear that, you're drawn to that energy. But yeah, the sound is deafening when you're observing, but when you're doing, it's almost like the sound...

And I talked to some friends that have been in gunfights and stuff, and they said they don't even remember hearing anything. Like everything just... It's almost like hearing becomes unimportant for what you need. Unless somebody yells or something and then you'll... But otherwise hearing could just be kind of a useless sense at that point. Like you don't need it. So...and the body's only prioritizing what you need.

So need the vision, need the feel, there's certain things that you need and the body prioritizes that. And so you'll just be like, so a lot of times we don't even have memory. We have patchy memory from rides and situations because if you succeed, then the body knows you did the right thing.

So it doesn't need a perfect picture. When you fail, then you body knows you did the right thing, so it doesn't need a perfect picture. When you fail, then you have a good memory of it, usually when you crash or have an accident, the body has all full recollection of everything, so to avoid that in the future, if you succeed, the body knows you know how to do the right thing, so it's okay having intermittent frame.

It's like, okay, I'm good, I know you know what to do and you've done it. So we're just gonna have a pretty minimal amount of memory. It's a dangerous sport. From the time you were a kid, you were getting rescued from these rip ties almost on a daily basis. Your mom at one point said, she surprised you made it to 20 years old.

Tell us what happened. And you've broken nearly every bone in your body. I mean every major bone. I'm not Travis Pestano. I don't have quite the metal but yeah I have a lot of stitches, a lot of wounds, a lot of breaks. Thanks for listening to part one of my incredible interview with Laird Hamilton. Be sure to check out part two of my incredible interview with Laird.