The School of Greatness - 792 It Starts with Your Breath with Laird Hamilton

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

BREATH IS NECESSARY FOR LIFE. They say if you learn to master your breath, you’ll have the strength of ten tigers. So, why don’t we focus more on breathing? We should Breath is energy. When an endurance athlete loses control of their breath, it usually means they’re losing. But it’s bigger than that. Your life begins with your first breath and ends with your last. You exist because you breathe. For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Laird Hamilton where he shared how he has mastered his breath. Laird Hamilton is best known as an American big-wave surfer and pioneer in the world of action water sports. In addition to his affinity for the water, Laird is labeled as an inventor, author, stunt man, model, producer, TV host, fitness and nutrition expert, husband, father and adrenaline junkie. Laird says that people who swim have a different relationship with breathing because they’re forced to realize its importance. He says that there are ways you can work on breathing to bring you both a sense of calm and energy. Get ready to learn all about the power of breath in Episode 792. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why breathing is so important in our lives (1:00) The connection between spirit and breath (2:00) Why swimmers have a better relationship with their breath (3:00) Different ways to train your breath (4:00) Follow me on: Instagram @LewisHowes Twitter @LewisHowes Facebook @LewisHowes

This is 5-Minute Friday! A legend in today's sports world. His name is Laird Hamilton and at 215 pounds at 6'3", with an uncommon combination of balance, flexibility, and strength, he is truly a larger-than-life athlete and individual. Not only is he the quintessential big wave surfer, Laird is also known as a renowned innovator and guiding genius of crossover board sports, including toe-end surfing, stand-up paddleboarding, and hydrofoil boarding. Why is breathing so important in our, not a lot of entrepreneurs here, but in our existence, yes, in our lives. I mean, and I've been fortunate to be exposed to a couple different forms of breathing.

And of course, you know, when you're in the ocean or in the water, breath is an ever important thing. Yeah, yeah. Because you're, you know, your relationship with drowning. an ever important thing because your relationship with grounding. But lately I've been kind of studying under this guy Wim Hof who does all this breath training. But the thing that you realize is that your spirit or your soul is connected to your breath. And that when you, you know, like when a baby takes its first breath is when the spirit comes

into the body just is when the spirit comes into the body. Just like when the breath stops, so does the spirit leave. Wow. So if you really want to get into like a kind of a little bit, you know, deeper conversation, it's a connection to your soul or your spirit. And then it's, you know, obviously mandatory for life. Exactly. Breath is the way we get oxygen.

Oxygen is essential for living. So it's all about breathing at the end. And then we know through cardiovascular activities and any kind of exertion, it's all about breathing. I mean, breathing is your fuel. That's your energy. That's your power when you're not, you're not eating food and digesting and drinking water. But oxygen is the thing that ultimately fires every cell in your body. So that's your, you know.

So have you been practicing breathing strategies or techniques or working on your breath since you've been surfing and swimming in the ocean for your whole life? Have you been doing that or is it more in the last year you said you started to dive in and really practice it now well it's been the last year or last year or so that i've really focused on isolation of the breath i've been exposed to some yoga breathing and some types of yoga breathing over the years but i haven't been so uh disciplined and consistent with it like i have been the last year and a half or two. And I indirectly have been doing it anyway. Sure.

Because first of all, when you have to, when you're swimming, swimming is a breathing rhythm. Being in the water, you always have to hold your breath. So you have a relationship with your breath. If you do any kind of diving or free diving, you already have established a deeper relationship than normal people.

Yeah. Yeah. Because normally people are there. They don't even think about breathing. They're not even conscious of it. And if you want to become a better swimmer or better in the water, whatever sport you're doing, you have to master your breath at some level. Absolutely. So you're getting better just by practicing it.

Yeah. It's a byproduct of you doing it without even being conscious of it. of you doing it without even being conscious of it. And then when you do some heavy circuits or other types of intense training, you know what the breath is all about. I mean, usually the breath is what dictates the failure. At a certain point when you're out of breath and you're behind,

you look at any endurance athlete or any fighter, as soon as they start mouth breathing and they're like they all like everybody will say they're all they're finished. Yeah, their body can't keep up. Yeah, they're done. They're going to say they're done.