The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 235. Kelly Slater: 11x World Surfing Champion Shares His Diet Protocol, Training Routine, and Recovery Tips

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

I sat down with 11-time world champion Kelly Slater to uncover the biohacking secrets and mental fortitude that allowed him to dominate professional surfing from age 20 to his 50s. We discuss his evolution from a sugar-heavy diet to deep nutrition strategies, detailing how water fasting and disciplined recovery helped him bounce back from major setbacks like a total hip replacement. Join us to learn how to tap into the flow state and redefine your own physical potential, no matter your age. CLICK HERE TO BECOME GARYS VIP!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Connect with Kelly Slater Outerknown: https://bit.ly/49qPM4l  Instagram: https://bit.ly/3Ncv94y  Facebook: https://bit.ly/3YZ1KNU  X.com: https://bit.ly/45wO68m  Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa SNOOZE: LET’S GET TO SLEEP!: https://bit.ly/4pt1T6V COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC METHYLATION TEST (UK ONLY): https://bit.ly/48QJJrk GENETIC TEST (USA ONLY): ⁠https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch  the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps 00:00 Intro of Show 01:58 Kelly Slater’s Motivation as a Surfing World Champion 10:32 Surfing as a Way to Connect with Nature 18:33 Rivalries in Surfing 22:16 Judging in Surfing Competitions 26:29 Experience in Surfing Internationally 28:00 Advocacies for the Environment 33:59 Competing in World Championships with Injuries 38:37 Motivation to Stay in the Industry 49:26 Conditioning and Health Practices 58:40 Longevity Protocols 1:04:18 Overcoming Injuries through Rehab and Treatments 1:18:35 Kelly’s Future Plans 1:30:15 What does it mean to you to be an Ultimate Human? Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions.  Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation.  Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I was first starting out, all I wanted to do was I want to be the number one surfer in the world. I won my first world title at 20. I went from 43rd in the world to first. Near the ocean, it's such a big part of your life. You know, surfing really provides feeling. I think most humans nowadays with the way life is, we've lost that feeling. In surfing, it's kind of more personal because you in the ocean, and there's not other people playing this game that you're in. Whether it's just a speed of the wave, it's a real connection to nature. Whether you knew it or not, you were spending so much time moving your body and grounded. Touching the surface of the earth is one of the health things.

can do. I was in a health food shop and there was a tape by Dr. Joel Wallach. He said no one dies from old age. There's no such thing. You die of a deficiency of something over a long period of time. I was like, this is fuel from my fire right here. I'm going to actually like start being healthy. And then I got into water fasting. I think water fasting is game changers. And there's always these life changing testimonials that we get out of it. When you first make a change you're in control of with your body, it's so exciting and inspiring. What keeps you passionate and still having that drive to stay at the top of your game because I'm sure the entire surf world wanted to knock you off. You're going to hate this, Gary. You're going to like hold this against me here.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. Today is definitely one of those in-between podcasts. 11-time world champion surfer. Kelly Slater is here on the Ultimate Human podcast today. I'm so excited to run this podcast. Most of my questions aren't even about surfing, which is really odd for the greatest surfer of all time. And we had an unbelievable hour-long conversation

about shark attacks before the podcast. So maybe we even get into that while the cameras are rolling. But welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Hey, good to see you. Great to have you, man. Appreciate it, yeah. Thanks for making the trip. You know, I'm always fascinated by not just athletic professionalism

or sports domination, but someone that can actually stay at the top of their game in a sport for a prolonged period of time. Like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, it's not like they were great once, but they were great over such a long period of time. And I find it absolutely fascinating that you are the youngest surfer to win a world championship

when you were 20, and you were the oldest surfer to win a world championship at 39. 39, yeah. And I remember... I very nearly got one or two in my 40s, but just didn't... Oh, did you? You were close?

Came really close. Yeah. You were to break your own record, right? Yeah, well... Because you were the oldest at 39, so you would have been the oldest in your 40s, too. Came close, came close. I mean, that's like some Tom Brady game stuff.

I mean, and I remember... I've been a UFC fan for a long time, and I remember Veter Belfort, became a... Yeah, a... Yeah, he's a friend of mine, too. And became a champion. 18 and he almost became a champion again at 36.

And that would have been the same bookending career. That was a Jones fight, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so somebody stood in the way of that one. But so I wonder if you would, I mean, I have so many questions for you, but I'd wonder if you would just sort of let us into the mindset of what keeps you passionate and committed and still having that drive to stay at the top of your game? Because I'm sure the entire surf world wanted to knock you all.

There's a lot of young surfers that wanted that championship too. Yeah, I mean, that's a deal. When you're young, you're after the top older veterans. And then when you're the old veteran, all the young guys are after you. And I mean, I surfed against a lot of guys on tour whose dads I surfed against. Really? When I was first on, their dads were kind of like the, you know, the veterans or the older guys than me. Yeah.

I don't, look, I've worked hard, but I, uh, It's not hard for me to want to do what I've done because I love surfing so much. Yeah, I just love surfing more than anything. Really? When I was a kid, I grew up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I just absolutely fell in love with it. It was different than the other sports and things to me. It was, I felt like I had a very different, intimate relationship with it, and I felt like I was learning things about the ocean and waves and surfing and how to go about it

that no one had ever known or something. That's how it felt to me, you know? That's not to say I felt like as a young kid I was better than my heroes or something. But I felt like I had this keen sense that my relationship with surfing and waves was my own. And I played football.

You know, I sort of told the story to a lot of friends that my dad was our football coach and I would skip practice to go surfing. I made your dad really happy. That's how you know if your dad's... That's how you know if your dads are cool with what you do, you know. Was he supportive? Yeah, he was fine, whatever.

You won a world championship? He was like, all right, you can skip practice. But I, you know, I played basketball and baseball and football, and I loved them all. I was a big baseball and football fan as a kid and knew everything about the sports. And I was actually quite good at football, and I was quite good in the field at baseball. I wasn't a great hitter. but I really understood, I could see the plays almost in slow motion, you know, because I love the game.

I studied it so much as a kid, both the games. But funny story. I told someone this story the other day. The Astros used to do their training in Cocoa near where we live. Okay. And so we used to go to some of the games, and my brother caught a pop fly one time. I probably shouldn't even tell the story.

Yeah. But I'm going to because my dad has passed away now. Yeah. But my brother caught a foul ball. Yeah. And he was all excited. And he was probably about 11 or something, 12 years old. And he's like, showing his friends.

And then this like 15-year-old girl comes and swipes it out of his hand. Really? He goes running away with the ball. And my dad's got a beer in one hand and a cigarette at the other. It comes around by my dad grabbed this girl by the hair. No. Took the ball out of her hand and get back to my brother. That actually happened on national TV just recently, too.

No, and the woman took it from the kid or whatever. Yeah, the woman took it from the kid. And she was like the most hated woman in all of social media. That's why I was telling this story because it was kind of different because my brother literally had possession of a ball for a long period of time. It was his, you know. And so my dad was like, yeah, whatever, give that thing back. Yeah. But that was, you know, that was in the 70s.

You could kind of do that kind of stuff. Well, there's no social media so 300 million people didn't see it the next day. There was no live cameras. I literally think this woman was like. My dad would be in jail right now if I did that this year. This woman's like the most hated woman on social media. I didn't even see the story. I just saw the hate on social media, and then I started digging into it.

And I saw the video and I was like, hmm, what a bitch, you know. She kind of deserved it, you know. I mean, if an 11-year-old kid's got it or any kids got possession of the ball, I mean, for the love of God, man. And you're an adult. I mean, just let the kid have the ball. You were a kid one time, too. You know, I sat down with a two-time Super Bowl champion. He was, his name is Billy Davis.

He was a wide receiver. and very dominant during his career. He took the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, if that tells you the era that he played him. And I asked him the same question, and he told me this story about how he would, because I said, how did you fight like the fame and the stardom and the notoriety, and how did you not just go after

all the pleasures of the flesh? I mean, your boys are going to, you know, nightclubs, and they're drinking, and, you know, you went from being not someone of means, and then all of a sudden you're wealthy, And so you're getting pulled in all these directions. You know, there's women, there's booze, there's all kinds of distractions. And he said there was a moment when I would, I would break off the line.

And he said, I'd be running down the field full at 100%. Like literally I did not have one ounce of effort left in my body. And he said, I could be in a stadium with 70,000 people, but I could hear one voice, someone just saying, go Billy. And I would look down the sideline and I would see that the trumpet player was too close to the sideline. I knew that I was going to get knocked out right there and I was actually going to collide with the trumpet player. And he said, I could feel the ball snap.

Like the ball would just go up in the air. I wouldn't even look back for the ball. And I could also feel the defender coming across the field to hit me. And he said at that one moment, there was a feeling that I can't describe, but he said, I chased that moment like a rat to cheese. It was better than any drug that I'd ever taken. And I just craved that moment. And I pushed out all the noise.

So when you were at the top of your surf game and you still are, was there that moment? Like, was, did you feel like this oneness kind of with the ocean? Like, was there something about surfing that you just didn't get from any other aspect of your life? For sure. And I think, I think anyone in their own way can find that, you know? They say you're in the flow or whatever, flow state. But in surfing, it's kind of more personal because you in the ocean and there's not other people playing this game that you're in. But, you know, danger.

Yeah, and there's all that stuff, too. All that stuff. That's, yeah. That adds to it. How many sharks in 100-foot ways? That's part of what drives. You know, there's definitely adrenaline junkie and all of us surfers that, that love it like that, you know. But there is a thing where you don't feel like you're, there's no time between the thought and the action.

Or there's not even thinking. You're just feeling. And when you, when you really are feeling like what he's just saying is like, He's just going by feeling. That's what we were talking about earlier with Great Whites. You know, Great Whites on the West Coast through into the fall. They stay in California and then they migrate south. They think that they mate out off of Mexico and then some of the females go to Hawaii.

That's just so wild. So how does a Great White find its way down to that place out in the ocean where they mate in the breeding grounds area or, you know, maybe one of the islands off Mexico they go to? and then swim underwater for a couple thousand miles in fine Hawaii. Those are tiny dots in the middle of the ocean. So there's this, I think humans, I think most humans nowadays with what we have with technology and the way life is and how fast-paced things are,

we've lost that feeling to some degree. And so with surfing, I think you have such a connection with nature and you're back in it all the time and you crave that thing. It is a drug. Yeah. I remember I got hired to do this thing with Disney one time where I spoke to a bunch of people. They were having a convention.

And I was telling him how I am an addict. I just got addicted to something healthy. Right. And I did compare surfing to a drug. And I felt a little weird about saying that at a Disney convention. Yeah. But I was like it really is. Cold plunging my drug of choice.

Yeah, exactly. But it's, yeah, I think everyone has, everyone desires to feel deeply, you know, but I think we all have our emotional reasons why we're scared of that, with relationships and stuff like that. And then with our life being so fast-paced, you're not really connected. Most people don't do something where they have those kind of feelings very often. And surfing, it's not hard to get that. It's a rush, you know. Whether it's just a speed of the wave or you're riding nature, you know, you're just riding wind energy that has really come from, you know, temperature variations

that cause the wind to create it in the first place. You're really part of nature, you know? You become part of this thing. So there is, there's always been this connection between, you know, spirituality and music and surfing and rhythm and patterns and people who are kind of counterculture. Timothy Learie was kind of big part of the surf scene, Lagoon Beach back in the day and stuff.

And so there's all these elements. Timothy Leary, the comedian? Sorry, did I get that wrong? No, the LSD guy. Oh, yeah, he was like a comedian, LSD, kind of, kind of the vulgar guy. Sorry, I got the wrong Lerie. Did I get the wrong Lerie? Anyway, some Lerie.

Yeah. Whatever. That'll just play that one over and over. Okay. Who was the guy? No, Dennis Lary is the guy. Dennis Lerry. Oh, Timothy Lerry was the guy who did, he was testing, he was, he was just taking tons of LSD back in the day.

And anyways, there was a lot of surfers around that era. And that was kind of like in the 60s and 70s. There was a lot of surfers who were expats that they didn't want to go to war. They were kind of peaceful people, but they loved chasing surfing and the waves. And a lot of them disappeared to Central America and Bali and far off places, you know, South Africa or whatever, to go surf and not go to war. That's crazy. So they almost became like hated by their country because they didn't want to fight, you know. But so there's an interesting culture that's always been a part of surfing.

But I think ultimately, I guess what I'm getting at is that, you know, surfing really provides, feeling and you get a you get a good feedback from that whether it's a positive or negative you know sometimes you're doing it right sometimes you're doing it wrong and you kind of know real you don't question it you're like I got to fix something I'm out of line here yeah and you know if it's not going your way but um it's a real connection to to the the outside elements in nature there's got to be a time though when you're dropping you know down into a wave um I mean you you've you've felt this year power of the ocean. I mean, I'm sure you've been pummeled by waves before. Of course. And, you know, some of these waves are 50, 60, 70 feet tall. And you're on a board. What is it,

six feet by 18 inches? Well, it depends. There's a lot of different, you know, there's a lot of different variables in there. I mean, if you're riding a wave that big, it's generally when you're getting towed in on a jet ski. And yeah, you'd probably on a board that's only six feet long. It's really heavy. If you're paddling, if you're trying to paddle like the biggest waves in the world, which, you know, the biggest waves ever paddle onto, maybe are, they're a little smaller than the ones you can tow onto. You know, you could probably tow onto a hundred foot wave if you can, if you can find one, but you can't really paddle onto a hundred foot wave, just the logistics of the speed of the wave, how long it takes to get down, all that kind of stuff. And a big board

creates a lot more friction on the water and, you know, you can't maneuver or go as fast with with a big board. You prefer, like, being towed out and being on a smaller board? That makes it easy. That makes it easy. But I think we've always, my generation especially, but I think there's always been this kind of feeling where you need to kind of earn your keep

by paddling into big waves first before you tow into big waves. But that's sort of starting to change. You're seeing a lot of people who can just, oh, I just started surfing, I want to tow big waves. wave and it it's pretty common now and people go to Nazaree and want to get towed in on a 60 70 foot wave and they've you know probably never paddle a 20 foot wave so I feel like you you kind of

have to like you kind of got to earn your keep a little bit just to just for your own confidence and stuff you know it's too it's kind of dangerous to it's dangerous but um my best buddy invented this inflatable vest Shane Dorian invented this inflatable vest because Shane had a near dress near near near drowning experience. Himself. Yeah, he almost drowned it in Halfman Bay in California in around 2013, I think it was. From what? Just being pummeled by a wave.

Big wave, like, you know, 60-foot wave he paddled onto. And he was under for like a minute. But, you know, imagine your heart rates like, you know, 150 and you didn't get a good breath or the wind got knocked out of you. And, you know, your CO2 is high in your blood or whatever. Yeah. And your lungs. And you're upside down. Yeah.

And you're getting flipped. around and you can't get the surface and another wave comes over, that kind of thing. So when Shane had that situation, he's like, I got to do something about this because he loved big waves and that was his thing. And he invented this thing. So basically every single big wave surf in the world now is wearing a vest at all times that is inflatable because you don't want to have to completely rely on that. You want to be trained up and have your cardio good enough to where you could handle whatever without that, whatever situation you're in because that thing's not foolproof. You know, it could not work.

Right. It's been a few times where they haven't worked. Oh, wow. But you want to be able to be confident that you've been in those situations and you're not relying necessarily in a jet ski to get you or this inflatable thing. Like you can hold your breath in the old school way, you know? Yeah.

But those have made it really accessible for most anyone to be able to tow into a giant wave. And, you know, if you can hold your breath for 15 or 20 seconds in a situation like that, you're probably going to be fine. Listen, there's what I share on this. podcast and then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here, but my VIP community, that's where the real magic happens. Picture this. You're struggling with energy crashes, brain fog, or just feeling like you're not

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the year where you get direct access to me and my network of experts. It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than $100 a month. Your health is your wealth, and this investment pays dividends for life. Join the VIP community at the ultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP and step into your ultimate potential. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. Was there a time, I mean, during your championship career and like competing at that level, were there like waves during certain eras where there were like really great athletes and

really great surfers and was there times when you felt like there wasn't a lot of competition or did that entire time did you feel like somebody was right on your heels or did you even think about that uh i've had different rivals if that's what you mean yeah i'm saying what motivated you i mean just the passion of the sport occasionally it was rivals um you know i had a there's a there's been a big rivalries in surfing one of them that's been spoken about a lot was myself and Andy Irons, who unfortunately passed away in 2010. But Andy and I for about six or eight years had a really pretty intense rivalry. And that really pushed me at that time.

This is like early 2000s, maybe 2002. I came back on tour. I took a few years off and came back. And he was World Champ for like three years running. Starting the first year, I got back on tour. So it took a big effort by me to get myself. into a different gear and catch up with what was going on. You know, whether that's your surfing itself, your strength,

and your preparation, or just your mental state, you know, all those things kind of come together and to create this recipe of ingredients for yourself. But, you know, prior to that, when I was first starting out, when I won my first world title at 20, it was my first full year on tour. Yeah. I had already been a rookie because I'd competed a little bit

in the two years prior to that, but not a full year. and wow you went straight to a world i went from 43rd in the world to first wow wow yeah yeah so in 90 uh the end of 91 they were creating this new transition of tour where it wasn't just an open series you could just enter any contest you had to be in the top 44 in the world to be able to be in any of the events oh okay and so that year i i graduated high school and i went on the qualifying series or i went on the world tour and you had to be in the top 44 i got 43rd. So I just made it by one side. That's wild. And the guy who got 44th was a guy named Munga Berry from Michael Mungabary from Burley Heads in Australia. And Munga and I were surfing against

each other in the second to last event of the year at Sunset Beach. And he spun around on this wave. He was behind me. I was paddling out and I paddled over this wave. I'm like, oh, I'm too late for this thing. I can't go. And Munga was behind me and he spun around. I barely, I don't even know if he padley just stood up on this huge wave and free fell into it. And basically by making it through that heat, he made it on tour. And he, you know, he ended up in the last, very last spot, he and I. But, yeah, there's, different things drive you at different times. When I was 20 years old, all I wanted to do was I wanted to be the best surfer in the world.

I wanted to be the number one surfer in the world and would be a world champion. like my heroes were, you know, and I want to try to match them. So I didn't have to find any kind of motivation when I went to contest. I was like, oh, I get to surf against Martin Potter. Oh, I could surf against Tom Curran. And you were always...

Tom Carroll. Oh, this guy, you know, it was either somebody I hugely respected or it was somebody who's surfing I didn't really respect and I thought I should beat him. Yeah. So I'm like, I got to go proof,

you know, I got a chip on my shoulder kind of thing. And when you're young, you kind of get a chip on your shoulder for some reason. And when you're older, you got a chip on your shoulder for the opposite reason. Right. And so you go through this sort of whole crescendo of, you know, reasons why and how you put your energy and efforts out there.

Well, for my audience, it's not familiar with how surfing is scored. Like, to become the greatest. I'm not either. All right, well, then we're screwed. This is a very hot. Thank you for watching the ultimate human podcast. It's a very hotly debated topic. Yeah.

Depending if you win or lose, the judges were either for you or they hate you. Because as a layman, I'm like, that guy looked like. he did a good job. He lost. I mean... I suppose it would be like if you were judging music, you would get people who are good musicians.

You would hope, you know, relatively skilled musicians and knowledgeable. And they would judge the skill at which someone played a song. I mean, because surfing is in art form as well, right? So you're sort of judging this creativity, how they use the wave. But there's also a huge luck factor.

and surfing, like the right wave could come at the right time that's way better than all the other waves. Yeah. And so the idea behind judging surfing is you're trying to imagine what is the outermost limit of what can be done on a wave. What's the most high difficulty and whatever? I mean, are you trying to perform on that wave? Are you actually trying to do things on your board

that are different difficulty levels so that a judge sees you and goes, wow, we just cut a full 360. Not necessarily, because the wave doesn't always ask for the most difficult thing. You know, sometimes it's just a nice brushstroke. You know, it's just a nice turn at the right speed. It doesn't have to be the crazy fastest thing in the world. You know, sometimes depending on the pace of a wave,

it might want you to go slow or fast or do something radical or something that's much more subtle. But it's the control with which you do it. It's the, you know, the efficiency of body movement, all these sort of things. but I don't, I guess the best way to kind of go about learning about judging maybe would be watching gymnastics like a floor exercise. Yeah. Because the commentators talk you through it so, oh, you can see how they just stepped when they landed there. Right.

Or they flared their arm at a certain place in a high dive. Or they, or, you know, in these different sports that are judged, you know, high level people can point out the small little things that did just, that detract from what the scoring would be. And so you would kind of hope for that in surfing, but sometimes even, you know, all of us, pros will be sitting around watching a heat, we'll see somebody ride a wave and we'll hear a score pop up that's either high or low

and we're like, what the hell is that? Right. You just out of the blue, we're like, what do they see that we aren't seeing? Right. But then, you know, we're all humans with the emotions. So sometimes it's your friend and sometimes it's somebody you want to lose.

There's always things that are biased. Yeah. And so the judges do their best to try to be robots. And just try to judge the skill set. But they're surfers in their own right. But then, you know, getting back to the feeling thing, when you watch somebody, if you understand surfing and you're trying to score it or decide what's better or worse, you can almost feel what that person feels.

And we, there's a thing in surfing about claiming, like, you know, people will claim a ride or claim maneuver. and you can tell if somebody really feels it or if they're trying to sell it to the judges. Right, right. And I need this score. So you're just like, yes. And you can tell that like, okay, that guy's way better than that's not close to his best maneuver.

So he can't be that excited about that. Right. But it could be a close heat and he needs to get through there for a certain result at the end of the year or in this contest or whatever. And so he might be excited, not because it was the greatest maneuver, but because he does think that he beat that person

or she thinks she'd beat that person. So there's different reasons why you might claim a wave, but the most respect in surfing has always come from guys that don't claim anything at all. And there are guys like some of the older guys that would never do a hand gesture at all. And those are the guys you always look back in history. Yeah, you look back in history,

I got to respect Tom Carroll, I got to respect Tom Carroll. Like certain guys that just never threw their hands in there, they're just like, hey, give it to me or not, but I did my best. That's awesome. So when you were pursuing this, the sport in these world championships, were you constantly moving around the world,

chasing the best waves? Yeah, I've been a known act for like 40 years. Really? Yeah. And what are some of your favorite places in the world? If people ask me, I just say, like, Fiji's probably my favorite place to go. Really? Yeah.

You know the people are so nice. The surf's really good. The weather's warm. The fishing's good. The diving's good. It's like all the things that I want to do are there. You can even golf on the mainland. Yeah.

But yeah, just in and around the ocean's great there. And really the people are just so kind, like the nicest people you'll ever meet anywhere in the world, the Fijians. Like, we had a contest there some years ago, and we went to a local school, and the kids wrote a song for us and sang it, like 100 kids singing us a song. They wrote just for our contest.

Really? Yeah. That's cool. And everyone, I think everyone in every village can sing in, like, three, four, five-part harmonies. Yeah. They're all just like these beautiful voices and they can all play instruments. But they're just so welcoming and such nice people that you just...

So you would head to Fiji for a certain time of the year and just... It can be whenever, but typically through our summer months is the best time down there, which is their winter months. Our winter, their summer, it tends to be a little bit like cyclonic weather. Yeah. It'll be super hot, really humid. The surf's not especially great that time of year. Yeah.

And they can get some cyclones and storms. But. And I noticed you've been very vocal about conservancy. I mean, and it stands to reason that you love the ocean and you respect the waves and you respect nature so much. But how did that come about? Did you just build a respect and a love not just through the sport, but for the ocean and for the environment?

Or was it, did you see things going on that just kind of turned your stomach and you became this evangelist for the environment? I mean, talk a little bit about, like, your, you know, why you're so passionate about conservancy. I mean, even your sunscreens, you know, you talk about how they're not. They're safe. Yeah, well, I guess I don't resent that word, but I wouldn't want to be called an evangelical about it because I hate when people are too preachy about anything,

but I just, we do have to think about generally. generations after us and our kids and leaving a better place for them if we can, if we can, you know? Yeah. I don't think that even needs to be explained, really. Yeah, well, some people. It's got to be explained to some people. No, I know, but I think the ocean resources are endless. Some people are just disconnected from that environment and that nature.

And, you know, maybe they're just all business and live in a big city and they don't go experience that kind of stuff. But if you go to a place like Bali, you'll see the effects of, modern times and plastic pollution and stuff. Like, I don't jump on every bandwagon around, like, climate change and that kind of stuff, but it's really clear. I think we can all easily agree, you know, because there's a lot of things where you can, people don't agree on certain things, but we can all agree that there's a lot of plastic pollution

in the ocean and all over the place. I think that's different than carbon emission and... Yeah, that stuff can be debated back and forth. But when you see an ocean full plastic and then the wind changes and it all washed up on the beach, when the season changes and it's disgusting and you literally can't even walk on the beach that's when when everyone needs to get together and go okay we need a solution for this yeah and you wonder where all that comes from is like are we just throwing trash into the ocean or is it boats throwing overboard no a lot of it um well in that particular situation

the balinese like to say it's all the javanese it's all coming from java but i think it's just My friend in Bali explained to me probably best and he said, look, when I was a little kid, we ate all our food wrapped in banana leaf. And we would eat the food and then we'd throw the banana leaf out. And eventually that turned into plastic and we just kind of kept throwing the plastic out.

And so a lot of waste... And there's not a really great infrastructure for garbage in some of these places. So through no fault of any individual person, it just tends to be that there's not the infrastructure for it. And there's a lot of weird local politics around these things even in small areas. But it doesn't go to a central place to be processed, right? And on small islands, like, it's not easy to get rid of a bunch of plastic.

And what do you do with it? You create a mountain on a tiny island. You got to bury it, I guess. You know? I mean, they're starting to melt it down and turning it into the stuff. Yeah, I think you need to melt it at about 5,000 degrees. So it really turns to a tiny bit of ash. I mean, that's one way to deal with it.

stuff burns and I think ultimately we're going to have to figure out how to take plastic, melt it back down to turn it into fuel more easily, which is not a hard process at all. It's just there's not an infrastructure for it. Right. And that's not a perfect solution because that's more air pollution. But, you know, the stuff you can really see is like it makes it obvious for everyone that you need to deal with it.

But yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't like to get too preachy about it. But I just try to, you know, in my own life, life, I do my best to recycle all I can. And I hope that when that recycling bingoes, the right thing is done with it. Yeah. Yeah, I always question that too. Yeah. And I hear a lot of times it's just not. Yeah. So that is disheartening, you know. Yeah. I mean, we, we live in the condo that we were in, um, had a recycle shoot and a trash shoot. And for like a year and a half, we would put recycled down the recycle shoot and trash down the trash shoot. And one day,

I had something to show up in the receiving and a trash shoot. And then one day, I had something You show up in the receiving and I actually saw that they came into the same bin. And it was just piled up on one side of the bin and piled up on the other side of the bin and we were going through all that effort. I think you want to feel like you did the right thing. Yeah, yeah, you felt good when you were upstairs, but when you went downstairs and saw it's all the real thing. But I don't know, one time my mom came out of my house and I was taking apart all this cardboard and recycling that and then plastic over here and then garbage over there or whatever.

And she's like, what are you doing? Just throw it all in one. And I said, no, I just, I feel like I want to do the right thing. So then my mom started recycling all of her cardboard and plastics and stuff. I'm like, well, maybe I affected one person, you know. That's paying it forward, man. I love it. But you know, in sometime around September last year, you had a prenova body scan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was actually this year. Yeah, that was in June this year? Or this year. Yeah. And it was kind of a shocking health update for you. I know that you've talked about it. Yeah.

And there were these lesions in your bone. Is that? Yeah, I had, I'd have to go back over the skin. There was only a couple of mild to moderate things to even be concerned about. But I think the thing that really shocked people was how much scoliosis I have. I have a very curvy back, you know. And the people I've worked with over the years have called it functional scoliosis. Clearly it's working.

I figured out a way for it to benefit me in some situations, I guess. but now, you know, I told you before, but I had hip surgery six weeks ago, total replacement. And I've been fighting that for 30 years, 33, 34 years. Yeah, you told me you actually tore your labor when you were 19,

and you won your world championship when you were 20. I mean, I don't know how many people realized that, but you won the world championship with completely torn labor. Yeah. And, you know, touring laborum is not something that just heals itself. I mean, it scars around there,

but it doesn't really go back to be in the labor. Yeah, no, I'll live the rest of my life. I'm not trying. I've torn bicep tendons, not even completely. I just actually did a podcast with DJ Dilleshaw, and he was talking about how he won, you know, two championship, you know, C fights with, you know, both his shoulders being torn.

And even how he had one of his traps, part of his trap, you know, put into his shoulder to try to replace the, you know, the rotator cuff. And fighting at the, yeah. And fighting at the, that level and you're like wow you mean he still became a world champion in his case twice in your case for decades but like i said the adrenaline takes over you know and like what tj was saying too like once you get in the fight or you get in the surf and the waves are big or you're in an intense

situation competitively the the adrenaline kicks in and you don't feel pain the same way your pain receptors aren't waking you up they're they're like you're trying to put them yeah backstage Backstage. Yeah, yeah. Drenaline does that, you know? Yeah. I mean, I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters, and they say that you don't feel the pain until after the fight.

Yeah. Right. And I can understand that. I mean, you know, time and all that adrenaline. I know. I was watching those fights this weekend with Marab and Petter Jan. Mm-hmm. And Petter Jan had this, his approach was basically let Marab hit him.

But he had his hand here. He was blocking, and he kept, because he's peppering him with that, but he's like, well, I'm blocking this. But he was staying within range. because that was his plan or whatever, he was staying within range and just taking those shots. Why? Well, because it was allowing him his own counter shots

and defensive wrestling and stuff, I guess. But, I mean, I saw a breakdown on it online. It was explaining all that. But he was really taking those because that was the range he wanted to be at. So, like, these guys just know, like, I can get hit. That's not going to knock me out. If it was the only one shot I took today,

I wasn't ready for it. It would probably hurt me. But when that adrenaline's kicked in, you know, like, you see some of these guys take, a couple hundred shots in a fight. Oh, it's unbelievable. I go to plenty of fights and I'll never. Yeah, sometimes I see you guys.

So impressed. It's really, since becoming a MMA fan about 20 years ago, it's really, it's really taken the intensity off of injuries for me. So, like I see some of these guys just like their freaking eyes hanging out.

Yeah, yeah. Like, they're just so cut and they're happy and they're just spurt and blood and they're like, no, I want to keep fighting. Don't call this fight out. So I'm like, if my fin cuts me and I got, you know, I need three stitches. I'm like, eh, I could probably surf a little longer. You know, it's like, it gives you a perspective. It's just chumming for sharks in your case. So yeah, maybe.

Depending where you're at, but it's, it's not as, for me, it's been become less scary to get injured after seeing what these guys willingly put themselves through. Yeah. Yeah, I've been a, I've been a few of the, a few of the greats. And like the, what you really begin to respect at that level is the amount of strategy. and thinking that goes into it. You know, I've heard Dana White talk about the difference between being a good fighter and a great fighter is composure.

And I imagine the hardest time to maintain your composure is when somebody's actively trying to hurt you. And it's also hard to not get pissed off. You know, pain just immediately causes you to flick your switch, especially when somebody else inflict it. If you cut it on your board, you're not actually angry. Yeah.

But if somebody else cuts you, be angry at them. It reminds me of a fight from the other. from that last card, Terrence McKinney was fighting and he just starts mopping this guy in the first minute of the fight, he's just so aggressive and the other guy's just boom, boom, it's just like a punching bag, you know? And he's getting

rocked and you can see he's like covering up and he ends up on the ground at one point and I was thinking to myself, I'm like, I wonder if this guy's got a plan, you know, like, or if he's just like so dazed right now from getting hit and then a minute later he wins the fight. Wow. Yeah, he just turned it around. He just, he ended up tapping out.

Wow. I think he was a tap out. Wow. you know, after getting completely rocked and beat up for like a minute and a half. Right. But then, you know, his plan was I got to keep some cardio and energy. And then Terrence McKinney kind of faded. And as soon as he faded, the other guy turned it on. So they, you know, it depends on that approach.

Are you, you know, are you going to come in aggressive or are you going to come in and be defensive and counter? Yeah. I mean, like, when you were surfing, did you ever have those moments where, like, you picked up the board and walked to the edge of the ocean and you just looked at the waves and you're like, I'm over this. Did it ever become a nautness? It's funny because Andy Irons, who I mentioned before, he and I had a big rivalry, and then went off for about six or seven years or something.

So that motivated you? Yeah, but then he and I became pretty good friends, and we kind of dropped the whole thing. You know, we kind of got past our, you know, both of our peaks and the rivalry and stuff. And I remember being in the water with him. We're in Huntington Beach, and there's about 30,000 people on the beach.

and he was really like, he was in a real like personal growth phase and he was like trying to get some things together in his head and, you know, step back from the surf thing, like being the pro surf for a little bit and do some personal growth. And I remember he looked up at the beach and he goes, fuck, I hate this.

That's what I mean. He just looked at the beach and he goes, I fucking hate, I just don't even want, why am I even, why did I put myself out here? I don't even want to be here right now. And I was like, yeah, I've totally felt that before. I've done so many things in my life that I was really excited about when I started. Like, you know, I was a competitive amateur triathlete for two years, three years.

But I got out of the water one time after the Chesapeake Bay Half Iron Man. And when I got home, I put my bike on the garage wall and I didn't get back on my bike for like three years. I was just over it. And by no means did I have. even remotely the level of commitment that someone like yourself went through for decades to stay at the top of that game and want to do the same thing

and not ever feel like you've mastered the sport because at some point you have to feel like you know I've been a world champion so many times over such a long period of time I've already mastered the sport and I'm fascinated by the mindset. Gary, I get paid to go surf around the world. Well, that's true.

Money's a motivator too. Okay, there it is. No, no, no. That's what I was looking for. We broke the news on the ultimate human podcast. This is all about money. I can't complain. It's not all that hard.

One of my best friends quit the tour when he had re-qualified for the following year, but he had decided to retire and go get a job. And about a year later, we're in Australia, and I'm in the contest, and he's working. He had to go to the contest because it was part of his job. flat Australia to do some work at that event. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Why? You should still be on this tour right now. And he's like, I'm an idiot. He's like, I was making more

money going surfing. He's like, now I work all freaking day. He's like, I'm here. I can't even surf nearly as much as I want. I got to find a break because I'm working the whole time. And he was like, I should have sat on tour until it ran out. I'm like, yeah, exactly. You're like, I'm still at it, bro. Yeah. So he, yeah. But I can't imagine this. there's a lot of money in surfing unless you are at the... No, most of our money is sponsorship dollars and, you know, you've got to get a certain notoriety and that kind of thing.

But the money in surfing has dried up a little bit in recent years because surfing was built on the backs of these... Originally from the 60s and 70s where these guys wanted to go surf around the world, so they started companies to sell clothes and wetsuits so they could fund their own surf trips. That was really how the rip curls, billabongs, quickovers of the world started.

really all the big brands from surfing and um you know and then if you extend further out then you go into like vulcum and you know other brands that were started by surfers as well but they basically were like a means to an end to get around the world and go surf these places they wanted to go and quicksover started by it was alan green and john law in australia and they we got in a couple friends and they made some surf trunks and were selling them out of the back of the literally out of the trunk of their car and then they make enough money and go on a surf trip yeah And then they realized, like, oh, well, all these surfers need gear. Yeah, and then all these surfers need gear.

And then, you know, their other friends started a wetsuit company, and that was Rip Curl. And, you know, eventually then all those brands ended up, like Quicksover started making wetsuits and Bill and Ripcroll started making clothing. Right. So then everyone's making everything. Right. And then surfing through the 90s and early 2000s really was peaking as far as the brands go. I remember. I mean, I remember.

Quicksover was O.P. and yeah okay so remember opi the corduroy shorts like but quicksover had a big thing because i was i was a quicksover guy for 23 years and um it was quick silver roxy was the women's line and dc was the shoes so those three brands were powerhouses through our industry and and skating with dc's shoes obviously but you know quicksover was so wealthy they're making so much money and so all the surfers and skaters and sponsored athletes and you know models and all that sort of stuff making really good money from the brands. And then eventually a lot of them became public brands

and they were kind of chasing stock price instead of just like making what authentically made them great brands. It was more worried about like the company structure than it was about the product that was being made. And then outsiders came in and started buying, you know, take over these companies and stuff. And it really changed what surfing was, you know, in the past 20 years. And those companies,

also own, they didn't own the tour, but they sponsored each of the individual tour events. Yeah. And they had the media rights. So they would run their media rights. You know, Bill Bung would run them the way they want, Quicks over the way they want, and they would own everything from that particular event. Now we have a world tour. The WSL took over from what the ASP, it used to be called ASP, and they took it over,

and they own all the media rights to all the events now. So it's not the individual sponsors. So that kind of changed as well. And, you know, you could argue good and bad points about that, but it changed what our sport is to some degree. But the brands, the original brands are not what they were. And I don't know if there's anybody at any of the companies that would try to claim that they are the same.

Right. It just changed, the environment's changed. And now new brands are coming in. I mean, like, I created my own brand. It's called Outer and Own. How's that doing? We're doing all right, yeah. You've got to be, man.

You're the greatest surfer of all time. John John Florence created a brand called Florence Marine. And a couple of the other surfers started other brands that are kind of filtering their way into taking over space in the surf shops and stuff. So there might sort of be this rebirth of some of the origins of brands starting with surfers. And that's how surfing became an industry. One of my favorite biohacks outside of breathwork by far is mineral salts. Baja gold sea salt. It's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs. You know, most of us are not just protein deficient, meaning amino acid deficient or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral

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Yeah. And, you know, I think looking at a career that's spanned as long as yours did, I mean, obviously conditioning is a big part of being a surfer. And most of your conditioning, I imagine you just got in water by doing your sports. I just surf a lot. Yeah. But were the things that you did outside, and I mean, now that you're in your 50s and you're still competing, you know,

Yeah, not full-time now. I quit the full-time competing about a year and a half ago, but I'm... It's not that long ago, bro. No. 53, so... When I was 52. Okay, 52, so... Yeah.

I mean, competing to your 52, I mean, I can't think of many sports. I mean, not even really golf. Are there a lot of 52-year-old golfers? Well, there's the champions... No. A 52-year-old NFL players, that's for damn sure. When you turn 50 in golf on the PGA, you join the Champions Tour. So that's, you know, all the...

They got a little legend. Yeah. You know, Phil Mickelson would be a young guy. on that tour right now. But that would be the Freddie couples of the world and that sort of guys. But what are you doing

to stay conditioned? I mean, as maybe as surfing is decrescendoing, I mean, I know that you're big and, you know, you're big believer into biohacking in the longevity space.

Yeah, I became, I'll tell you my history of, I grew up, my mom hates this and she thinks that this is a personal attack on her. I swear it's not, mom, I love you.

You did a good job. You raised three boys by yourself. Yeah, he actually spoke highly about you before the podcast, just, you know, off-camera. But, you know, we just didn't, and I don't think people in the 60s and 70s really worried about it.

You know, my older brother's born in 69. I was born in 72. My younger brother in 78. But back then, we were, you know, the first world, and we got the best food in the world or whatever. We ate tons of sugar. I mean, I grew up, I always tell people, I grew up on Oreos and Doritos.

Oh. I mean, literally ice cream, cupcakes. We're going to have to cut this out. You realize? Just kidding. That's so started from the bottom now we're here. Yeah, yeah. No, it's-

You were exercising your ass off. Yeah, no, I mean, I was super active, but I ate tons and tons of sugar. I used to have, I remember I'd wake up in the morning before high school and you're gonna hate this, Gary. You're gonna, you're gonna like hold this against me here. But I used to make like a chocolate milkshake in the morning for my breakfast.

And I would literally throw like ice cream, cookies, Hershey syrup, like whatever, I could find like into this. This would be my, and I would drink it on the way to school. And then by the end of the first period, I'd be doubled over with a stomach cramp. For the record, that was before you were a world champion. Oh yeah, this one I was a teenager. Okay, good.

Yeah. But bro, I'm a Florida, I'm a Florida man. I'm from Cocoa Beach. Like, this is what you eat. I mean, it could have been beer. Yeah. No, it's crazy when I talk about, you know, it's crazy. I mean, TJ talked about that too in his early career, like, in his time.

20s when he was fighting on, you know, the, the, what's the show? Ultimate Fighter? Ultimate Fighter. When he's fighting on the Ultimate Fighter that, you know, his diet was no good. That's complete garbage. But I mean, I think now, you know. There's too much information now. There's too much information.

For you to be in denial of it. But, yeah. So my sort of, I would call it a health journey. My health journey started in my early 20s. Did it really? And I was in a health food shop. Good, because so did your professional career. So good.

I was in a health food shop in Salonabita, Cardiff, called Caius. And I ordered a juice or sandwich or something. And then I was standing there waiting for my food. And there was a tape. There was like this, just this, there was one thing for sale on the counter. And it was a tape by a guy named Dr. Joel Wallach,

who maybe you know the name. And it was $1. They weren't trying to make money from it. They were just trying to get people to listen to this stuff from a health guru. So I bought that tape and I, this is when we had cassettes in the car. I remember it. And so I'm driving around.

I would just listen to this thing. And he started talking about how he had done like 17,000 animal autopsies, 3,000 human autopsies. And he said, no one dies from old age. There's no such thing. You die of a deficiency of something over a long period of time. You get a disease, blah, blah, blah. And I just was like, wow, this is fascinating.

And I had just, I already become world champ at this time. But I was like, this is fuel from my fire. here or this, I'm going to actually like start being healthy. And so I got I got super into, I started just trying different diets like food combining. You know, I did food combining for a while. I met, I became familiar with the Gracies from going to, oh yeah, from going to Rio for contests every year. And then I eventually met Hickson and Hoyt and Hoyler and all those guys.

But I had read their book. Prior to that, a friend of mine had written a book about him. And I think two different friends of mine have written books about the Gracie family now, but I started reading about their diets and they talk about food combining. And then I started looking into it, what is troughology? And why don't proteins and carbs go well together, blah, blah? And I started kind of like experimenting with that on myself

and seeing how I felt and I realized I have more energy and I sleep less and I digest better and I don't have stomach problems. And so I kind of just became really sort of fascinated with health and the body. And strangely enough, my mom was an EMT and firefighter. Oh, wow. So she went to medical school for some degree of time to learn what she needed. And so I kind of already had this, like, maybe this genetic thing in my DNA where I wanted to learn about the anatomy and digestion and all that stuff.

So I was traveling in my early days when I first got on Quicksillow, I was traveling with a guy named Tom Carroll, who was two-time world champion. but Tom was one of the few guys that cross-trained and really talked about diet and he trained off the waves. Oh yeah, he was doing all sorts of cross-training and Tom was like crazy fit, super strong. Everyone talked about how big his calves were and like his thighs were I mean

and it was actually funny because back at that time he also wore super tiny shorts so his like leg muscles would just like jacked like yeah like explode his like tiny trunks you know almost look like it would rip him in the side because his legs were so powerful. Yeah. And he surfed that way.

You know, he surfed with all this power and energy. He was known for that. And Tom became like a big brother to me. And we were, I was like 18 years old. I was in Australia with him. I kept telling him how I didn't have much energy. And the night before we had eaten pasta. I had a spaghetti bolognese.

And he goes, well, maybe it's because of the proteins and the carbs together or something. He's like, have you ever thought about that? And that was the first time I ever heard, about food combined. I'm like, no, I don't, what does that mean? Yeah. How do you know this stuff?

Why? What do you mean? You just eat food and it gives you energy. Yeah, yeah. I just never really to put the equation together, you know. And unfortunately, we're not taught that in school. Mm-hmm. I don't really give you any kind of formal education about that, especially in public schools.

And so I, I was just kind of, uh, shooting from the hip trying to learn this stuff traveling around the world. And I became really sort of infatuated with it through my 20s. Mm-hmm. And then I got in, of like water fasting and master cleansing. Oh, that's great, man. I think water fasting is,

if you can master fasting two, three times a year, I mean, those are game changers. Yeah. I do big water fast on my platform, take thousands of people through water fasts, and there's always these life-changing, literally life-changing testimonials that we get out of it. I went about 15 years ago,

I was doing a master cleanse for about, I think I did 10 days with the tea, with the kind of pepper and stuff. And anyways, it was about four or five days in, and I went golfing with one of my best friends and his dad. And his dad's, his dad had a couple groups of friends there that were all doctors. It was like this doctor out and they go golf every Thursday or Friday or whatever. So I was with him.

And afterwards they're having lunch and he said, you want something? And I'm doing a fast or a cleanse. What are you talking about? And I started telling him about it. And like, why are you doing that? So I'm going to let my digestion heal. I'm not going to be digesting food for almost two weeks. So that can all just relax and heal.

And so good, settle down. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you know, if you don't eat food for a long period of time, you're doing salt flushes every morning. You know, I'm out of your mind. I'm doing the smooth and move teas and I'm, and blah, blah. And they're like, you don't need to do that. You just take the stuff that we take to get a colonoscopy.

And that just flushed everything out. You know, in 24 hours, nothing else is in your system. And I was like, well, what about mucoid plaque? And they're like, what are you talking about? These are doctors, you know? Wow. And so literally that day, I was driving home and I had to stop to go to the restroom. It was the first time I ever got muquoid plaque to come out of my body.

Yeah, no, I've done that. And that is gnarly. I was like, what is that? Did I just, like, did my intestine just come out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, sorry to get graphic for people out there, but I think a lot of people that watch your show probably know this stuff. Oh, they do. And if you haven't, you know, you need to go and Google mucoid plaque and have it.

how to get it out of your body. But, you know, after days and days and days of hydrating and no food, stuff starts to loosen up. And you're like, comes right off like a snake's kid. No wonder I'm nutrient deficient. No wonder I don't digest food properly. No wonder am I, you know, this and that is unhealthy or people getting cancer left and right.

Yeah. And then you feel the lights come on, right? The lights come on. Oh my gosh. And like literally your eyesight changes. Yes. Everything. And I told people that and they think I'm crazy.

I got so excited, man. I got so excited when I got my first muquite plaque on my body. Well, because afterwards you feel amazing. I remember that day. I remember exactly where I was like, yes, this is a real thing. You know, I had seen all these stories of people online. Yeah. Like yesterday I was watching something,

and this guy was talking about getting parasites out of his body. And he saw him. And he's like, I don't want to show you because people don't like to see that stuff. But if you want to, I'll send you some pictures. And but when you first make a change you're in control of with your body, it's so exciting. It's so exciting and inspiring. And when you feel the shift in such a short period of time, it's also inspiring.

You're like, wow, this is how I used to feel all the time. I remember this feeling. It should have spent so many years that I've just adjusted my new state of normal. Yeah, there were just so many Oreos between that period and now. Yeah, a lot of them. No, but I tell people, that's one thing I'm a little evangelical about is water fast, and I tell people all the time. Oh, man, me too.

And they're like, oh, so I just shouldn't drink water for 24 hours? I'm like, I mean, I should only drink water for 24 hours. I'm like, no, what you got to do is you got to go at least three days. You got to get past that day two because day two sucks. Yeah. And I'm like, day three is awesome. Day three is amazing. Day three is great.

It's so true, man. And, you know, day three, you're like, oh, I'm awake again. I'm alive. I like my thoughts are clearer. You know, I was telling people, I told a few people the past year, a year or two ago I did one. And on day three, I surfed, played golf and worked out pretty hard that day on the beach with a couple of my buddies.

I never lost any energy. Like throughout the whole day, I had full energy. And actually I think I did four days, that one. And I was like, why don't I just go for like 10? When you're already there. Once you're already a few days in. You can keep going. In fact, a lot of people come out of my three-day water fast

and go four or five. Yeah. I tell them, don't go past seven without medical supervision. But because sometimes you think you can keep going and you don't want to get an electrolyte imbalance. You can go much longer. I just think that you need to really know what you're doing. But you're right. A three-day water fast is game.

I've done three of them in the last year, you know, with tens of thousands of people. And it is always still shocking to me the stories that come back from our three-day water fast. In fact, you can download three-day water fast. Especially people who aren't already, like, quite healthy if they do it. And all of a sudden they're like, whoa. And it's just about no one that can't go 24 hours to 72 hours without eating. Yeah. You're mentally so tied to food.

You think I'm going to die on a flight from Miami to L.A. if I don't eat over Colorado. Right. If I don't eat before we land, I will expire before we get to the airport. Yeah, it's crazy. So tell me a little bit about how, like, exercise, longevity has changed for you. I mean, what are your go-to protocols now?

You were talking about cold plunge. Sona. No, I love, I feel like sauna into cold. plunge like the lazy man's way to work out. You know what I mean? Like you get your cardio hit. You get your cardio hit. I guess that's all you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. But I mean, if you, typically I'm just like surfing a lot and then I play a lot of golf. Yeah. I don't cross train a whole lot, but I do a little jihitsu and I, you know, I kind of, I'm kind of like a bench workout person where like I get into it and then I'm like, okay, whatever, I'm going to be lazy and surf.

a while. Yeah. Well, surfing still... If I surf a lot, really cardio. Usually when I'm in Hawaii, I get in really good shape just because I just surf every day. You know, it might be three to five hours a day in the water. Yeah. And, um, and then, you know, try to get myself to run the beach a little bit or... How do you keep from just getting fried? You wearing your sunscreen? You know what? If it's, if I know, if I'm somewhere tropical or it's super hot, I wear sunscreen. But, you know, I am lucky. I've, I've had tan skin my whole life. Like, I was like you could probably have mistaken me as being like half black when I was a kid because my mom just put me in the sun.

Yeah. We're in the sun all day. Yeah. And I was so darkly tanned when I was a kid. Yeah. Much darker than I am now. And there's a picture of me and my brother in the bathtub. I'm like two or three and we're both naked and you can see our butts.

And like my butt is white and the rest of my skin is like dark, dark, dark tan. Really? Like I look Hawaiian or something. Yeah. And, but I just always like, I like me in tan. The more tan I am, the less I get burned. I don't know. Well, that makes sense.

Yeah. That's your natural defense mechanism. I went to Bali a few years ago for three months. And the day I got there with my friend who's like kind of pale was tanter than me. Because I'd been surfing in wetsuits for the past like six or eight months before that. And I was so angry. There's no way you're darker than I. Yeah.

And so I just made it my mission to get super dark again. but that's easy to do when you're surfing all that time especially in Bali yeah but certain places the sun is just so violent you you have to be covered up yeah no matter how good your skin is but um yeah i mean i've seen i've suffered some skin damage and stuff like my i got spots on my head actually i went to the dermatologist yesterday and trying to address it now just yeah 50-something years of just in the sun as much as they could possibly be is there things they're concerned about or no nothing that's like turned up to look bad or anything, but it's just discolourations and stuff

over long period of time. You know, they call them pre-cancerous. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like... You just keep an eye on them. Yeah. So what are your go-toes now? Sona, cold plunge.

Do you do red light therapy? Yeah, do some red light therapy. I sometimes sleep on a beamer mat. PEMF. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, the thing is, whether you knew it or not,

and you were spending so much time, you know, moving your body and grounded. You know, I mean, touching the surface of the earth is one of the healthiest things that you can do. Yeah. And so all that time, you're just discharging into the earth. Your body was very grounded, you know. I mean, all that time on the beach and in the water.

Yeah, in the water. The ions for the water. It's so good for you, man. There's a reason why you feel great at the beach. Yeah. You know, I mean, sometimes the beach, you just smell the ozone, you know? It smells like that ozone. Yeah.

You know, the negative ions. Yeah. And do you feel disconnected when you're not near the ocean? I mean, it's in such a big part of your life. Yeah, to some degree I do. When I was younger, I would feel it much more if I didn't surf for a few days even. I would go crazy. Yeah.

But now, I mean, I haven't surfed in a couple months because of this. But I caught two waves the other day. Get in. We were at our surf ranch and I caught. Since you're, this is only two weeks old, right? Six weeks old. Six weeks old. Yeah, but like five days ago, I caught two waves.

Really? It didn't feel right, so I'm like, I'm not going to... And, you know, I can surf to where I'm putting no pressure on my hip, you know. If I want to push it, I can, but I can also surf, and it's about as much pressure as if I'm standing. You know, I'm not manipulated or whatever. You perfected, I think it's fair to say. Well, it's pretty easy to stand there and feel like I'm just standing there. So, you know, I don't have to work hard if I surf.

I just... So I just wrote a couple of ways just to see, how does this thing feel? And I did a couple little turns. I'm like, I'm not ready. Right. So I'm going to just wait another few weeks. Are you rehabbing it right now? Yeah.

I've been going to physio and getting deep. I got a lot of time massage. Mm-hmm. Just go, just go until I scream. Really? It's like. Is it painful? Time massage?

Yeah. Never had a time massage. Oh, really? No. Oh, yeah. It's like, I think it's the best. It is. But I mean, it's painful during it.

Painful, yeah. But you notice it. It hurts. You're not getting injured, you know? But, I mean, do you notice it the next day that you're more limber, you have more range of motion? You really do.

And then I tend to do a stretching session afterwards, you know, for a short period of time. And I just, I compare it before and after. But I usually go home and take a hot bath or sauna right afterwards and take some electrolytes. And, and, um. I'm going to get you on the hydrogen tablets.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you haven't told you about that. You just miss your repair. I always don't remember my water. That's these little guys right here.

Yeah. Here, I'll throw one in your water there. Let me see your water glass. Boom. So there are two in there. All right. It's a selective antioxidant. It'll help with the inflammation.

Perfect. Do you have any pain anywhere right now? Hip? No, just sitting in my lower back. My lower back's been really affected by the hip. So let me know how that is when you're done that. Yeah. It's going to take about two minutes to dissolve and then just whack it back.

Cool. But, you know, I... If I'm not totally out of pain tomorrow, I'm going to let you know it. If you're totally out of pain, you better tell me. Well, we're working out in the morning, so I'll check him with you. You know, I had an, I tore my ACL, my MCL, and I actually cracked the lateral half of my tibial plateau off. Jeez. I'm pretty bad knee injury.

How? Dude, I knew you were going to say that. I was going to try to talk fast so you wouldn't ask. Yeah. I wish I had a better story, but, I mean, this was years ago, 2008, I think. Drone? Late at night. Really?

I had had a few cocktails. I was actually at an insurance convention. I had a few cocktails. And I think I had to call it out, didn't it? I had taken three jiu-jitsu classes, including the first day where all you basically do is stretch and meet your instructor. So I had a pre-bi-biahack, Gary Braggis?

Oh, this is way pre-biahack, you know? And I had taken three jiu-jitsu classes, and so I thought it was a badass. I knew how to pull somebody by me and then choked him, and that was it. But you're supposed to kind of stand there and let me do it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to come out and be like this. Yeah, no, punch like this, and then I'm going to up-block, and then I'm going to chop you in the neck, and then I'm going to sweep your foot. And when I sweep your foot, you have to fall down. You know, it's like, you help me out here. So I had three jihitsu classes.

And I'd watched a lot of UFC, so I felt pretty good about myself. And I had a few cocktails, and I was at an insurance conference, and my business developer, who was a Division I one wrestler. Oh, here we go. We started, like, mouthing off to each other. He was like, he goes, dude, just so you know, I would mop the floor with you. And he was like, let's not even have this conversation. And I was like, well, we could go up to the suite and figure it out.

you know, and I hit the presidential suite up there. You're like, I'm going to, I'm going to guillotine this guy. Yeah. I'm going to grab his wrist. I'm going to pass him and then I'm going to be behind. I'm going to reinate you choke him. And it works so good in my second jiu-jitsu class. There's this thing called a Kimmer.

I'll get him. Yeah. James. And he was a little spark plug. This is a little muscular spark plug. And he was actually fresh out of grad school. And he'd wrestled through grad school even. too. Those guys are beast. So we push all the furniture aside and all my, my whole staff went up there.

And it started friendly. And then I really started trying and he wasn't. And he hip tossed me and my leg got stuck on the side of his knee. He did not mean it at all. And everybody heard it go, I mean, it was just this big popping, tearing sound. One girl actually got sick. And then I was sitting on the floor. I'm so glad I asked. My knee was cocked to the side. And I was like, like, oh, this is not good. So maybe we can cut all this out and it's terrible for my career. And your buddy's like, hey, tell me about the jihitsu class again.

It's 20 years ago, just for the record. All three of them. Yeah, 20, yeah, 20 out years ago. And but anyway, the point that I was trying to make when you rudely interrupted me and asked me what happened was, I remember my surgeon said, he goes, the surgery went perfect. He's like, you got great cadaver tissue in there.

The surgery went as good as it could go, he said, that's 30% of your journey, 70% of how your knee will treat you for the rest of your life is how dedicated you are to post-operative rehab. And I listened to that. Good doctor. And he, yeah, he was a great surgeon. Still is a great surgeon. And so I just dedicated my life. And he said, there's going to be a point in rehab where it feels like you're just tearing pages out of a phone book, you know, meaning your progress is, in the beginning you have lots of progress. You start to get range of motion. The pain starts to go down. But he said, when the progress seems immeasurable, keep going. And I took his advice. And, you know, it was a few years later,

I was an amateur age group champion for the state of Florida in triathlons. And I, you know, knock on woodman. I've had no pain, no loss of range of motion. I never complain about my knee. Doesn't bother me in bad weather. So maybe, you know, with your hip, that postoperative rehab is just so incredibly important. You know, how dedicated you are, because a lot of people will just stop when it's just not painful anymore, but the muscle atrophy is still there,

and you really haven't retrained the muscles, and your body still thinks you're injured, and then you're out playing basketball one day, and, you know, you do it again. All of a sudden, I feel great, Gary. See? I'll give you an affiliate link. No, this is great.

This is why I pee so much. But, so you're still doing the rehab for it. Yeah. In fact, I'm just getting to the point now where I can start to actually train. You know, I'm getting a range of motion. Have you battled on injuries during your career? No. I've been, that's...

It's really fortunate. I've been super fortunate. My worst injury was I broke my foot really bad in 2017. Surfing? Yeah. How do you break your foot surfing? I've broken my feet four times surfing. It's pretty calm.

It's not as uncommon as you think. The board flipping. into me this way. So basically what happened with this one, this was the fourth time of broken, either toes or metatarsals. Wow. It comes up that violently.

Yeah, so the board just flipped into me. So three times, the first two times it happened to me, I was on a wave. I don't know how you're surf knowledge is, but I was basically in the barrel of a wave with my back to the wave and the lip of the wave landing here.

And that lip, when it lands, it explodes back. You know, you see when a wave breaks and it explodes, right? Mm-hmm. So inside the tube, that comes back up in the tube at you like this. And so the first couple times I did it, the lip landed there and pushed the board this way, and the board flipped towards me. Ah, and your foot just...

And broke toes or metatarshals. Ah. The first time I did, I broke two metatarsals. Another time I broke a couple toes. Ah. and then I broke. Then the last one I did, I wasn't on a big wave.

It wasn't anything very exciting. It was a wave that was all closing out, like the wave was finishing, and I pulled into the wave when it broke, and I was just going to dive off. And while I was in there, I was like, should I dive or should I ride it out? Because in a wave, if you stay on your board longer,

sometimes the energy kind of dissipates a little before you even wipe out. So, like, you've kind of fallen after the worst part of it. If you fall just before it all breaks, you can get sucked up and over in the lip of the wave and hit the bottom and stuff. This wave wasn't even, there was no factor of that. It was not a very big wave at all.

And I pulled in and I was kind of in two minds. Should I jump off or should I ride it out? And my leg was straight. And all I can figure that happened was some part of the wave. I was facing the wave too, so it was a different angle. But somehow the board violently got pushed into me and my leg was straight.

So something had to break. the chain. Yeah. So I broke all five metatarsal across the top of my foot. All five, yeah. You mean you literally snapped your foot?

I put a new joint in my foot, basically. Wow. It was a brutal injury. I broke the Liz Frank joint. I broke the... That is a lot of force. That is a lot of force.

Second, third, fourth metatarsal in a line diagonally, and then the fifth one cracked up over here, high in the metatarsal. It was a really, it was a really bad injury. Yeah.

How long did that take you out? About a year and a half. Year and a half. Yeah. You had surgery? I had surgery on it like two weeks after it happened. Because the foot swall... It must have been the gnarliest x-ray.

The foot swelled up so bad. Yeah, I'll show you the x-ray. The foot swallowed up so bad that I couldn't fly because it was like the foot expanded so much. So my doctor basically said, look, just like let the swelling go down, a little ice it for a few days before you fly. I was in South Africa.

And I had to fly double red eye to get home. Oh, my God. So elevation for 10 hours, elevation for 10 hours. Right. And when I got home, my foot was even bigger than right after the injury. So then... Had you had the surgery? No.

You had the surgery when you got back. I was going to fly home and see my surgeon. He's a good buddy of mine. He lives right near me. And so he came over my house to see my foot. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to have to wait because when I do surgery, it's going to blow up again. And it's going to...

Your foot so big, it would rip the stitches out. You know, it'll rip them through your skin. So he's like, we're going to have to let that thing settle for a few days. So it was really probably good... Were you just putting in an ice pockets? That's what we're doing. Yeah, basically. Yeah.

So it was basically like a good two weeks before I got surgery, and then it blew up again. And then I had pitting edema for like three months. It was terrible. Yeah. And then, yeah, I started surfing a little too soon on that one. Yeah. I did that in July, and I surfed the contest in December. I actually did it right in the contest, but.

You did that injury in the contest? No, I did the injury just before I had to compete, like an hour before I was going to compete. So I was out of that contest. But then I surfed a contest in December. I did it in July. I surfed a contest in December. But it wasn't a contest where I had to do maneuvers. You know, we're not turning.

We're just pulling in the tube of the wave. So I'm kind of essentially just kind of going straight on waves. So it wasn't really... So for you, that's like a walk in the park? Well, it's just, it's easier than having to move around small waves. Right. It was sort of medium-sized waves where you're just going straight in the tube of the waves. And in a weird way, it's kind of safer for the foot.

That makes any sense. Yeah. So I was able to do it. But it was probably dumbing me, but I was just so excited to surf that contest. That's my favorite event, so I wanted to surf it. Yeah. But then in February, I got all the hardware out. I took all the screws and stayed.

It was three plates and 16 screws or something. Oh, my God. So I took those out, and then I had to, I swear that the healing, the healing from that second surgery was harder than the surgery, I think. Like getting that stuff up. My doctor basically just said, hey, when you're, When the cuts heal, you should be all right. But I got the whole pitting edema in my foot again and stuff.

Like where you push your thumb in it, it would just leave a hole in your foot. It was disgusting. It was almost like dead tissue. And so I wasn't getting much circulation, so the healing didn't happen for very long. Typically, I've broken bones many times. And, you know, four weeks the bones healed,

six weeks the calcium fills back in and your bone looks normal on an x-ray. I broke that in July. I got the x-ray done. February and the calcium was just filling in. Wow. Because one bone shattered in like eight pieces or nine pieces. And another one was in like four or five pieces.

Yeah. So the blood flow was obviously not very good. Yeah, plus it probably shattered a lot of blood vessels. The doctors who did it were a little concerned. Actually, my normal surgeon, he sent me to someone else. He goes, he's like, I could probably do it, but these guys are really good at it. And I'll send you to them. So these two doctors in Burbank did it.

And they said they were basically, like, taking tweezers and putting a little piece of bone back together and trying to, like, glue them back together. Yeah, yeah. And they weren't sure that my foot would, they weren't sure if the bone would sort of, like, heal properly. Yeah. And then...

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mattress that I back, Gary Brecker, because it meets my standards for human optimization. Sleep chemical free. Visit theultimate snooze.com and use code Ultimate for 10% off. let's get to sleep. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. And would you say you got back to 100% after that? No. Still haven't. You're still honest with you. Yeah. So then 10 months after my original injury, so this is May of the next year, 2018, I went to Fiji and I was surfing. There's a really big swell. So I went to chase big waves. No problem on the big day. The next day was kind of small and I just did something dumb on a wave and I heard it all over again and I tore the plantar plate Oh my gosh.

Between my first and second toe just like ripped it. Because there was so much scar tissue. That ligament. Yeah. Wow. It tore it. And so I was on,

then 10 months after my original injury, I was back on crutches. Oh, no. And I remember, I was like on the island where we stay, I was walking with crutches and I just started crying. I'm like, I can't believe

10 months. And I'm like, I think I'm worse than I was 10 months ago. Yeah. It was, that didn't. That hurt worse than the original injury. Oh yeah, no, that's it. It was tearing a ligament off the bone is brutal.

Oh my God, it was so painful. So basically that took me till about the end of 2018. Now what did they do for that? Did you go and have it surgically repaired? I didn't, no. I just kind of waded it out. Oh, dude. It's like brutal.

Yeah, it was brutal. Yeah. But I still get these weird phantom nerve pains through my foot. They're not weird phantom nerve pains. Well, yeah, I guess. They're from injury. You know what I mean? Yeah.

But, well, it'll like, I'll get like a shooting pain. and then it doesn't stick around. Like it doesn't keep going, but I'll get, I get plantar fasciitis all the time. Because I golf, and then I'm pushing off that foot, off the toe of that foot.

Yeah. Off the ball of that foot. And then by the end of the day, if my foot's just, if I've walked a lot or whatever, I feel like my foot has shortened up so much and it's like going to, it feels like it's going to tear sometimes.

Yeah. Do you see yourself when the hip injury, you know, when the hip repair heels, do you see yourself? Just even going back into competition for fun? Yeah.

Yeah, a little bit. Or even just going back into competition. I mean, I'll probably compete. 53 isn't that long ago. Yeah, but I'll probably compete for at least another decade. Not necessarily professionally or a high-level competition, but there's a lot of team events and fun events that I wanted to. But I would say as far as, like, tour events, I don't know if the next two, three, four,

years. There's a couple events I really love that I definitely have a chance at. Really? That's awesome. Yeah, that suit my strengths. Yeah. And what is that? Basically like a little bit bigger waves with barrels, like hollow waves. That's, you know, that's probably what after all this time has has become my real strength. And is there ever that one that like, Is it, you know, either you're inside the barrel of a wave or you're dropping down the face of a huge wave. Is there ever that one that's just like, that's it? Oh, yeah. Just like, I'm like spiritually connected to what I do now.

When you're inside the barrel of wave. Because I always think you sent me, you goes like slow motion. Yeah. On those ones. Certain ones are like slow motion. But then you will have certain ways in your lifetime. There's a few waves I can think back in my lifetime over 34. 40 years that really certain just individual waves stand out.

Really? Yeah. What was it that stood out about it being inside the barrel or? Yeah, usually just some... Just the sheer size of it and the speed going down the face of it or... No, and just how well you connect with the wave. Maybe how deep or how long you get in the barrel. Or you find just the perfect wave you've been looking for years for that one wave at that one

location. You know, because every wave is different. Yeah. There's no two waves alike. There's a lot of waves that are similar on the right side that come at the right angle, at the right height, the right part of the reef that you're surfing at. So there are waves that look very alike, but there's no two waves alike. And it's really about how far you can push yourself to take off deep and late on the wave

and still make it and match the speed of the waves right. You don't always have to be going super fast in order to have a great ride, you know? Yeah. That's maybe a super fast, long deep tube is the most impressive thing and most exciting thing. But, you know, sometimes it, you know, like I was saying earlier, sometimes going slow and pacing what the waves asking you for is the right thing. Yeah. But it is probably always more exciting when you're, you know, as deep as you can possibly be on a wave and going as fast as you possibly can go. And the thing's trying to out race you and you keep up with it somehow.

That's the most exciting. especially on a big wave that's super dangerous. Yeah. So where does this go for you? You continue to compete? I mean, are you working on things outside of surfing? I'll just put an asterisk on the competitive thing because there's just one or two events that are on the tour that I really like that have offered a wild card I would accept and still compete on that level.

There's a couple of events that are just fun of events. I'd like to do with my friends or, like, teammates. And then, you know, besides that, like, I'm a new dad again. I have a 29-year-old daughter who lives in Lauderdale, actually. And then I have a 17-month-old son, and, you know, I look forward to him starting to surf. He's ridden seven waves in his life. Has he really? And he also wrote...

17 months? It's awesome. He, not on his own. Those are all with me, but four in the ocean and three in the wave pool. Yeah. And two in his mom's belly when he was... He was halfway here. So he's sort of ridden like nine waves.

Yeah. It's kind of funny. That's so cool, man. It's 17 months. I would have no idea where to even start counting how many waves I've rid in my lifetime. Yeah. But he's on seven right now. Dude, that's how he's going to outride you, brother?

Yeah, he will. But no, hopefully. How's the weight pork doing? It's going really good. It is? Yeah, it's super fun. It's a super fun experience. Is it, like, family-oriented?

Do you have partners in that? I'm actually not an owner. I sold my share of it. My partner and I started it in 2014, finished in 2015, 2017, we sold it. Oh, wow. But we're founders of it,

so we still get rights and access to use it and a few days a year. And, you know, get invited up there with other groups of friends that are going. But it's become a real, it's become a destination for surfers that have been there already

that want to go back over and over. and over and over again. And, you know, the thing with wave technologies, they're not cheap, and ours is the most expensive. I can't imagine it's cheap to actually make consistent waves in a pool. It's getting more and more cheap, but the concrete costs a certain amount. Energy costs a certain amount.

Energy is not even the high cost. The concrete really is to make the pools. And to build out with some of the hardware. And you guys did that on your own in 2014? Yeah. To burn a lot of your fortune doing that. I was worried that I was going to end up, It's burning all the money I ever made.

Yeah, yeah. That seems like a labor of love. And I definitely would have had it not done well. But, you know, people loved it and it turned into something. And it's become a good business for the guys who own it. But, yeah, I don't own it. But it's, you know, I'm super proud of it. And I still feel like it's mine, you know.

Like it's ours. Is there anything you're working on on the horizon? Is there an entrepreneur in you that's going to come out? Well, I'm building a waveful in Austin. Everybody's moving to Austin. I know. What is it? Is it Joe Rogan?

Like, what's sucking people down there? Literally, I did a podcast in the Middle East with a modest influencer, and she was moving from the Middle East to Austin. Yeah. Well, I got into golf in the mid-90s in about five, six, seven years into playing golf. I met a guy named Mike Meldman, and Mike owned this golf course that I'd love to go to on the Big Island, and it built a community around it. A few years later, I got into the idea of making wave pool technology, wave technology.

And then I started imagining, I could build, you know, in surfing what Mike's done in golf, we could build these communities around a wave pool, and people want to want to live there. And so we worked on it for years. That was the ultimate goal for me with the... this wave pool technology. And so, long story short, Mike and Mike's group and my group are partners to build this wave in Austin. Oh, wow.

And it's going to be a community? Yeah. It's a private community, private wave. And it's about like seven minutes from the airport. The good thing about it is. It's underway now? Yeah. Oh, right.

We broke around January this year. This is kind of a big deal, dude. You seem so humble about it. Yeah. I'm just building this community homes with a wave pool. I don't get too. that, not really anything. I've learned with wave fools, you don't get, you don't get too invested until there's a wave running.

Okay. You know what I mean? Like, don't get your hopes up too much, you know? Oh, dude. She kind of likes you, but you haven't gone on your first date yet. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of money and a lot of concrete that's hard to move around if the wave doesn't work. Yeah, yeah.

But there used to be a wave on this property. It was a wave called Enland, and it was a different technology, and it was like a very early days technology of wavefuls. And then the guy who owned it also built a brewery there that they never used. So there's a brewery on the property and there's just, they have all the permitting and water rates and all that kind of stuff. So it's kind of the perfect place for us because Central America, there's people from all over that want to fly and come surf these waves.

Yeah. And there are a lot of people who are going to be members that already do have some kind of like either a business or. some for some reason to go to Austin. Some members that live there already that are going to be members of our club. That's cool. But yeah, it is like a boom town.

I mean, I was there a year or two ago. And, you know, you get invited to these parties and it's pretty much every person you see in the media and biohacking world and podcast world and blah, blah, blah. No, no, it's, I mean, Austin seems to be taken off. And what's cool is you can get outside of Austin, you can actually get a lot of land. Yeah.

You know, there's a, you know, I know, I know a lot of folks that are actually getting like outside of Austin into the countryside and you can actually still get decent plots of land out there. Yeah. And eventually I want to ride things out on a regenerative farm. So I'll dump all this silliness in Miami and eventually I want to be on a regenerative farm. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. I want to have.

Do you have something might up? I've looked at two places. I've looked at Tennessee and I've also looked in Colorado. There's 11,000 acre one that I really like. like. And there's another plot of land in Tennessee. The weather's a little bit more, you know, less seasonal in Tennessee. Yeah, you got to have at least 10,000 acres, right? But I mean, just to have cattle, chickens, horses, and, and I want to really get into the regenerative, sustainable farming. I have 11 acres on, yeah. I don't even have it. I don't even

have an 11th of an acre. I don't know what I have here, 20,000. I do. I actually have some land on the big island in Hawaii. Oh, do you? I got 11 acres of up in the kind of in the rainforest up there, like at 3,500 foot elevation. But next to me is 270,000 acres that can never be built on or anything. See, that's cool. It's really cool.

So if you want to hike and there's like cows roaming it and stuff, you know, wild boar. Yeah. I mean, it's not such thing as a wild cow, right? I think on this property, I mean, they're not. They're just cows that got out. Yeah, they just got out. But they just roam free.

I mean, I think most of them are tagged and owned by somebody, but good luck finding them on 270,000 acres. if you don't have them tagged or GPS. So I have a group I call my VIP group, and this is like the group that I really pour myself into. These are the community that I'm really building. And I do private podcasts with them. And I do Q&As and stuff like that.

So they've got a couple of questions that they want to ask you here. So we're going to, as we wind down the podcast, we'll go in and answer some of my VIP's questions. When you say private podcast, podcast. What do you mean by that? So we just, we shut the cameras off and I let them, um, submit questions to, to the guests. So I tell these folks who's coming on the podcast. Yeah. And then, so they knew you were coming and they, they submit questions to you. So, um, yeah, I normally don't tell the public, you know, who's, who's coming on the podcast. We like to surprise, not even tease it,

you know, every week, keep it really entertaining. But these guys I let know ahead of time and then they prepare questions and they get some really good questions for you. There's a couple of of them here. All right. If you're interested in becoming a VIP, you can go over to the ultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP and just sign up to be one of my BIPs. But as you may or may not know. I'll do that.

Yeah, it's $97 a month. It's practically free. But I wind down all my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. And what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? It's funny because when I walked in here, I mean, obviously I know your show and I know it's called the ultimate human, but if you were just a random guy walking on the street and you had a shirt on it said, the ultimate human, people would be like, man, that narcissistic. Yeah, yeah, he's narcissistic. I think some people think that I'm saying I'm the ultimate human. So maybe I should

say, I should maybe put podcast on here so people don't think I'm an asshole. One of my best friends, he owns a bunch of smoothie shops. Actually, I has one here, Sun Life, if you know that, but he lives in Austin. He has one there too. And he wears a shirt all the time that says cult leader. Oh no. Yeah. It's so funny. Because I just know how many people, you know, there's some percentage of people who don't get the joke.

I mean, I get it, but I think if I just saw him wearing cult leader, I probably wouldn't get it at that time. What does it mean to be the ultimate human? I think it means finding your purpose in life and living up to your potential in the simplest terms. And if you don't know what your purpose is, finding it. And a lot of times it's just helping other people or something simple, you know. Yeah.

But I find myself off purpose a lot, you know. And it takes something sometimes to shake us up to get us back into like what's the right direction for us. And then you also go through phase in life where you don't know what that next thing is. I think it's perfectly normal. There's some level of that for me right now, you know, getting out of pro surfing where, you know, like I said, I got paid to go surf, chase waves. Yeah. Which is great.

It's the best job in the world. Yeah. But, you know, what's next and where do you challenge yourself and stuff? And I guess I'd like to, from my own self, from my own ultimate human, share. I love to network. I love to put people together that have the right, you know, thing that can help someone else out. Like, you should meet that person and do this with them, you know. And it could be music.

It could be health. It could be surfing. Could be film. Yeah. Anything. I'm passionate about all those things, highly passionate about all those things. But I think it's taken all of your own special sauce and putting it in the right place to be able to help other people and help the world. Yeah. I think that's great, man. Kelly, man. Thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast. Thanks a lot. It's been a pleasure having you. I think my wife enjoyed the shark conversation.

More than anything that you guys have to go there today. This dude knows more about sharks, by the way. We should do another whole podcast on sharks. It's just because the surf world is so affected by shark attacks that we at rocks. We study that information. You know, because some part of, some aspect of each one could come in handy one day. Yeah.

But there's certain places in the world you go with South Australia, South Africa, Northern California, the northeast of the U.S. on the east coast. You know, there's pockets of sharks. You just know it. Yeah, there's been a lot of attacks and stuff. So it's really good to be informed about where you're at and what the potential is.

I mean, you, you can best that you've lost close friends to shark attacks. Yeah. And that's shark attacks, drownings, all sorts of things. But, yeah, shark attacks are, it's, it's a, it's just that primal fear we all have. Yeah. And, and Jaws is probably one of the most impactful movies. That was the worst movie ever. Probably one of the most impactful movies.

Ever. It probably was. Really? Because, like, I mean, it came out when I was about six or so. I'll never forget it. And, you know, now if you went back and watched it, it would feel, it seemed cheesy. Yeah, it'd be goofy. Yeah. Because we got AI and, you know, we had Avatar.

Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, the way the movie made it seem like the shark was actually hunting people. Yeah, and we didn't know. I think most people didn't know how great whites. hunted or what the event would look like. You know, so that opening scene with a girl swimming at night and she's by the buoy and then the shark's dragging her and she's above the water and she's getting dragged back and forth through the way. It's so unrealistic to what a shark attack actually is. Right.

You know, they come and bite you. Well, they probably only had the hydraulic thing moving her back and forth. There's only so much they could do about that. And then there's the beach scene where, you know, there's everyone in the water. They're screaming and running out and you're hoping your kid's not in there still. So it's just like, it plays on that ultimate fear. Oh, they did a great job. I still remember Jaws. And I remember actually going to, I guess, Disney World or Universal Studios and seeing the actual model of the, and it was this vinyl shark. I mean, it looked pretty fake up close, but I guess when you just did flash pictures of it, really. I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard, as a kid, I heard that the story was kind of based on the shark that had attacked cold people or they think the shark had taken up in Montauk or somewhere.

When I was like 13 or 14, I went in this bar restaurant or whatever in Montauk, and they had caught this shark. And it wasn't the biggest shark in the world, but they think this one had attacked cold people or whatever. And they had the head of it mounted in this restaurant. Oh, wow. And that was a story I was told as a kid. But, you know, between then and now,

maybe my story has changed. A little bit of neurodegenerative memory or something. Well, listen, man, we're going to have you back on the ultimate human. Maybe we talk about that. Shark attacks. at some point in the future. But thank you so much for coming. Great to be here.

Thanks for the podcast. And until next time, guys, that's just science.