The jail is under the control of a local Santa Barbara legend, Sheriff Bill Brown. Part Wyatt Earp and part Doc Holliday, our lawman, his moustache, and his ten-gallon hat are popular fixtures in our small town, and he is a calming public figure whenever disaster strikes. I sat next to Bill at dinner one night and mentioned my work empowering organizations and schools though my Code Method.

Bill mentioned his primary focus at the jail is transformation rather than incarceration. His mission is to give the inmates support, so he never sees them again. Recidivism is a big problem for jails, and the best antidote is education and upliftment.

I mentioned that the Code Method, my simple process of self-empowerment, might be useful for the inmates.

Over the years, tens of thousands of people—families, employees, and friends—have intimately connected with each other through writing and then sharing their Code aloud—twelve lines, each line beginning with I will.

It is a simple yet powerful fifteen-minute exercise that reveals who you are and who you want to be.

It is a way to find and define one’s purpose.

In today’s uncertain world, when we are all fearful and stressed, the Code is an insightful way to visualize a better future and commit towards realizing it.

The Code is a tool of hope, commitment, and shared values. Everyone writes poetry of the soul.

A dean of a famous Hawaiian school said when people write their Code, they write in a particular language—“spirit language.”

I was curious as to whether my simple process of introspection, visualization, commitment, and action might work with inmates, so I visited with a few groups, both men and women, all facing one year to life.

I spoke to the inmates for about an hour, and then each inmate wrote their Code – a fifteen-minute exercise. After reading their Code out aloud to the entire group, each inmate then selected their most resonant line and we wrote it on a board for all to see.

Their words were inspiring and uplifting, words of power and purpose that soared beyond the prison’s walls. I was inspired that everyone was committed to changing not only their life trajectory but that of others too. Their uplifting words were like a wave of contagion throughout the jail—positive emotional contagion, not the negative contagion that is oppressing and depressing so many around the world.

Their powerful words are a way forward for all of us.

A few days after my visit, I received a touching letter from Jessica, an inmate who had just been released. She agreed to share her words to inspire others.

“Hi Shaun, You don’t know me, but I was recently incarcerated for a very poor decision I made, and you were a speaker there – at Santa Barbara County Jail. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your time there and how much of an impact it made on my life. A life Code I have for myself from that day I saw you has been “always do the next right thing.” I just wanted to deeply thank you for speaking. You opened my eyes to many things in life. And I am so greatly thankful I was able to hear you speak before I got released. I’ll never go back there. God bless you and your family. :)”

I have had the unique opportunity of reading and listening to hundreds of thousands of lines of people committing to a new path by writing their Code.

The process is one of introspection and visualization—a way of turning hope and faith into commitment and action.

Every line contains power, passion, and poetry—the beauty of the human spirit is revealed from the inside out in the form of short, simple promises.

While every line is different, our fundamental life mission is defined by two tributaries of the river of purpose. Every line of Code flows into these rivers and then becomes one:

I will be better.
I will help others be better.

The two most powerful lines of Code of immediate life transformation, of helping others and oneself, too, are “I will forgive” and “I will forgive myself”.

Words have great power to heal sadness and division in our lives and the lives of others.

Words are the precursor to action and are the bridge between thought and actualization.

I felt privileged to listen to the inmates write and state their Codes—their twelve lines of absolute commitment to transformational change.

People want to be better.
People want to help others be better.

One way to be better and help others be better is to forgive.

Simply saying it out loud in a group setting—committing to forgiveness, absolutely and unequivocally—is an immediate lightening of a crushing load.

Guilt is a bitter cancer poisoning the heart, a burden that ties one to the past.

Forgiveness is a sword through the rope that binds one to the post of bitterness.

Forgiveness dispels darkness and extinguishes the hatred burning inside the soul.

Forgiveness is the light that shines ahead while guilt is the bleakness of blame.

When an individual writes I will forgive, they are taking the first transformational step towards finding a new path in life—leaving the darkness of the past behind and venturing forward into the future.

Try it:
I will forgive.

The Code Method

Download Worksheet

• Find a quiet spot and do the exercise solo, or with your family or colleagues at work.
• Set aside 15 minutes.
• Write 12 lines, each beginning with “I will…”
• If you are with a group, then once all are complete, each person gets up and reads their 12 lines out loud to each other.
• If you are solo, read it to yourself and feel proud.

These words are poetry of the soul – words of passion, power and purpose.

The Surfer and The Sage

Legendary world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and international best-selling poet-philosopher Noah benShea join forces to offer you insight on a path of purpose, hope, and faith.

Buy on Amazon

The post GUILT & FORGIVENESS appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

How do we reframe our perspective and change our attitude? How do we cut through the confusion of never-ending crisis control and find clarity?

Over the last decade, I have asked hundreds of thousands of people across the world to do a simple fifteen-minute exercise of introspection, visualization, and action.

A way to reframe perspective and change attitude, a simple tool to focus and find clarity of purpose—and perhaps even find a new path.

We live in turbulent times to be sure, and every one of us lives in a challenging sea; our attitude towards those challenges defines who we are and how we live our lives.

I believe our attitude is the light that shines from our souls.
Our attitude about the present defines our future.
Our attitude about the future defines the present.
Our attitude defines how we see the world and how the world sees us.

Our attitude is the power that propels us, and others, on a journey from where we are to where we want to be.

It is a fundamental choice for all of us.
What is our attitude?
Positive or negative?
Optimistic or pessimistic?
Hope or despair?
Light or darkness?
Confusion or clarity?

It is a simple choice. It is a choice to be made by everyone and this choice can change us, change our lives, and change the world.

Here is the way to actualize attitude change—a Code to turn confusion into clarity.

Pick up a pen and a clean lined sheet of paper; give yourself about fifteen minutes to write your Code.
Write twelve lines, each line beginning with I will.

These affirmations, these simple promises, serve as a window into the soul of humanity and represent our ultimate life purpose.

While every line, and every promise, may be unique, the life purpose of people across the world can be represented by two simple statements of absolute commitment, optimism, and positivity:

I will be better.
I will help others be better.

What are your twelve lines to give clarity to your life purpose?

The Code Method

Download Worksheet

• Find a quiet spot and do the exercise solo, or with your family or colleagues at work.
• Set aside 15 minutes.
• Write 12 lines, each beginning with “I will…”
• If you are with a group, then once all are complete, each person gets up and reads their 12 lines out loud to each other.
• If you are solo, read it to yourself and feel proud.

These words are poetry of the soul – words of passion, power and purpose.

The Surfer and The Sage

Legendary world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and international best-selling poet-philosopher Noah benShea join forces to offer you insight on a path of purpose, hope, and faith.

Buy on Amazon

The post CONFUSION & CLARITY appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

I grew up a person of faith—there was a God, there were places of worship, there was order in the universe and God was good. I had a bar mitzvah while attending a Christian primary school and could recite the Lord’s Prayer in Latin—Pater noster . . .

I graduated to a Jewish high school and, every morning, attended a prayer service in Hebrew. Girls on one side of the assembly hall and boys on the other—wearing yarmulkes, prayer shawls called tallits, and tefillin (small leather boxes containing scrolls with verses from the Torah strapped to the arm and above the forehead). Ancient languages and symbols compounded the feeling of divine order, religiosity, and being close to God—there was comfort in tradition and dogma and observance.

While my parents were believers in God, my dad seldom set foot in the synagogue. It was my mom who would drag us to shul on Friday night, Saturday morning, and every Jewish holiday. But both of my parents saw faith as a fundamental building block of life, and every conversation over the phone, with my mother or father, ended with them saying the same words: “God bless.”

I got my faith from my mom and dad, just like they passed on their DNA into my bloodline. I always thought that faith was an indomitable part of my being—rock solid—impervious to any outside force.

Then my faith and my life crumbled upon itself. On April 24, 2006, on a sparkling spring morning in Montecito, California, I received a call from my broken wife, Carla, in South Africa, telling me that our beautiful fifteenyear- old son, Mathew, had died, a victim of the dangerous Choking Game.

In an instant, my faith was swept away by a giant wave of doubt—as well as despair and anger.

And I, too, was swept away, adrift from my mooring, faithless.

I remember crying out, “God, how can you do this to me? I have been a good person!” There was no order in my universe; was there even a God? Are we all just particles in Brownian motion—moving randomly and haphazardly through life, atoms bumping and being bumped, no order, no logic, no meaning or purpose?

I was bereft and broken, rudderless.

And then I got my faith back in a blinding bolt of lightning. When you lose a loved one, it seems the light of their soul, their energy, their essence, their atomic core of vitality, does not disappear with death.

After the tragedy, as my wife and I were recovering from the terrible loss, we had a visit from a close friend. Tony, who had also lost a teenage son the year before, had been to see a friend who was a grief counselor and a swami, a gifted individual whose vision can reach beyond what she sees.

He said he had a message from Mathew, that he was okay. And with that, one bolt of lightning hit the building we were in, rocked it to its foundation. One bolt, one single bolt of light, out of a clear blue sky. Light. Light. That was my way forward from doubt back to faith.

I would sit in Temple David—my old synagogue in Durban, South Africa, where I had my bar mitzvah and where Carla and I were married—and reflect and pray. I would think about Mathew, and I could feel him with me.

I took my mom’s advice about prayer. “God doesn’t look around and think She hasn’t spoken to me in years; why is she asking for help now? It’s simply what you do during times like those. You ask for help, and it’s a very good thing and you hope God is listening. There is no time limit on praying—anywhere, anytime, silently or loudly, sometimes or always. God is like a good friend or neighbor who you can call on at any time and he is always at home.”

I would look at that light above the ark, the light that is above every ark and above every Torah. Ner Tamid, the eternal light. The light that cannot be extinguished. The light of faith, the light that is an embodiment of the goodness of the human spirit and our connectivity to the everlasting.

The Surfer and The Sage

Legendary world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and international best-selling poet-philosopher Noah benShea join forces to offer you insight on a path of purpose, hope, and faith.

Buy on Amazon

The post DOUBT & FAITH appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

A dream is often the ethereal nature of hope come to life in mental images, but for many, when the dream doesn’t come true, despair is the result.

My dad’s dream of traveling to the 1948 London Olympics and winning a swimming gold medal for his country didn’t come true.

While waiting for a wave on his wooden surfboard about one hundred yards out from shore at South Beach in Durban, South Africa, a shark came up underneath him and hit him with terrifying force, biting down into his right bicep.

He later wrote, “it lifted me clear into the air” and “it was an ideal day for surfing and for sharks.”

My father was rushed to the hospital and given blood transfusions and emergency surgery and ultimately survived. He traveled to San Francisco for additional arm surgery and recuperated on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, where he befriended the Kahanamoku clan, legendary beachboys who had been his swimming heroes.

A founding principle of the beachboy ethos is “Never turn your back on the ocean.”

Be aware of the dangers associated with the sea, but never turn your back on its goodness.

I like to think that this simple concept gave my father hope in what could have been a time of deep despair. Hope is a choice, a reframing of the present situation and a positive perspective of the future. Hope is action, the antidote to the inaction of despair.

In one bite, the shark had erased my father’s dream. Over the years, I have thought what that might mean to an athlete in his physical prime—poised to be a champion and then no hope of success. What happens when your dream is no longer attainable? Is hope vanquished, and does despair reign?

Is life a spiral downward into despair, a journey forward with a backpack laden with bitterness and hopelessness?

When I think of my father and how he lived his life, I know he constructed a new dream—a dream not of being the best swimmer but rather of helping other people be their best at what they loved.

He helped an entire generation of young surfers realize their potential through emotional and financial support, and I was part of that tribe. My dad reframed his dream into giving hope to others—making their dreams come true.

Three decades after recuperating on the beach at Waikiki, my father traveled back to Hawaii to watch me compete in the Pipeline Masters, the world’s most prestigious surfing competition on the world’s most dangerous wave.

I was relatively unknown, the youngest competitor, up against the legendary Hawaiian surfers, and competing with my back to the wave, which back then was a fundamental disadvantage. I stood on the beach with my dad after the final ended, nervously awaiting the judges’ decision.

The results came over the PA system: “In first place: Shaun Tomson.”

It was a massive upset of the established surfing hierarchy and the biggest win of my life.

I hugged my dad. Perhaps his original dream didn’t come true (that ended on a beach in Durban), but he helped his son achieve his, on another beach, halfway around the world.

The Surfer and The Sage

Legendary world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and international best-selling poet-philosopher Noah benShea join forces to offer you insight on a path of purpose, hope, and faith.

Buy on Amazon

The post DESPAIR & HOPE appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

Anxiety is a jab in the jaw for your attention; it gets your heart beating, your senses tingling, and your body ready for action—it’s a jolt of adrenaline straight to the central nervous system.

Right above my childhood bed in my father’s apartment overlooking the Bay of Plenty in Durban, South Africa, was a photo of the Banzai Pipeline—the world’s most feared wave.

I would get anxious just looking at the picture because I knew that one day I would have to go there to test myself . . .

The waves at the Banzai Pipeline break a short distance from shore, often no more than fifty yards from the coarse sand on which sit thousands of spectators during the winter competition season. Waves are generated by storms hundreds of miles away, and these swells travel through deep water until feeling the resistance of the shallow coral reef at the Pipeline. Waves stack up together into sets, a grouping, each about fifteen seconds apart, and then increase in size as they sweep towards the shore, their force magnified by the shallowing coral reef, changing from swells into waves, whipped ever-higher by the fierce trade winds blowing the spray upwards and out to sea like a rain squall.

As you stand on the beach watching ten- to fifteen-foot waves detonate on the reef, you can feel the concussion through your feet. Ka-boom—ka-boom. Surfers paddle for the waves, sometimes blinded by the fierce winds, and launch themselves over the edge of the wave as it rears up vertically on the reef, hoping that their forward momentum, skill, and commitment will keep them on the wave’s face and not pitch them forward into the air and a deadly wipeout.

After I would paddle out through the in-rushing waves, sped along by the out-rushing rip current, I would sit and wait for my first ride and consciously suppress the beating of my heart.

Anxiety is caused by a fear of a future occurrence—failure, injury, or even death. Anxiety is a deep dread of failing.

I discovered that anxiety can be controlled, first through breath and then with clearing thoughts. Breathe slowly and deeply, calmly and consciously, and then empty the mind, clear it of all thought. Calmness is like a warming coat for a shivering body, an antidote to fear, a clearing wind to sweep away anxiety.

I would breathe, slowly and deeply, rhythmically, and the fluid motion would still my beating heart, and, through focus and concentration, through thought and control, I would let go of being anxious and find my inner calm. I would bring the fear and anxiety of an uncertain future and potential failure to my locus of control in the present. And then I would start to paddle for the next wave, and my actions and forward motion would dispel the anxiety like a clearing and calming wind . . .

The Surfer and The Sage

Legendary world champion surfer Shaun Tomson and international best-selling poet-philosopher Noah benShea join forces to offer you insight on a path of purpose, hope, and faith.

Buy on Amazon

The post ANXIOUS & CALM appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.