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.

Burnout is as much of a leadership problem as it is a personal problem. My mission is to show leaders and team members how to build a powerful wave of purpose and hope throughout organizations to re-energize and re-engage to help resolve burnout.

Over the last few years, I have spoken to organizations across the world – a quarter of a million people – I have spoken at the fastest growing company in world history, at the bio tech company that developed the first treatment for Covid, schools, universities, inmates, people in recovery, PTSD survivors and community groups.

My process focuses on purpose – a committed intention to realize aims that are meaningful to oneself and the broader world – an on hope, a desire and a commitment to a better life.

Along with activating hope and purpose, the desired results of my open source method are higher levels of engagement, wellbeing, unity, and improved performance.

My method cannot help with Exhaustion, but let me show how I may be able to assist with mental distance, negativity and powerlessness.

I like to think of my Code Method like a Swiss army knife – multi use and multipurpose – a tool for many problems.

My approach is popular in business because our 81,396 hours of lifetime work occupy more time for us than any other activity (except sleeping) and some work is creating great misery across our land.

In the latest Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report, a study of 112,312 business units across the world, they discovered that for most people work sucks.

• 60% of people are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable.
• Gallup’s businessese for work suckiness and work misery is active disengagement.
• Work wellbeing and thriving is engagement.
• They also discovered that only 21% of employees are engaged at work and only 33% of employees are thriving in their overall wellbeing.

A disturbing state of affairs – it seems a malaise of unhappiness has settled across the planet. Active Disengagement and Burnout are closely related – very close – kinda like brother and sister.

How to get employees engaged?

• Less Negativity.
• Less mental distance.
• More personal power.

The Code Method is one intervention among many – it is open source Code so it can be used in any way that any of you wish. Here is the Code Method – in 15 minutes one can change life trajectory through activating purpose and igniting hope.

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.

My approach with the Method is deeply personal.

For 17 years, since a personal tragedy changed my life course, my approach has been to tell stories and illustrate a simple, quick and low-cost intervention to activate purpose and hope in individuals in organizations…

I tell stories across the world to community groups, religious groups, associations, high schools, universities, legislators, inmates and to some of the world’s largest organizations. Though Covid I have spoken to over a quarter of a million people and have had an opportunity, in my sample set, to see the mindset of the American people.

• I tell simple stories of passion and purpose – of courage, faith, hope, resilience, love, perseverance and power!
• I tell stories of – character – ETHOS
• I describe how to create a simple Code to activate purpose – TELOS
• I offer no prescription, only my stories and my perspective, of ethos – character, and telos – purpose, – and the Code, to help others find their purpose and their path.

All the stories I tell help me, word by word, sentence by sentence, create meaning, purpose and hope for my own life, and help me in my path forward out of the darkness, towards the light that shines ahead. After my stories are told, I encourage others to write their own Code, 12 lines of commitment, 12 lines of hope, purpose and power, melding their ethos (character), and telos (purpose) into a commitment to action.

This process, The Code Method, is a tool for individual introspection, collective engagement, commitment and accountability, that seems to help distill and reframe one’s purpose, and focus one’s psychic energy into an actionable 12-line mantra for positive change.

• It is a way to find one’s best self, and a way for others to know one’s best self.
• It is a way to re-connect to one’s true purpose, a way to re-engage with the meaning of one’s life.

I believe this simple intervention can help burned-out individuals and organizations find meaning and purpose in the challenging sea of life.

Try it, and if you like it, share it with someone who needs it…

The post Leadership and burnout are inextricably connected appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

The company is based in Ventura, California, nestled in a grove of trees at the junction of the 101 and 33 freeways, a short walk to California Street, the town’s best surfing break.

I had the opportunity to work for Patagonia in the mid 90’s when the company was generating around $150 million in revenue, a tenth of its current size.

When I worked there, Yvon would have these “philosophy” sessions for small groups of his employees – in meetings and in casual conversation he would stress the simple yet powerful ethos that is the core of his business philosophy.

“You gotta understand. “Doing good is good for business.”

Yvon decided to transfer his and his family’s ownership of Patagonia into a trust rather than sell or go public – he wanted to enshrine the values of the company and ensure that all its profits, approximately $100 million a year, go towards environmental causes, in perpetuity.

His choice to transfer ownership of Patagonia into a trust, rather than pursuing a sale or going public, exemplified his dedication to creating corporate purpose.

He stated: “Instead of going public you could say we are going purpose.”

With the company valued at $3 billion dollars, and annual sales of over $1 billion, it is the most significant donation in the history of the environmental movement which in fact started 25 miles north in Santa Barbara in 1969, with the blowout of Platform A in the Santa Barbara Channel, and the release of over 4 million gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, and onto our beautiful, pristine beaches.

So, what’s the big deal about purpose and why is it the word on the lips of so many leaders of organizations. Certainly, Yvon Chouinard is one of the few in leadership to put his money where his mouth is and commit his company’s entire existence to a purposeful path.

Some hard truths on purpose

A number of recent studies on purpose have revealed some hard truths about what might be perceived as a soft, touchy-feely issue.

In a longitudinal study of 73,000 people, Professor Celeste Leigh Pierce at the University of Michigan showed that “people who didn’t have a strong life purpose were twice as more likely to die than those who did.”

Another more recent study at the same university showed that “working with a sense of purpose leads to far greater engagement, motivation, productivity, and retention.”

With retention, engagement, motivation and productivity being fundamental issues in our post-pandemic workplace, one would think that corporate leaders and HR directors across the world would be busting down doors to find out how to imbue their teams with a sense of purpose.

Embracing strategies for creating corporate purpose could hold the key to unlocking team potential and driving lasting success.

Purpose is the energy that empowers organizations and individuals to thrive.

Recent research from Ernst and Young indicates that purpose-led organizations perform 42% better than those that are simply in business.

However, according to a Gallup poll, two-thirds of employees worldwide are purposeless – bored, detached and ready to actively sabotage plans, projects and other people. Considering you spend around a third of your life at work, this disengaged culture means that helping people to find a sense of purpose isn’t just vital for business, but also for people’s overall wellbeing.

The significance of creating corporate purpose should be a primary focus for leaders. By establishing a clear and meaningful purpose for their organizations, leaders can inspire and engage employees, foster a positive work culture, and drive sustainable success.

What is the true meaning of this elusive and ethereal concept – how can it be quantified and captured and spread across an organization?

Purpose can be simply defined as a long-term committed intention to accomplish goals that are meaningful to oneself and others. Purpose is our reason for being and gives our lives meaning. Purpose is the energy that empowers individuals to thrive; a personal North Star that enables us to truly fly and realize our potential. Purpose underlies our drive on the path to life fulfillment, what humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow called self-actualization, the state of becoming everything one is capable of becoming.

Purpose has five elements that can be described as a simple acronym – AIMAT.

• Purpose is aspirational, a higher order mission that is something to strive for.
• Purpose is inspirational – our purpose inspires ourselves, but also inspires our peers, our colleagues and our family members.
• Purpose is moral – in this age of shifting quicksands of truth and false reality, purpose is a bedrock of our existence.
• Purpose is authentic – my purpose is authentic to me in the same way your purpose is authentic to you – purpose has no nuance or shading.
• Purpose is timeless – it does not change with the winds, with the seasons, with trends or culture shifts. Purpose is forever and is the polar opposite of a SMART goal – purpose is not time sensitive.

How to find and define one’s purpose?

Finding purpose is easy – all it takes is a pen and paper, 15 minutes of time, and some thought, imagination, commitment and then action.

I call it the Code Method.

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.

Try it – 15 minutes, 12 lines of poetic prose…

The Code is designed to create a positive wave that spreads across the planet, activating purpose and igniting hope…

The post Creating Corporate Purpose – On Purpose appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

The new African moon is up over the water, turning the indigo swells into shimmering gold as they march forward relentlessly, ending their long journey and crashing forward on to the rocky shore.

It is late in the evening and I’m sitting at 20 Pepper Street, the most popular restaurant and surf hangout in the booming little town of Jeffreys Bay.

My muscles are exhausted from a series of 9-hour sessions at Supertubes, just about 100 yards away from where I’m sitting right now, and at the edge of my hearing I can feel the surf still thundering down the point. I’m not quite sure how much more of this my body can handle but right now it’s good to be alive today in J-Bay, thinking of today’s great surf, and what is to come tomorrow.

Back to the Bay

I haven’t been back to J-Bay for two years now. It is a time-consuming, grueling journey from my adopted home of Santa Barbara. The long point at J-Bay has always been my spiritual center and the great sessions I enjoyed starting in the late 60’s through the ‘70’s, 80’s and 90’s have been deeply etched into my heart and soul. I sat back in my chair and reflected on the common theme of why Kelly and I were here. Two different generations all coming together at the longest wall in the world. I wasn’t here to reclaim my youth or prove anything to anyone except myself. I was here because I love this wave deeply and Kelly, he could be anywhere but he was here too, renewing the special bond that he has with this special place.

The long point at J-Bay has always been my spiritual center and the great sessions I enjoyed starting in the late 60’s through the ‘70’s, 80’s and 90’s have been deeply etched into my heart and soul.

After 2 years away that first look at J-Bay is a heart-stopper; the gentle arc of coastline along the mile long point with crescents of swells chasing each other, the wave breaking perfectly, sometimes only 25 yards from shore, along dark black mussel covered rocks, bordering a shell strewn beach. You can look out over the ocean, southwards to your right, standing on a wooden walkway, balanced over indigenous aloe and fragrantly scented fynbos, up to the start of the wave at Boneyards, and with one sweep of your head take in a 10 wave set, heading north through the sections of Supertubes, Impossibles, Tubes and ultimately the Point, the last portion of the ride, a mile and three and half minutes of wave time from the start point.

If you look behind, away from the ocean, evidence of chaotic development is everywhere – a cacophony of guest houses screaming for customers and pop-up face brick houses all scrabbling for a piece of the perfect wave. But it’s easy to turn away from it all and look to the perfection coming over the horizon.

Getting low

Deep lows track up from the frigid Southern Antarctic, heading to the northeast– the icepack is like an overheated reverse furnace, chucking out molten blobs of red and magenta that roll up our internet wave modeling maps like enraged plasma – the darker and bigger the better. While Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa cops the brute power of the swell full in the face, J-Bay is 400 miles away, to the north and east, protected by distance and landmass. By the time the swells bend into the bay they are groomed by the prevailing southwesterly wind and organized into endless arcs of bending energy. The wave is one long, flat-out speed run when it’s 8 feet and ruler edged from the South, with a hard South West wind giving you the extra lift for the high line drive through each critical section.

This year an earlier massive easterly Fall swell coincided with ultra high equinox tides and resulted in extensive destruction all along the country’s east coast. Roads and beaches were washed away and entire surf spots were simply erased from existence. J-Bay wasn’t immune and huge quantities of sand were scoured out of the rocks bordering the beach and deposited 100 yards south. This makes paddling in and out, especially on solid swells on a high tide, an absolute nightmare. For me booties are a necessity especially when you get sucked between 2 mussel covered crags of rock where there used to be a sandy refuge. All the pros go bare foot and there is a keyhole going in and going out, but if you miss it, you are in for a rough, rocky ride.

This particular swell just kept coming on. Lows and cold fronts were stacked up, back to back all the way back to Antarctica. It reminded me of the ‘70’s when I would drive down from Durban and stay for weeks on end surfing swells that never seemed to stop. This time, the Northern hemisphere was stone dead and it seems that all the power had shifted south. It started out at 6ft on the Sunday after the contest and then stayed solid for 10 days maxing out at 8 feet.

Choices

J-Bay is not a wave of life and death – there is an element of risk but the challenge comes from the complexities of dealing with the speed of the wave and the length and vast expanse of the wall.

There are just so many choices to make and so many opportunities to make the wrong decision. I like to take the highline and carve the turn low and deep aiming for a point 25 yards away. I’m a natural born carver and that is what the wave is made for – no half turns or head rolls, just power on power, calves and quadriceps against a wall of unyielding pressure.  Pulling out the right board is also important – while anything works reasonably well at J-Bay I like a little extra length to carve huge arcs on the wide-open face. The top pros are riding 6’’0’ to 6’1” – I like at least a 6’6”, as sometimes the wave can get a touch flat off the bottom and the extra length helps to come hard off the bottom and drive down the line to make the wave.

It can get cold out there in the line-up. Water is in the low to mid 60’s but the wind is a knife cutting through nylon lined neoprene – throughout the swell I putting in daily six to 9 hour sessions so a 4/3mm wetsuit combination is essential.

I know life on the pro tour must at times be a grind and home is enticing but it always amazes me when the best surfers in the world walk away from insane surf and a building swell but this is exactly what happened. Taylor Knox and Jeremy Flores stayed on for the first day only and both of them laid down some super fast clean lines. Taylor’s old school power carves are perfectly suited to the long lines of Jeffery’s and watching him when it came up would have been a real treat but he bailed.

By day two, with the exception of Kelly the entire WCT contingent was gone.

I like to sit way up the point at Supers – the best and biggest ones hit a little button out there and speed along the point, doubling up through the inside. Occasionally, on a very low tide, a set will strike Boneyards perfectly, double up and run all the way through but it is a long, long wait.

Kelly in deep

And then there was Kelly. The talk was that he was checking out. A month before the event the surf media was all in a froth – I heard the reverb all the way back in California from Chile; Dingo Morrison had taken out Kelly with a maxed out effort in Arica, at the Ripcurl Search Pro, laying down a perfect 10 and Kelly was done  – 8 world Titles, 33 wins and $1.5 million in prizemoney – he had decided to check out. But he told me at J-Bay that it was all B.S. but you can sense he is wrestling with a decision. I don’t know how long Kelly is going to go on – I don’t think even he knows. But it looks like he’ll go until the stoke runs out and after seeing him surf at J-Bay it looks like it’s going to keep running for a while.

He has a special connection with J-Bay, unlike anyone I have ever seen. There is some deeper relationship there, hidden beneath the surfing you see on the surface. He has an intuition about him, a connectedness to the environment, an enlightenment; a rare understanding of how he fits into the natural order of life and it shines through him brightly.

He told me about dolphins guiding him to where he needed to be: –

“The first day I was ever here I saw dolphins, I saw a shark, whales, flamingos, all within just a few minutes of being here.  So that really struck me.  It just seemed like a place that was so alive.  So much happening, so much going on with the wildlife and then, when you go out, you’re just a part of that.  I mean the closest I’ve ever been to whales has been here.  There’ve been a lot of waves with dolphins too.  In fact, in that final I had with Andy the other year in 2005 when I won, before my last wave, there were dolphins going back out.  And I was so tired; I was so out of my mind, with just about two minutes left in the final.  I was so tired, and I’d almost given up, just because physically I didn’t have much strength left, and I said, “Well, I’ll just follow these dolphins.”  And I paddled right behind the dolphins all the way back out.  And it was something pretty magical and it was the last thought I had before I got that wave (that won it for me with 32 seconds left.)

That’s when you wonder what that deeper connection is to nature and stuff, because I literally just said “I’ll just follow these dolphins.”  I was thinking in my head, “they’ll take me to the right place.”

At 35, Kelly still looks to be in his prime, redefining what is possible in sport. On the long walls of Jeffery’s his surfing is very radical and progressive, based around swooping turns off the bottom and very tight and late arcs off the top – many times I’d expect him to run out his turn around the falling lip and he would hit it full on, busting the tail free in a controlled power drive, reacting with lightning quick reflexes. He maintains a low center of gravity, crouches low through the turn and then gets the spring and projection as the concave releases from the downward pressure.

It seems there is a trend on the tour to much more upright surfing, a more stiffened lower back but Kelly is all rubber-like flexibility. There are a few simple words that define the essence of great surfing – manoeuvres and techniques have evolved over the last 30 years but the essential dna helix of what constitutes truly great surfing is unchanged – speed, power, rhythm, aggression, style and imagination. Kelly has all this and he has that little extra chromosome of intuition, a knowingness, a prescient reactivity to the ebb and flow of the ocean.

His wave selection is uncanny and he would select many waves that others would pass up only to have the waves double up through the Impossibles section, the fastest, hollowest portion of the ride. He came smoking on down the line towards me on one as I paddled back out, turning forward for maximum speed, the lip inches from his head, running for the light on his concave, the foam ball roiling beneath his feet. He looked calm and unhurried, at the very center of his universe, right where he wanted to be. He smiled, and I smiled back.

The post Riding the Wind with the King – Surfing Jeffreys Bay 2007 appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

The role of a conference keynote speaker is crucial to a conference’s success.

The right speaker has the unique ability to establish the event’s tone and theme, engage the audience, and inject energy, inspiration, and lasting motivation.

Beyond delivering a speech, a keynote speaker emotionally connects with the audience, understands their challenges, and inspires them through professional insights, and compelling authentic stories. Drawing from my experiences as a professional surfer, entrepreneur, best-selling author and environmental activist, I provide a fresh perspective that injects transformational energy into conferences, creating a powerful and positive wave throughout the audience.

High-impact keynote speakers possess qualities that drive the central message home. They excel at storytelling, using their talks as powerful tools to convey complex ideas and foster learning. They understand the importance of engagement and communication with a goal to captivate the audience from start to finish, blending intellect, humor, and inspiration.

Selecting the right conference keynote speaker is a critical step in ensuring a successful event. A high-impact speaker can energize the audience, transforming a standard conference into an immersive and engaging experience. My experiences, both in and out of the water, have shaped my worldview, enabling me to share authentic stories and meaningful learnings that resonate with diverse audiences.

As a keynote speaker, I use surfing as a metaphor for riding the ever changing waves of life and for overcoming challenges in personal and professional realms. My unique perspective offers your audience a refreshing take on the building blocks of character and values – commitment, connectivity, resilience, perseverance and purpose.

Additionally, a well-chosen conference keynote speaker boosts event attendance and participation. The reputation and credentials of the speaker often attract a broader audience, enhancing the overall impact of the event. As a recognized figure in professional surfing, business, and thought leadership, my presence at conferences generates excitement and anticipation, leading to increased interest and improved participation.

Furthermore, high-impact keynote speakers provide valuable networking opportunities. They engage in one-on-one interactions with attendees, offering insights, answering questions, and encouraging idea-sharing. Personally, I love these interactions as they allow me to learn from others and hear about the challenges they might be facing.

Many of my clients include my books for their attendees and the simple process of signing and personalizing a book for an attendee or family member creates a warm and unforgettable emotional bond.

A high-impact conference keynote speaker is an indispensable asset in transforming a routine conference into an inspiring and engaging event. Through my journey as keynote speaker, I have witnessed the extraordinary impact a single presentation can have on people’s lives and perspectives.

Receiving a letter from a participant with the words, “The Code helped me change my life” brings into clear relief the profound responsibility a keynote speaker has to the audience. As you plan your next conference, remember that the right keynote speaker can set the tone and elevate the event to a whole new level. Embrace purpose, seize the ride with commitment, and activate the power of a high-impact keynote speaker to uplift, engage, and enlighten your audience. I sincerely hope you give me the opportunity to inspire your attendees with my unique perspective, my positive energy, and the transformational Code Method.

The post High-Impact Keynote Speaker for Conferences appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.

What is team engagement?

Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.

The key words are involvement and enthusiasm – you could seamlessly switch from engagement to stoked – the only difference being the context – the workplace or the surf break.

In surfing, the essence of a great surfing experience comes from being stoked/engaged – from being in synchronization with the waves, reacting to changes, and working with the power, not against it. When employees are disengaged, they often just go through the motions, much like a surfer who is un-stoked. The result? Decreased productivity, one of the major problems stemming from disengagement. Just as an un-stoked surfer struggles to maintain enthusiasm, a disengaged team struggles to deliver results, holding back company growth and profitability.

Quality matters, both on a board and in the boardroom. A stoked/engaged surfer is committed to giving it everything, on every ride. Thinking back to my years as a pro – every wave I rode got everything I had to give. I simply wanted to be the best I could be, on every wave – I took great pride and pleasure in my passion. Sometimes disengaged/unstoked employees don’t take pride in their work, leading to a decline in work quality. Ultimately, this erosion of enthusiasm leads to a of lack of attention to detail, that can result in customer dissatisfaction, negatively impacting the organization.

Individual morale and job satisfaction are as crucial in business as they are in a surfing context. When one member of the team isn’t putting in their best effort, it affects everyone. Disengaged employees can foster a toxic culture that can spread through an organization like a wave of negative emotional contagion. Over time, this individual negativity can lead to a broader culture of disengagement, affecting employee satisfaction and company culture.

Just as the ocean constantly changes, employees change and often look for new opportunities – inside and outside of their organization. Disengaged employees, feeling disconnected from their roles, often seek greener pastures, resulting in high employee turnover. Losing a team member means valuable experience and skills are lost and having to replace an employee is a costly and time-consuming process.

Customer satisfaction is the lifeline of any business and when employees are disengaged, it reflects in their interactions with customers. This can lead to subpar customer service, potentially driving clients to competitors – a clear loss for the business. One unstoked team member can have a tremendous negative impact so re-engaging team members should always be an ongoing organizational imperative. In conclusion, the negative impact of employee disengagement can create profound problems in an organization. I enjoy using surfing metaphors to clarify the complexities of business – engaging team members, getting them stoked and maintaining that stoke, should be a primary goal of leadership. A stoked team is an engaged team, and an engaged team is a great team.

The post Riding the Waves of Business: Understanding the Negative Impact of Employee Disengagement appeared first on Shaun Tomson | World Champion Surfer, Keynote Speaker & Author.