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Garrett McNamara: Surfing A 100-Foot Wave | E67 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Garrett McNamara: It's super violent and first it just hits you so hard and it feels like it's can rip you apart literally. And there has been people that have their limbs ripped off their body. But only thing that held them together was the skin, everything else, all the ligaments, all the bones, all the tendons, everything. Rip, I saw that the opportunity of becoming a professional. I never imagined being a pro surfer until I was 17. Big wave was different, like some people have three foot shorebreak is a big wave and it can be intimidating and powerful.
• 0:39
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to a Search of Excellence which is about our quest for greatness and our desire to be the very best we can be to learn, educate and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential.
• 0:47
  Randall Kaplan: It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving Excellence is our goal and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities and surroundings. We all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is GARRETT MCNAMARA.
• 1:10
  Randall Kaplan: Garrett is a legendary surfer who owns a world record for the largest wave ever surfed 100 feet tall, which to put into perspective is the equivalent of a 10 storey office building and also the height of Niagara Falls and he is the first person ever to ride a wave created by breaking glaciers. He is the author of the book haunted the sea wild man wild ways wild wisdom, and is also the star of the awesome HBO documentary TV series called 100 foot wave, whose second season premiered earlier in April this year.
• 1:43
  Randall Kaplan: Garrett is also a dedicated philanthropist, he and his wife, Nicole started the amazing waves of life McNamara Foundation, which helps kids discover nature and be more environmentally conscious and self sufficient, in which has a particular focus on disadvantaged kids. Garrett, I'm a huge fan. And it's a true pleasure to have you on my show.
• 2:00
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to a Search of Excellence.
• 2:03
  Garrett McNamara: Thank you, thank you for reaching out. And I'm really I love what your show is all about. So I'm really grateful to be on the show.
• 2:12
  Randall Kaplan: Awesome. Let's get started. I always start my podcast with our family because from the moment we're born, our family helped shape our personalities, our values and the preparation for our future.
• 2:21
  Randall Kaplan: You were born in Massachusetts, I grew up in Berkeley, and were raised by a single mom, and once went through some really crazy stuff. Can you tell us about the aliens coming down from the sky to Mount Shasta? Everybody running around naked and doing drugs when you're growing up?
• 2:39
  Randall Kaplan: And living on welfare and how that influenced you as a child?
• 2:43
  Garrett McNamara: Well, it started out in Northern California up in the Kazakh era where my mother threw together a very broad range of people to start a commune. And there was, I don't know, 2030 people, and we are scientists studying the whole process. And that was where we run around naked and gardening and really free and really living off the land and really living in a, I'd say, in a good way. Yeah, definitely more how humanity would thrive more if there was more groups of people actually living in a good way and then sharing what they're producing with the next town over the next village. I mean, right now we just all have our own house, we have our own car we have, we want a bigger car, we want a bigger house, we want a jet, we want this, we want that. And it's like, we're just living in this society of convenience. Everything is so convenient. So we don't want to go plant our food. We don't want to go harvest water from the mountains. So we will pay for it. And we want to make enough money to pay for it. And but so then we went to Hawaii. Well first then we went back down there with our father. And then my mom took us to Mount Shasta where we were looking for Jesus like supposedly are looking for God. She was first in a hippie commune was to find herself she was looking for herself. She was always there, but I guess I don't know. People go looking for themselves. Sometimes it helps I guess. And then she was looking for God and seemed to be looking in all the wrong places.
• 4:27
  Garrett McNamara: We ended up in Mount Shasta where there was supposed to be aliens up in Mount Shasta so I guess God and aliens hang out together. So we ended up there and she found this cult called the Christ family which she felt really attracted to and decided to burn all of our live mesh possessions, take all of her money, whatever was left from her inheritance and give it to the Christ family. So we had no shoes No clothes, we had a robe exactly like Jesus wore. And we had a little sheet rolled up with a little blanket tied on each end on the top and the bottom, this and we put over your shoulder. That was your only lively possession, your little robe and your little blanket. And you walk the streets chanting, no sex, no killing no materialism that came from the cult leader. His name was crate lightning a man quite late in the game and was very elusive. We were always looking for him, but we never found him.
• 5:40
  Garrett McNamara: The one thing that people would always say is where the kids come from No, no sex, you know?
• 5:50
  Garrett McNamara: How are you gonna have a child that wonder where the kids come from and all that my mom would be like, Oh, that was before me.
• 5:57
  Garrett McNamara: Oh, my goodness. And I'm like seven, my brother's like five, or maybe even six and four. We were really young. And we're walking bare feet for miles. No, nothing, no food, no money, a blanket, and a robe. And we ate out of the Safeway. Or nowadays it would have been Whole Foods or whatever. Big store had a dumpster behind it. We ate out of their dumpsters. Whenever we were hungry. You'd be surprised at what you find in those dumpsters. I actually honestly can say there's really good food in there. Or maybe I was really hungry. And then if somebody picked you offered to pick you up, you could take a ride if you felt it was safe. Yeah, it was crazy. One of the one of the brothers got lynched. And I tagged her somewhere in the Bible Belt. Yeah, it was crazy, crazy times, probably the one.
• 6:55
  Garrett McNamara: One part of my childhood where I choose to love it now. And I choose to not be a victim and choose to not dwell on it, choose to actually love it, but set that memory and that experience free and doesn't serve me anymore. So I do love that experience. And then my mom says we're moving to Hawaii.
• 7:17
  Garrett McNamara: We're living with our dad now in Berkeley, where we had a pretty stable environment. My dad had a restaurant, he had a house, he had everything. So we did not want to leave her like, oh, here comes mom again. And she's taken us away. So we're going to Hawaii, we went kicking and screaming. And she's like, Don't Don't worry, there's there's, they're surfing, skateboarding.
• 7:38
  Garrett McNamara: But you when you fall, you don't hit you hit water, not pavement.
• 7:41
  Garrett McNamara: And so that was that was the only thing that interests me the only thing that felt like, ooh, that's interesting. Yeah, maybe we become servers. At that time, we were pretty much skateboarding freak. So it was during the dog town era. And we were the Berkeley, California dog town guys basically. Yeah.
• 8:02
  Garrett McNamara: Then we ended up in Hawaii.
• 8:03
  Randall Kaplan: We'll come back to that in a minute. But I know a lot of people very successful people whose parents, mom, dad, whatever the case may be, we're on welfare. And that's traumatic for a lot of kids. When you saw your mom struggling to pay rent and you hadn't eaten things, in days, were you always saying to yourself one day, I want to have money, I don't want to be poor.
• 8:29
  Randall Kaplan: And was that a motivating factor for your success later in life?
• 8:32
  Garrett McNamara: It wasn't a thought that I consciously processed and contemplated and evaluated. So when we got to Hawaii, her husband at the time, a musician, African American, black guy, he brought us to he got the plane tickets. His name was Darrell he was awesome. He brought us his amazing musician.
• 9:00
  Garrett McNamara: He brought us to Hawaii and he was gonna play music with Don hos daughter. He had a gig set up with her. And then as soon as we got to Hawaii short after he left, and he was the breadwinner. He brought the tickets. He got us to Hawaii and he left and we were stuck in the armpit of the North Shore is called cement city where all the military and poor people lived it was either military or low income housing and we were we were lucky there was welfare back then. There was and it was almost Yeah, and so we were on welfare. So the we did have a roof over our head. We did have our Frosted Flakes and our Mac Kraft macaroni and cheese and if she would force us to eat the frozen corn and frozen string beans, but um, the worst part about that whole experience there was a you know, there was a little bit of food there was it wasn't the stuff you want on it, but you weren't starving.
• 10:00
  Garrett McNamara: But when we had when we went to eat our cereal, she wouldn't make powdered milk in that, if you've ever drink in powdered milk it is this gusting. And then if we were lucky, she would go half and half half real milk and half powdered milk. And so that was like a treat. hoof.
• 10:24
  Garrett McNamara: Yeah, that wasn't that much money. I mean, well, we weren't starving. We did have food crisis family is a different story. Hawaii welfare and welfare back then. I mean, they pay you your your rent, and they give you enough food stamps wasn't something you're proud of showing up at a store and food stamps. But um, I think it always gave me this feeling of wanting to feel secure and wanting to feel like I've made it like I've earned enough money to not have to worry, definitely put that in my mind. It definitely made me worried about the future, and where the money was going to come from and where the retirement was going to come from? And how is it going to be possible? And how do I make it happen? So for
• 11:17
  Randall Kaplan: a lot of people like me, when I thought about my future, I thought schooling was my ticket to success. Everyone says that education you get is the best investment of yourself that you can make. I was always taught that by my parents. And while I didn't have spending money in college and law school, I said, Alright, my grades are going to be my ticket to success. You had a little bit of a different kinds of schooling.
• 11:40
  Randall Kaplan: Schooling wasn't really for you.
• 11:40
  Randall Kaplan: You tell us about elementary school your first year and being the only white kid in your class. The fact you really didn't want to go to school and then tell us about the fight you had to get in on your first day to prove yourself.
• 11:55
  Garrett McNamara: Yeah, it was pretty lucky to be honest. I was, you know, started out in the hippie cube commune and then ended up in Mount Shasta and Berkeley and so we always kind of had to fit in wherever we went, or else feel like, you know, we fit we fit in wherever we went. We were lucky we were we adapted to the situate wherever we were, because we had to. And when we got to Hawaii, most white kids are beat up every day. Don't come back. My first day of school I had been before my mother moved us. We were living in Berkeley, and we I went to Malcolm X Elementary.
• 12:38
  Garrett McNamara: Know Malcolm X. Yeah, Malcolm Anla. Conte. So imagine it was mostly all African Americans and Mexicans. And I mean, there was a bit few of us, as well as few Caucasian few white kids in there. But I had to fight every day. I had to fight all the time. So and then we had our stepbrothers that we fought with all the time. And then we had, we fight a lot. So we, we could fight so and this is elementary school, you're not supposed to be able to fight but we did. And our survival it was survival.
• 13:16
  Garrett McNamara: And then got to school in Hawaii first day of school, this Filipino guy, I still remember him. He pushed we're walking up the stairs to the class and he pushes my chest and as they back then in Hawaii, you kind of check the guy you're not really trying to fight I'm gonna just kind of check in but in Berkeley, if you're checking a guy that's gonna that's on. So then I pushed him and then he pushed me back and then boom, I took him out. So then that day forward, I was respected in the school and I aligned with the toughest kids in the school, and we started a gang and we are we all got leather jackets. And it was like a week later that off the principal pulled us all into the office, me and Brian exalt and Ryan Ishimoto and Shane NASCO and a few other Hawaiians and locals and read over gangs in my school and he took our, our leather jackets away. But you know, the last day of school, every year that I went to school was kill Halle de and I chose not to go on kill alligator just to be safe. I remember there was one situation where there was a Hawaiian gang in the high school and there's there's a Filipino gang and a Hawaiian gang and they wore it against each other as long as they were warring. Then if you weren't in the wrong place at the wrong time, you were okay.
• 14:52
  Garrett McNamara: But if you if you were upset one of their families embers are friends or them or if you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time they would hunt you so I in high school I got in a fight with another guy pretty much the same thing he and he tried to you know he wanted to fight and and then I took him out and then his cousin was after me for a while so I would walk home on the bridge and you walk down the road and go up onto the bridge and then walking and this is a sugar cane bridge where there's just giant terminal two trucks and their biggest trucks you ever see with the biggest tires and I just walked I would be like always kind of looking over my shoulder and one time the guy caught it was chased me and and I was running and he threw a punch and just barely got me and I kept running. It wasn't wasn't wasn't that bad, but and it was good that it happened like that.
• 15:56
  Garrett McNamara: Because then he was like, Yeah, I got him and then he didn't really, really bother me anymore. But that was the one situation in school where I was like running
• 16:07
  Randall Kaplan: scared. When you say gang I'm thinking of gangs are shooting each other. Were these just fistfights because he's used the word like hunt.
• 17:05
  Randall Kaplan: And that's not a good word to use. If you're just fist fighting,
• 17:10
  Garrett McNamara: what they were, they would bring brass knuckles and knives. No guns.
• 17:12
  Garrett McNamara: Maybe a gun here and there. But mostly brass knuckles and knives. The Filipinos are bring them because they're smaller than most of the Hawaiians.
• 17:22
  Randall Kaplan: Let's go surfing now. And when you started surfing, can you tell us about your mom going to a garage sale and buying a board for $15? And then what happened from there and then as well, which is three kneeboards when you found his dad's kneeboards as well,
• 17:37
  Garrett McNamara: yeah, I'm going to share one other thing about Simone, Filipinos who live in Hawaii. Anybody who moves to Hawaii or has been living here for a long period of time that is of dark skin, they quickly assume the role of that their Hawaiian or that they act like they're Hawaiian compared to the white people, anybody White is now you're kind of it's weird.
• 18:05
  Garrett McNamara: But the term HOWLEY white people didn't. It wasn't just for white people it was for any visitor who came to Hawaii any Explorium started with the white people come in. But then you know the Japanese, the Chinese, the Filipino the party, the Spanish they all came to work on different for different reasons, most of them plantation workers, some of them but anybody have dark skin all of a sudden becomes local Hawaiian overnight and and the holidays are still holiday. So once in a while a holiday went up more Hawaiian than the Hawaiians. Just by of embodying the language and the knowledge of the history and really diving deep and becoming one with the Hawaiians and in trying to help the Hawaiian so but it's super interesting that anybody dark skinned is local Hawaiian overnight. For the surfboard, Dow was incredible.
• 19:04
  Garrett McNamara: We didn't have much money, there was just enough to have food and just enough to have a roof over the head and you had to scrimp every month every penny. And somehow she few My mother bought us a surfboard at a garage sale was $15. And it was it was about 100 pounds. And my brother and I were so happy and we would we would carry that thing to the beach together because we're so heavy we'd have to one guy in the front, one guy in the back or walk into the beach. And then we would hitchhike sometimes, but it was funny back then you had to wait a long time for a car to go by. Nowadays, you gotta wait a long time to cross the street. It is total opposite. During COVID. It went back to how Hawaii was when I first moved here was so amazing vest COVID was the best thing that ever happened to Hawaii.
• 20:03
  Randall Kaplan: So you have a board? It's 100 pounds. I think it was 12 feet long. What happened next? And what about the kneeboards you're hanging out with your your buddy Bushi.
• 20:14
  Randall Kaplan: And what was the first time you hit the water and went from your knees to your feet?
• 20:19
  Garrett McNamara: It's funny, that guy, our best friend butchy by Wong, he he lives on the Big Island now. And I've had numerous people come up to me and say oh, my friend told me he taught you how to surf. I mean, what's his name and so on. So Nope. And this this has been going on for years, like all the way till about when to say it was like 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, I was on the Big Island and I'm taking a shower, and it's just got older guy.
• 20:46
  Garrett McNamara: Gentleman comes up to me and he's like,
• 20:51
  Unknown: Hey, My brother told me he taught you're sure.
• 20:55
  Garrett McNamara: Oh, here we go again. I was like, Well, what's his name? And he's like, Bucha.
• 20:59
  Garrett McNamara: Oh, your brother did? He's a really? No, I never believed him. I couldn't believe him.
• 21:10
  Garrett McNamara: Wow. All right on where. And yeah, it puts you by long. His father was wonky Wong. And his father was a kneeboard, a big Chinese, Hawaiian. And he took it serious. He had these beautiful kneeboards all hung up on the wall with his beautiful waves airbrushed on them, I wish I knew where those are still today, they were beautiful. And this was the first time surfing that I recall, in Hawaii with butchy boy on his birthday, and he said, We got my daddy and let's take out the march. It's my birthday. And we went out me my brother and Butchie on the three, three beautiful kneeboards. And we went out to this little, little small little waves are breaking around the shore right on the reef, just deep enough to surf, and just big enough to get a glide and snap and ride away. And then we've jumped straight to our feet. We're like, we're not kneeboard and we're gonna surf and we jumped straight to our feet. And that was it. We fell in love. That was the beginning of the
• 22:14
  Randall Kaplan: passion. You were 11 years old at the time.
• 22:18
  Garrett McNamara: 11. My brother was nine I was 11. So let's
• 22:21
  Randall Kaplan: skip ahead.
• 22:21
  Randall Kaplan: You're surfing for a few years, we'll go five years forward, you're 16 years old and 16. You said you were scared to death of the big waves, you wouldn't go higher than 10 feet. So can you talk to us about what you were thinking from 11 to 16. And then at 16. What changed in your brain where you said hey, I'm gonna go a little bit higher and a little bit higher.
• 22:43
  Garrett McNamara: I think when I was like, four or five, I took some peyote and I think that really helped. No. To be honest, I served about four to 658 to 10 foot faces at sunset on my six four Rozo surfboard roster at surfboard. And I there wasn't really anybody out I don't even remember there being anybody out but there had to be at least one or two people out there. And then I paddled for this wave and I came down pretty perfect. And then when I went to turn the board slid. And then I fell over the front of the board landed on the wall as the wave broke over me and then took me with the whitewater forever. And I was under hours probably panicking trying to get up. It's probably like five seconds, but I'm trying to swim up if you if you're panicking trying to swim up it makes it seem like eternity if you just relax, you can stay there pretty much as long as any single way will pound you. And after that experience, I was terrified of waves over 10 feet tall. And I was vowed to never surf a wave over 10 feet. And so we didn't have our father here in Hawaii with us and we had a lot of father figures through the years from home in Hawaii. It started out with Roy Patterson and he built my first really good boards and then up at sunset we had a few different people who kind of mentored us but one of them was Gustavo Liberte. He was a big Peruvian guy who had all the surfboards and all the toys and he was just as really awesome guy and he we go to his house every day do whatever he asked me to do, and we go surfing. And be honest, back then I was like fifth. I was about 1516 We burned a lot of marijuana back then we love to smoke joints. And he was he had the best weed and he would let us roll the joint. So we were super stoked to go to his house.
• 25:03
  Garrett McNamara: That was basically what he had to do was roll the joint and he called me and my brother the stacks brothers stacks one and stacks two. And don't let any kids listen to this podcast.
• 25:15
  Garrett McNamara: Okay. I don't share this with many people. Okay, no one
• 25:21
  Randall Kaplan: rated our
• 25:23
  Garrett McNamara: kids do you know, smoking is definitely not something you want to do until you have accomplished everything you want to accomplish in your life. And then if you decide you want to take up smoking and maybe smoke in the evening before you go to bed, but other than that I don't recommend smoking for anybody. So he's hanging out with him. Smoking are fatties, having a great time cruising around in his Volkswagen Bug And he's got punky he was he's a commie punky if besides stacks one he called me punky punky. Today, you're coming with me we're gonna serve sunset. And I'm like, I mean, I was terrified is that no, no, no, don't worry, don't worry, I'm gonna give you the perfect board have the right board the correct board for the for the today and we're gonna, I'm gonna take you down to the shore and I'm gonna show you where to paddle out and where to paddle in. And I'm gonna show you where to line up and I'm going to get you right in the right spot and you're gonna have so much fun.
• 26:25
  Garrett McNamara: I'm just like, No way know. He literally you I don't know if you're ever experienced somebody grabbing you by the neck. That guy back in the day. It was the Vulcan neck pinch nowadays, it's just when you're back then if you were misbehaving your father would normally grab you by the neck and squeeze it pretty hard until you like okay, okay, okay.
• 26:48
  Garrett McNamara: Okay, good. I just kind of keep you in order. My father used to do that to us. He literally grabbed me by the neck and said, punky you're coming with me and there's nothing you can do about it. And so I was okay, okay, okay. Okay. So then he gave me the sunset point Pat Ross and 710 gun, he probably to the shoreline showed me exactly where to paddle out easily and exactly where to go and when to paddle for the wave and where to paddle for it. And I caught every wave I wanted that day, every wave that I wanted, I caught and I fell in love with big waves that was the start at the beginning of the pursuit for big waves and the passion grew from just surfing because I love it to surfing big waves because I love it.
• 27:40
  Randall Kaplan: You were 16 when you started when you got over your fear and of getting under or drowning whatever the fear was when you started saying okay, I'm not going to go north of that I'm going to keep getting bigger and bigger. 1616
• 27:55
  Garrett McNamara: years old was when the beginning the the search for the big wave sunset pipeline lonnis Then why may I Bay and then the outer reach with the toe in and then there was no way of too big.
• 28:10
  Randall Kaplan: So you mentioned smoking the fatties and you talked about the weed you also did a lot of alcohol you like tequila you did also some cocaine but at some point you're 19 years old. You're in Japan and you stop what made you stop.
• 28:24
  Garrett McNamara: I saw that the opportunity of becoming a professional I never imagined being a pro surfer until I was 17 when I got not only forced but invited to be in the Triple Crown and back then if you win any money in the Triple Crown you're automatically a professional surfer if you accept the money you can decline the money and not be a pro.
• 28:47
  Randall Kaplan: What is it? What is the Triple Crown just for people who don't know what it is?
• 28:51
  Garrett McNamara: There's Triple Crown was the most prestigious three events in the surfing it was the holly Eva International, the sunset Pro and Pipe Masters, Holly Eva, sunset and pipeline those three contests are held back to back to back and the guy who's places the highest and all three events is wins the Triple Crown which is a massive trophy and it was the highest honor in competitive surfing. And my sponsor run ran the Triple Crown Randy wreck and he was sponsored with a clothing company called catch it and he put me in the contest and I won money in two events and I gladly accepted and I was in high school getting ready halfway through high school and I was scared of what I was going to do with my life I didn't know and I was really worried about what am I going to do the work nine to five somewhere I go wait tables or construction or what am I going to do and I I contemplated flunking my senior year so I could stay in one more year. But when we when I won that money I was oh I'm a pro Okay, I'm going to make sure I passed my classes and and continue on this career.
• 30:07
  Garrett McNamara: And then when I went to Japan, and I was with had the sponsors Japanese sponsors, I already spoke some Japanese I was learning Japanese Japanese sponsors. I went and got more Japanese sponsors while I was there, I brought my back then you had your big briefcase with all your photos. And I went to this Murasaki sports store and there's this seven foot tall Japanese bald guy and you've just Japanese businessman who ran the sports store chain which is the biggest sports store chain in Japan at that time. And it was a toughest sell I ever, ever had. I had to try to convince him to sponsor me and he did in my billboards in Tokyo and and a wetsuit sponsor and a surfboard spa. Sir and clothing sponsor all Japanese and and it was a it was amazing. So I saw that was possible that first year in Japan I was in my room by myself, you know the Japanese doors, the little futon on the floor with a little rice pillow.
• 31:09
  Garrett McNamara: And laying and hanging out my room doing my exercise, do my push up doing my stretching and I just thought to myself, Wow, I can do this for a living. Wow, this is I mean, I was like okay, what is going to keep me further from doing this as part of I was I would, I would wake up literally in Smoke a fat joint, then I would go straight in the water and then I would come in and smoke another joint and then I would eat my lunch and then I would take a nap when all the cat or eat my late breakfast and take a quick nap while all the cameramen were out and I'm missing all the photos. The best time is the early morning from like, seven to 11 his lights good. And I would serve from seven to nine and then I would go home and eat and and smoke my fatty and miss half of the session and I was thought to myself okay, that's not going to help at all. So I quit smoking pot so you can just have my energy all day and stay focused and and accomplish my goals of being a professional surfer.
• 32:12
  Garrett McNamara: That's why I quit the pot. And yeah, cocaine was just recreational and we had fun. And but it wasn't definitely you missed the next day. You don't wake up early. So you you missed the next day. And you're like, so I said, Okay, that's out. And then the alcohol as well. So yeah, all of it was out the window for for a while. Yeah.
• 32:46
  Randall Kaplan: When you become a professional
• 32:48
  Garrett McNamara: surfer, so I can actually accomplish my goals and dreams.
• 32:53
  Randall Kaplan: When you said you were making money. big wave surfers don't make very much money. They make a lot more today than they made then. So how much money are we talking about that first year in Japan, we've got the sponsors and you're seeing your picture and various locations.
• 33:08
  Garrett McNamara: I, my memory serves me call that correct my lowest. My highest was like 1500. And the lowest was like 200. And then I had a $500 minimum to be on my surfboard.
• 33:23
  Garrett McNamara: And you know, you'd have three to six sponsors. The clothing was usually the highest about my brother was making like 10 grand a month, I was probably making like, two to three grand a month. That was back then that was a good amount of money. We actually did pretty good.
• 33:43
  Randall Kaplan: So let's talk about that there
• 33:45
  Garrett McNamara: was no guarantee that you were going to be able to resign next year, you got a year contract. So every year you had to produce or you were unless you had a really good relationship. And they knew how to figure out what your niche is and market your niche no matter how good you get it every year.
• 34:01
  Randall Kaplan: So you're making roughly 50 $60,000 a year at that point. Yeah. So you mentioned your brother, let's talk about your brother, Liam, he at some point was a better surfer than you had sponsors before you you already mentioned that he made more money than you did. And then he self destructed because he couldn't get along with people. We talked to us a little bit about that and how getting along is important to our success. And what's your advice to people who know they have a little bit of a sharp personality? Well,
• 34:29
  Garrett McNamara: I made money first. Because I went to Japan, I came back at a talk with Liam say, Hey, we got to stop this nonsense. And that's when we both stopped smoking and and doing coke. And yeah, I had a sit down with him and we cried and then boom, he stopped cold turkey never partied again. He's very inspirational. And then he got a fire lit under his butt to be the number one guy at Pipeline and the number one guy at Rocky Point. And he became the most photographed surfer in the world because he caught more waves than anybody in the world.
• 35:09
  Garrett McNamara: Its two most photographed spots, Rocky Point and pipeline. And he's a white blonde. He you don't have to fight for everything. You don't have to scrap for everything. But it was a different time back then. And if you didn't fight for what you wanted, if you didn't stand your ground and take your waves, then they're going to take them from you, especially the locals. And there was gnarly localism at every spot. If you came out to a spot and you weren't a local and nobody knew you and you did something wrong. You literally got punched out and sent to the airport and don't come back and That was real. And we were right in the thick of that, we were lucky that we were friends with all the boys. But when it came to the best days, the biggest waves come in the best waves coming, it's a dogfight, and there's a pecking order. And then when it came to the contest, whoever could get behind has the right away. So Liam, would ride a little bit bigger board, and power behind the gnarliest most feared person in surfing and take the wave from him so he could win the heat. And then he had to deal with them the next day or that day. So it was really challenging for him because he wanted to win, he wanted to have a career. And he didn't want to back down anybody when it came time. During this free surf, he would back down enough, but still, he would, if it was anybody besides the boys, it was his way. The boys are taken away first, and then us and then the 50 other guys are sitting there trying to get away. So it's not it wasn't an easy spot to be in and he had the scrap for everything. And then he would serve the heat. And they would, they would always give him a little lower score because he was very vocal, he would come up and yell at the judges if they get mushy score. So they gave him shady scores from that on and he actually got shady scores often and was very vocal about what they just gave him he didn't wasn't afraid to go yell and um, he wasn't afraid to shake the judges tower when fraid to try and rip the tower down. And it was a challenging spot to be in because you if you didn't take it, then you weren't going to get it. But if you if you're just nice and friendly, like I was more easygoing, so I didn't get much you know, when the game was out. I didn't even go out because he was so gnarly.
• 37:53
  Garrett McNamara: I would sit on the beach, wait for him to come in and then I would go and he would come in and go Why don't you serving me brah if I'm going to be serving with you, I'm gonna sit next to you you're gonna take me away from what's there for me.
• 38:05
  Garrett McNamara: There's you and all the boys aren't good shit. So I'm gonna stay home today. I'll stay on the beach until you come in and he actually cried. He was so sad that I had that those feelings and who, so he was blackballed because of his vocal nurse and he was he should have won the Pipe Masters one year they but they gave it to Kelly Slater.
• 38:27
  Garrett McNamara: They gave Kelly a point five higher every heat and gave Liam a point five lower every heat every wave. And you his whole Golden Circle was the window height masters. Now he didn't quit. Because of all of that, that did not make him quit first. First and foremost, he broke his femur at Pipeline, where he based his career around pipeline, basically. And he broke his femur there, which is have you ever really know what breaking your femur is like, you never want to have that happen again. So. So he slowed, he slowed his career down then but he was still very visible and very sponsored and still had very good relationships with all the companies he worked with. So he still kept going. And then he had children. Once he had the children, that's when he hung it up. He hung it up to be with his kids. He hung it up to give his kids everything that we didn't have. He gave them here and almost went sideways by giving too much and not letting them work for things. And yeah, it's a challenging spot. You know, when you grew up in nothing. And then you have the children you want to give them everything and then some that you didn't have.
• 39:44
  Garrett McNamara: So it's been a challenging, challenging goal for him for me.
• 39:50
  Garrett McNamara: Yeah, my three children from my first marriage are awesome.
• 39:54
  Garrett McNamara: Everybody loves them. They they're local. You know they live here in Hawaii. They love Hawaii. They are not looking to go broaden their horizons. They want to you know, simple life in Hawaii. They're loving it. My son Titus might want to get around my my older. My daughter TR she might want to go she loves Japan. She actually might she speaks Japanese and she's only 14 and she writes Japanese.
• 40:16
  Garrett McNamara: I never learned how to write Japanese so she might have something going in Japan someday and my my oldest son he's definitely interested in cruising around, but he's more he loves Hawaii, maybe another island. And now my my three children with Nicole. So Nicole is just the most nurturing most amazing, like, what if you're friends with Nicole and you get to experience her as your friend? Yeah, she's a different person. First, she's just the most amazing woman I've ever met and the most nurturing the most caring. And I always say if only the world could see through Nicole's eyes, it'd be a much better place our children are going to she just wants to raise because human she doesn't care what they do as long as they're good kind humans that make a difference in the world. And me, I want Beryl to be a surfer and blah, blah, blah, but she's like, I just want to be him to be a good human. Yeah, so she she did. Baron FEHA and Fay have traveled the world. They've been everywhere are ready. The barrel had 150 Airplanes when he was one phase had about at least 70 And she just turned one. Yeah, they're very worldly. I don't know where they're going to want to set down roots because they that everything is available.
• 41:48
  Garrett McNamara: Everything is all possibilities.
• 41:53
  Garrett McNamara: Everything's possible for them.
• 41:53
  Garrett McNamara: And for my other children, my other children a half. I think they're happy in Hawaii except for maybe Tre. It's gonna be very interesting to see where barrel, Thea and FE and wanting to live since they've lived so many places.
• 42:09
  Randall Kaplan: Thanks for listening to part one of my amazing conversation with GARRETT MCNAMARA, a legendary surfer who owns a world record for surfing the largest wave in history at 100 feet tall. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of my amazing conversation with Garrett