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Transcript

What Happened In Panama: The Adventure That Changed Who I Am-Part 2 · The Inspired Speaker Network

0:09
Your travels have brought you to the Surfing
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Your Edge podcast, where we explore what it
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takes to create the bigger, bolder, badass life
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you know you were born for.
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Not a life that simply looks good on
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paper, and not another spin on the self
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-help hamster wheel.
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If you're ready for more joy, more peace,
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and more contribution, you're in the right place.
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I'm Kristine Goad, the Surfing Your Edge coach.
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Let's get surfing.
0:37
Welcome back to the Surfing Your Edge podcast.
0:40
I am Kristine Goad, your Surfing Your Edge
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coach, and I wanted to continue the story
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I started a few in the last episode,
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or in the beginning of this first episode,
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or whatever.
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We don't know yet how we're going to
0:55
structure this, but anyway, I started a story
0:58
about my cross-country bike trip, and then
1:03
we talked a little bit about how that
1:05
led into my learning to surf.
1:08
But I want to back up just a
1:10
tiny bit.
1:11
Okay, so it was 1998 when I did
1:14
the cross-country bike trip, and it was
1:17
the scariest thing I had ever done, and
1:20
the most adventurous, and the most me I
1:23
had ever felt.
1:24
And I loved it.
1:26
And when I came home, we already talked
1:28
about the fact that I was super depressed
1:29
and didn't know what to do with myself,
1:33
and was really looking for someone to help
1:37
me bring what I called bring myself home,
1:40
right?
1:41
The self that I found on that bike
1:43
ride, I could not figure out how to
1:46
bring her home and help her survive in
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the everyday real world.
1:51
And I just...
1:53
She felt so close, and I just felt
1:57
like I could reach out and touch her,
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and yet I couldn't bring her fully into
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this world.
2:02
I didn't know how to be fully myself
2:03
in this world, and it was incredibly frustrating.
2:09
And yet, because you have to, I struggled
2:12
along, right?
2:13
And 20 years later, on the 20th anniversary,
2:16
I wanted to celebrate that.
2:19
And I talked to my colleague.
2:22
We already told this story.
2:23
I talked to my colleague about I wanted
2:27
to take people to do something scary, like
2:30
learning to surf, and then come home and
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support them while they used what they learned
2:34
on that surfboard to actually change things that
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mattered in their real life.
2:39
And once I realized that surfing was...
2:43
Once I realized that it was okay, that
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I was scared in front of my people,
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and that might actually be an ideal place
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to lead from, then I was off and
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running, and the Surfing Your Edge experience was
2:59
born.
3:00
And what it is, is it's an eight
3:04
-day retreat.
3:05
We go to Panama.
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We do all kinds of things, but included
3:10
in the Panama retreat are four days of
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learn to surf lessons on a baby beach,
3:19
black sand, baby beach, no scary coral to
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get caught up on.
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We don't go in over our heads, all
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of that.
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I mean, it's very, very basic.
3:31
But at the end of those eight days,
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we come home together as a group.
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We stay together as a group, and we
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actually...
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When you're there, when you're in another country,
3:42
and you're on vacation, and you're taking that
3:46
hour to just soak in the sounds of
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the jungle, and the birds, and the waves,
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and you're in a hammock, and nobody is
4:02
asking anything of you in moments like those,
4:05
and in moments where we're having amazing conversations
4:08
over dinner, or by the pool, whatever, you
4:13
start to get a different vision for what
4:15
your life can look like.
4:16
And so what a lot of times people
4:18
do is they go on an amazing trip,
4:20
and they think it's going to change their
4:22
lives.
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They go home.
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They show the pictures.
4:26
They share their phone with somebody, and the
4:28
person just flips through very fast, looks at
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all the photos.
4:33
It's Monday morning.
4:34
You're back at work, and all of that
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just kind of goes poof, right?
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And again, it's just outside of your reach,
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right?
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She's right there, but can you get her
4:45
back?
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And I didn't want that experience for my
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people.
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So when we come home from this eight
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-day experience, all jazzed up and all newly
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envisioned with this new life, this new direction
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for our life, we don't have to change
5:02
everything, but new steps we want to take.
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I want to make sure that people have
5:07
the support they need in order to make
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those changes that they want to make, so
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we stay together as a group and with
5:15
individual coaching for another six months.
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So that is the Surfing Your Edge experience,
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and I remember the day I created it.
5:24
I was sitting on the floor in my
5:26
living room with a notebook and a pen
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and just writing down all of the things
5:31
and why it was important.
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And when I got done, this realization hit
5:37
me that I had just created the program
5:41
that I needed at the end of the
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cross-country bike trip.
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This was what I had spent 20 years
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figuring out how to support somebody who had
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just done something big, how to support them
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when they come home and want to become
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the new person that they, I don't even
6:03
want to say new person.
6:04
That sounds like it's a lot of pressure,
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right?
6:06
But you saw something and you want to
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come home and you want to see what
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that feels like in the real world.
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And so that's what Surfing Your Edge does,
6:15
right?
6:16
I created the program that I needed in
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1998 that I could not find.
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And when I figured that out, that all
6:24
20 years, basically all of my 20 years
6:27
had been leading to this new place in
6:29
my life, this new creation.
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I got really, really scared, right?
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Like, oh my gosh, this is what I've
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been building toward.
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Here it is.
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It's beautiful.
6:42
What if I share it in the world
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and nobody gets it?
6:46
What if nobody wants it, right?
6:48
So then the work became, how do I
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put this in the world in a way
6:58
where people can see it and I'm being
7:01
vulnerable?
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And that took a lot of work because
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basically I started putting little posts out on
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Facebook about it, right?
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And no response, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
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And I was listening to Dana Wild one
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day and she is a mindset coach.
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And she was talking about how to help
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somebody win.
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They wanted to win the cruise in their
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MLM business, right?
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They had to sell so many products in
7:34
a certain amount of time and they wanted
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to win this cruise.
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And the way Dana said to do it
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was to three times a day for three
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minutes each, imagine that you had already won
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the cruise and imagine what that felt like
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and what you were going to do.
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And I'm like, okay, I can adapt this.
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So what I did was I imagined that
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I was writing my list of attendees for
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my retreat and I just filled the last
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spot.
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And I, you know, pictured myself jumping up
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and down and calling my husband and running
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over to the corner where I'd been, you
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know, gathering all of this stuff for the
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gift bags and, you know, getting all excited.
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And so I did that every day, three
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times a day for about six weeks before
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I started to feel like the person who
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could actually lead that retreat.
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That was the big thing.
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I had to be able to show up
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in the world as the person who knew
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she could lead this retreat, not as the
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person who was hoping she could lead this
8:38
retreat, hoping somebody would see it and recognize
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it and want to be part of it.
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So for six weeks, I did daily visualization
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and practiced feeling what it felt like to
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be the person who knew that she could
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do this.
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And that's when the very first person finally
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saw my post and said, oh, that looks
9:04
cool, but I don't have a passport.
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It's like, okay, here we go.
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And so within a couple of conversations, I
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had, you know, this woman and I had
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figured out that you can get an expedited
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passport.
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You can do all of these things.
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And the most amazing thing started unfolding for
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her.
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She got her passport in like nine days.
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It was insane.
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Money that she did not expect just like
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showed up to help her fund the trip.
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When she asked her sister to watch her
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son, she said yes.
9:45
You know, so basically she just, she said
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yes.
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And then the world said, okay, fine, here
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you go.
9:52
All right.
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So that is the backstory that I didn't
9:57
get to, didn't get to in the last
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episode.
10:01
So I wanted to fill that in a
10:03
little bit before we get back to Panama.
10:05
All right.
10:07
So on the morning of the second day,
10:11
before we had gone out and done our
10:15
next surf lesson, I was in the shower
10:19
and I caught a whoosh.
10:28
What that means to me is that when
10:32
I, before, when I was still envisioning what
10:37
surfing your edge, the surfing your edge experience
10:40
might look and feel like, I was still
10:42
testing it out in the world.
10:44
Right.
10:44
I was still, like I said, I talked
10:46
to my coworker.
10:47
I had gone to a three-day in
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-person event in San Diego with my very
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first coach ever, Ryan Eliason.
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And Ryan was an amazing coach.
11:01
He's off living his life now and isn't
11:03
coaching anymore.
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But at the time he was phenomenal and
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he had pulled together a group of us
11:10
from around the world that were some of
11:14
the most interesting, exciting, motivated, world-changing kinds
11:21
of people.
11:23
And he decided that he was going to
11:25
surf his edge and create his very first
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live event.
11:30
And he called all of us together and
11:33
said, can you come?
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And a lot of us wanted to come,
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not only because we loved Ryan, but because
11:41
we loved, we wanted to meet each other.
11:44
Right.
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So we all converged on this crazy packed
11:48
morning to night three-day event with Ryan
11:52
and watched him shake on stage because he
11:57
was trying to do all the things that
12:01
you do when you do a three-day
12:02
event and say all the right things.
12:03
And he did a beautiful job.
12:08
He did a gorgeous job, but he was
12:11
nervous and he was nervous in front of
12:13
us.
12:14
And we wanted to support and love him
12:16
for that.
12:17
So again, that was more support for the
12:23
idea that I should lead from a place
12:26
of vulnerability and that when you lead from
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vulnerability, people rally around you.
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Oh my gosh, I'm getting emotional here.
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So we all went, we loved on each
12:40
other.
12:41
We loved on Ryan and he would ask
12:45
questions throughout the three-day event and you'd
12:48
raise your hand and he would, there were
12:51
multiple times when I raised my hand and
12:54
he looked right at me and then slid
12:57
right on by to the next person.
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And he did not call on me.
13:02
When he finally called on me, it was
13:05
after we had just done an exercise where
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it was a bucket list exercise.
13:14
And he had asked us, what was on
13:19
our bucket list?
13:19
What had we been putting off that we
13:22
didn't want to put off anymore?
13:24
He told a really touching story about a
13:27
cross country motorcycle trip with his dad before
13:30
his dad died.
13:32
And he wanted us to talk about the
13:35
thing that we didn't want to put off.
13:38
And this time he called on me.
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So I stood up and I said that
13:46
I had been terrified of open water my
13:48
whole life.
13:48
And that I had been dreaming of taking
13:51
people to learn to surf in some beautiful
13:54
place like Costa Rica and that I wanted
13:59
to then help people who learned about themselves
14:04
on the surfboard come home and surf their
14:06
edge at home.
14:07
And the room erupted.
14:09
I mean, there was just 300 people just
14:13
cheering and saying, go do that, go do
14:17
that.
14:20
And at the end of me speaking about
14:26
this and everyone cheering, Ryan invited the room
14:31
to send a whoosh to me.
14:40
And that whoosh arrived 10 months later when
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I was standing in that shower getting ready
14:52
to go out for my next surf lesson.
15:02
So it was about 10 months from the
15:05
time that I stood up in that room
15:07
and said I want to do this to
15:10
when I had it planned.
15:12
I had a client and I actually traveled
15:15
to a new country I'd never been to
15:18
before and was leading this retreat.
15:22
And all of the love of those 300
15:25
people found me.
15:30
So that was probably that in and of
15:35
itself.
15:35
If nothing else had happened that entire trip,
15:38
that probably would have been enough just to
15:42
feel that whoosh to realize that I had
15:50
created this thing that was still very, very
15:54
new.
15:56
And then I was just testing, right?
15:58
I was still in the testing period.
16:00
It was pretty clear to me that my
16:02
client was loving it and that it was
16:05
going to be a go.
16:06
But just that I had taken that risk,
16:10
that I had trusted Anne, this person I
16:16
just met, that she would help me create
16:19
this beautiful experience for people in a place
16:25
I'd never visited, and that I just had
16:27
the courage to put it together, put it
16:29
out there, talk to people about it, and
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go.
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That for me was the true surfing your
16:36
edge experience that I had created the thing
16:39
that needed to exist in the world.
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All right.
16:47
So it is day three, I believe, of
16:51
the Panama trip.
16:53
We've been in Panama.
16:54
My client and I have been in Panama
16:57
City.
16:58
We've done some amazing stuff in this little
17:00
eco resort where we start out.
17:03
And we've traveled across Panama to Veraguas, and
17:09
we're on the Pacific Ocean, and it's been
17:12
a six-hour drive in pouring down rain.
17:17
And we get there at like 4.30
17:20
p.m. We have a five o'clock
17:23
surf lesson.
17:24
The very first thing we have to do
17:27
is this surf lesson.
17:30
So we get there, we throw our bags
17:32
in the room.
17:33
We get dressed.
17:34
We go out to the surf lodge where
17:39
they're like picking out our surfboards.
17:43
And I'm a big girl.
17:45
So they give me this gigantic, gigantic stand
17:49
-up paddleboard to be my surfboard.
17:54
And I have to carry this thing down
17:57
this long road.
17:59
I've since fixed this, right?
18:01
We don't carry surfboards anymore.
18:02
We have a van drive us.
18:04
But for this retreat, I had to carry
18:07
this big, heavy-ass surfboard down this dirt
18:13
road in the rain.
18:18
And I was terrified.
18:19
I was already terrified.
18:21
I created this program because I wanted to
18:26
address my fear of open water.
18:28
And here I was, minutes away from getting
18:31
into the Pacific Ocean in the rain.
18:36
And I was not doing very well.
18:39
And my client was just bouncing down the
18:42
road, just happy as could be, chatting with
18:46
the surf instructor.
18:47
And I'm in the back, just carrying this
18:49
big old board and just cranky as all
18:54
get out.
18:54
I'm just in my breath, under my breath
18:56
going, it's my retreat.
18:58
I shouldn't have to carry my own board.
19:02
And I don't want to be here in
19:03
the rain.
19:04
And anyway, we get to the beach.
19:07
And it's a beautiful, huge, wide, black sand
19:10
beach.
19:13
Gorgeous island off there and beautiful waves rolling
19:17
in.
19:18
But it is still raining.
19:19
And there is lightning out over the ocean.
19:23
Lightning!
19:27
And my surf instructor speaks English, but it's
19:31
not his first language.
19:33
I think it's probably his third language.
19:37
And we had been clear, as clear as
19:40
we could be leading up to this, that
19:42
we were going to be older women who
19:44
had never tried anything like this.
19:46
And we needed somebody who was patient.
19:48
And I get to the beach and he's
19:53
like, okay.
19:53
And he's showing us.
19:56
He's like, we're going to work on the
20:00
beach.
20:01
We're going to work on how to pop
20:03
up on your surfboard.
20:04
And then we're going to go out.
20:05
And I will be out there with you.
20:08
And we're not going to, you know, and
20:09
I'm just like, no, there is lightning out
20:13
there.
20:13
And I'm stomping my foot going, this is
20:16
not how I want to learn to surf.
20:18
I am not learning to surf in lightning.
20:21
And he's like, well, if you are, you
20:25
know, the only way you're going to have
20:27
any issues is if you're touching the bottom.
20:30
And I'm like, I don't know how to
20:32
surf.
20:33
I'm going to be touching the bottom.
20:36
And I was just, I kind of, I
20:39
have this vision of myself looking down and
20:43
just watching what was happening.
20:46
But I was stomping my foot on the
20:50
sand.
20:50
And just being like, no, I'm not going
20:53
to do this.
20:54
I'm not going to do this.
20:57
And finally, he said, okay, fine.
20:59
You don't have to surf today.
21:01
We'll do some pop-ups on the sand.
21:04
And then we will just go out and
21:06
we'll ride in on our bellies.
21:07
And we'll just get to feel what it
21:10
feels like to turn the board by shifting
21:13
our weight.
21:14
And somehow I let that be okay.
21:17
And so we practiced, you know, laying down
21:20
in the sand and this leg, and then
21:23
this leg and popping up.
21:25
And, you know, so we did the whole
21:26
thing.
21:26
And then he let us out one by
21:31
one and push, you know, we'd flop up
21:33
on the board and he'd push us in
21:35
and I didn't die.
21:39
But I've got to tell you when, you
21:42
know, you're in, I'm only 5'4".
21:45
And these waves were coming in and they
21:50
were over my head.
21:54
And I'm just like, no, I'm not going
21:56
any farther.
21:56
And he's like, yes, yes.
22:00
So the whole thing was this major argument
22:03
with me and this very sweet young man
22:09
telling me it's going to be okay.
22:11
It's going to be okay.
22:13
And he kept, and actually his phrase was,
22:16
it's normal.
22:17
It's normal.
22:17
It's normal.
22:19
Everything for him was normal.
22:23
And my client loved it and I survived.
22:29
And at the end of the day, I
22:30
was like, you know, it's really good that
22:33
I had to get out of a van
22:35
and go straight into the water.
22:37
Because if I had had more time to
22:39
stop and think, who knows if I'd gotten
22:42
out there on my belly, right?
22:44
I might not have gotten out there at
22:46
all.
22:47
So when I look back on it, I
22:50
was like, really grateful that I made myself
22:53
immediate, that that was the first thing we
22:55
had to do.
22:56
But it was not pretty.
22:58
And my client who, someone I had gone
23:03
to high school with, we weren't close then,
23:05
but enough that she knew something about me.
23:08
She was just kind of shocked to see
23:10
this person that I became on that beach.
23:16
But the good part of this story is
23:21
that the very next day we went down
23:23
to the beach and my client and I
23:25
and the person who was supporting us on
23:29
the trip, all three of us stood up
23:33
on our boards for the very first time
23:35
on our second day.
23:36
So we all got a ride and it
23:39
was like, oh, we can do this.
23:44
And that was really exciting.
23:46
My client and I were both 49.
23:50
And my, and Ann, our lovely guide actually
23:55
turned 60 on that trip.
23:57
So she learned to surf for her 60th
24:01
birthday.
24:02
And I think that is amazing.
24:07
So what I want to say about this
24:09
is that I did not immediately overcome my
24:15
fear of open water.
24:17
I fought with it on the surfboard.
24:21
I fought with it when we were snorkeling
24:24
because I had never snorkeled before.
24:27
And I told my sister I was going
24:28
to learn to snorkel.
24:29
And she's like, learn?
24:30
What do you mean you got to learn?
24:31
You just put your face in the water
24:33
and swim.
24:33
I'm like, okay, well, for me, I had
24:37
to learn.
24:39
So, and I had to, yeah.
24:42
So I fought with it.
24:44
And then at the very end, as my
24:47
little treat to myself, after my client had
24:51
flown home, I stayed an extra day and
24:53
went out with Ann on a whale watching
24:57
boat, 20 miles straight out away from the
25:01
shore, where it's like, if this boat goes
25:03
down, what are you going to do?
25:09
And I, you know, dealt with my fear
25:12
doing that.
25:13
I'd never been that far away from shore
25:15
before.
25:16
So I did all of that.
25:18
And then the next year, I did it
25:19
again.
25:19
And the next year, I did it again.
25:22
And that was 2018 was our first one.
25:26
Last year in 2025, I bought a standup
25:30
paddle board and started paddle boarding in the
25:34
middle of the Patuxent River.
25:36
And I'm like, oh my God, I'm in
25:38
the middle of a river by myself on
25:41
a board.
25:44
So things have shifted.
25:47
I would not say I'm terrified of open
25:49
water anymore.
25:52
I have a healthy respect for open water.
25:55
But I can snorkel now.
25:57
I can surf now.
25:58
Well, I can learn, continue taking surf lessons
26:03
now.
26:04
I would definitely not call myself a surfer.
26:08
But I am proof that my own process
26:11
has worked for me in terms of overcoming
26:14
my fear of open water.
26:17
But the thing that one of my clients
26:19
figured out in the second year that we
26:21
ran it was that it's really not about
26:24
the surfing.
26:25
You go, we call it surfing your edge.
26:28
You do play around on a surfboard, but
26:32
it's not about the surfing.
26:34
It's really about you getting out of your
26:40
comfort zone in any of a number of
26:42
ways.
26:43
Like my first year, Tracy, my first client,
26:46
her big fear was leaving the country and
26:49
leaving her son.
26:50
She was a single mother.
26:52
She had a son who was still in
26:54
high school, and she had never left him
26:56
alone before.
26:56
So she was leaving him.
27:00
She didn't have a passport.
27:02
She didn't speak Spanish.
27:03
One of her friends told her that Panama
27:06
was not where a blonde American woman should
27:09
go, that she might never come home.
27:12
And so she had all of these things
27:14
going on in her head.
27:16
And other clients have other issues that they're
27:20
dealing with.
27:21
Not everyone goes because they want to become
27:23
a surfer.
27:24
Most people have never thought about surfing, and
27:27
they've all got their own edge that they
27:31
are exploring.
27:32
For some women, it's even just the ability
27:36
to give themselves permission to go, to spend
27:39
the time and the money on a trip
27:42
that gets them out and seeing whales and
27:46
dolphins and monkeys in the wild and trying
27:53
new things.
27:53
Trying new food and being in a place
27:56
they've never been before.
27:57
Just giving yourself permission for that is a
28:00
huge challenge for a lot of us.
28:04
So anyway, I just want to make it
28:06
clear that it's not just about the surfing.
28:08
It's about whatever edge you want and need
28:13
to address.
28:15
And then when you come home, there's the,
28:19
how do I bring this person with me?
28:21
How do I show up as that carefree
28:25
person who was playing on a surfboard, or
28:28
that woman who saw something different for her
28:31
life when she was floating in the pool?
28:34
Whatever.
28:37
It's powerful work, and it's not just about
28:40
the surfing.
28:42
So what I want to say here, as
28:45
we kind of wrap up this second part
28:47
of this story, is I would not, I
28:53
cannot imagine my life without the Surfing Your
28:56
Edge experience.
28:57
I don't know who I'd be if I
28:58
hadn't created it.
29:00
And I would love it if you'd come
29:02
play with me sometime.
29:06
But even if you'd never come play with
29:08
me, I'm wondering what adventure of whatever nature,
29:15
whether you leave the country, stay in the
29:17
country, whether it's physical, whether it's mental, emotional,
29:21
what adventure have you been playing with in
29:24
the back of your mind and not given
29:26
yourself permission to fully sink into?
29:30
And what would it look like if you
29:32
took the first step toward giving yourself permission
29:36
to do that thing?
29:40
All right.
29:41
And if you feel inspired, I would love
29:44
to hear from you.
29:45
Feel free to send me stories about your
29:49
own adventure, about something that changed your life,
29:52
about an adventure you would love to engage
29:56
in.
29:57
Or even if there's just a longing and
30:00
you don't even quite know how you might
30:05
respond to it, send me a message.
30:09
Let me know.
30:10
I love, love, love talking about these kinds
30:13
of things with people.
30:14
So I hope you will reach out.
30:17
And I hope you will also join me
30:19
in the next episode.
30:21
Until then, I am wishing you wonder.