Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #1 - It's Not About Surfing, It's About Commitment With Gary Silberstein

Transcript

#1 - It's Not About Surfing, It's About Commitment With Gary Silberstein · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

0:10
SPEAKER_03: What's up y'all?
0:11
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
0:13
SPEAKER_03: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
0:22
SPEAKER_03: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
0:26
SPEAKER_03: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
0:33
SPEAKER_03: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: In this episode, I talk with Gary Silverstein, an absolutely fantastic gentleman I met last year.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: This guy is a legend, honestly.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Though he is 79 and I'm 25, when we're hanging out, I always feel like I'm talking to someone younger than me, just much wiser.
0:57
SPEAKER_03: We've surfed the point in Santa Cruz together.
0:59
SPEAKER_03: He's introduced me to some of the original members of the Big Stick Surfing Club.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: He showed me how to cast gold rings in his garage, and we've had great chats over coffee on subjects ranging from science to philosophy.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: He's a retired professor who researched and taught developmental biology at the University of California in Santa Cruz for nearly 30 years.
1:18
SPEAKER_03: Growing up in San Francisco in the 50s, he got hooked on surfing at Ocean Beach and in Santa Cruz, a passion that became, as he describes it, true north on his compass.
1:27
SPEAKER_03: His experience as a surfer taught him at a young age what commitment really means.
1:32
SPEAKER_03: That committed mindset is evident in so many of his stories, from committing to graduate school to intentionally teach himself discipline, committing to his love of surfing, and committing to doing good work on each and every project set before him.
1:45
SPEAKER_03: He embodies that ability to focus entirely on what is at hand, and exemplifies that living and working hard in the present moment gives opportunities the chance to find you.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: I left this conversation ready to take control of my life, and I know you will too.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: Enjoy.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: It's just everything.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: It's my whole life.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: In retrospect, if I went to work for them and worked hard, I would have earned it.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're taking off on a triple overhead wave and it's full commitment.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: You just there's no other choice.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: My career found me.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: I did not find it.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: The commitment plays off against what the world has to offer at that moment in time.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I I had no had no choice.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: I have to do it.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I have to understand something.
2:52
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for doing this with me, Gary.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: I really appreciate it.
2:54
SPEAKER_03: So psyched to have you on.
2:56
SPEAKER_03: Pleasure.
2:57
SPEAKER_03: It was such a random event meeting you at the wedding shower my parents were hosting before I left on my adventure, and I'm just so grateful that it happened.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: It led to a bunch of fun conversations and surf sessions, and you introduced me to a bunch of cool people in Santa Cruz.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: Looking back over the past year, what I've enjoyed so much about our previous interactions is the really honest feeling that you give off.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: Our talks are very genuine, and I think that's a reflection of you intently listening and having thoughtful insight.
3:24
SPEAKER_03: I can tell you've reflected quite a bit about your life and why certain things are important to you, and that really comes out in discussion.
3:29
SPEAKER_03: It's also exciting for me at 25 to listen to your story so far that's revolved so much around surfing because you know it's a part of my life that I know is going to play a big role in it.
3:38
SPEAKER_03: And that leads into my first question, which is how and when did you start surfing?
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Started surfing while I was in high school, body surfing down at Balboa.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: We had family friends that lived there and uh saw board surfing, um, got interested in it, and then there was a family vacation with a good friend who was uh my dad's contemporary who was a waterman, and uh he saw board surfing.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: He was an outstanding snow and waterskier, and so when he got back to when we got back to San Francisco, uh he was friends with Jack O'Neill and he went out to Jack's and uh had him make a board for him, okay.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And they were paid a ballsa in those days.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Because his shop was in San Francisco at that time, right?
4:26
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: It was out at out at the out on the great highway uh at s on Slote.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: Sloat, right across from the zoo, basically.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: And so Ben, you hear you know Ben Davis uh work clothes?
4:41
SPEAKER_01: The the patch with the oh yeah, right?
4:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for for sure.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: He that's who that was.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: He was okay, he was a real person, lived around the block.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so he he got a nice board from Jack, and then we shared that board for about a year, uh, coming down here and uh to Santa Cruz and just basically teaching ourselves how to surf.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: Um and after after a year or so, I got a board, yeah, got Jack to make me a board, another balsa board.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: These were all balsa, they didn't have foam in those days.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: That's 19 this would be 1956.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: That's a long time ago, man.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: That's a long time ago, man.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: Uh that's wild.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: So were they how thick was a balsa board back then?
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh they were pretty foiled.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: They were not that thick, but they were they were long.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: They'd be right.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: They'd be like uh 10 foot.
5:41
unknown: Okay.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And so uh uh they were not real, they were not really thick.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh sure.
5:48
SPEAKER_03: And I remember reading that some uh when they were making them out of redwood, like to begin, like in the it was probably in the 30s or 40s or something, it was they would put metal holes on the front of them because they wanted to create momentum and just keep going straight.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Or or just to cut through and blast through stuff if you hit it.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: How dangerous does that sound?
6:15
SPEAKER_01: But those were hollow, those were all hollow like paddleboard type boards you're talking about, I think, right?
6:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think they started to hollow them out.
6:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:23
SPEAKER_03: They're made of redwood and stuff.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: So what happened with the balsa boards?
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Where they, you know, they I think they Hawaiians had them, or they had the fashion OLA boards, they were a kind of wood from Hawaii.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: But they took lifeboat, lifeboats had balsa under their seats.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: So we started to decommission a lot of lifeboats from the war.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And so the people were interested in making surfboards, they go, wow, because you know, balsas not that easy to come by, right?
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you would get it.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: And so the early boards were laminates, they were chunks maybe three feet long that would fit under the seat of a lifeboat, and they would laminate them and shape them.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: And so I think fiberglass and resin came in after the war.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: I what do you do?
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Do you know anything about that?
7:15
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty recent.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: I I'm probably gonna get burned on this, but I'm pretty sure it was 60s and 70s, maybe 70s.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Um no, no.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: No, that sounds too late.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: Because because when I, you know, the that was the boards we thought were glassed, you know.
7:33
SPEAKER_03: Right.
7:33
SPEAKER_03: So that was like the George Greeno area era, that was like the 70s, right?
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Go back, yeah, that's right.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: So the the earliest balsa boards uh made they were usable because of the glass and fiber compression technology that was invented during, I think, during World War II.
7:52
SPEAKER_03: Okay, that makes sense.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: So it was the the foam core, is what I was thinking then.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's in those this is pre-foam core by six, eight years.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that's how I got started.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: I I, you know, uh just it was so much fun, right?
8:09
SPEAKER_01: And uh right away, because I grew up living I lived in the city, uh Ben and I would would go out to Kelly's, you know, out to out to OB.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: And uh so there was just a really nice crew out there.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Just I I just loved all those guys.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: And and how many guys were out there at like one time?
8:30
SPEAKER_01: You you mean in the crew?
8:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, or in the crowds.
8:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean, how big were the crowds at that time?
8:37
SPEAKER_03: Did you ever say the word crowd?
8:39
SPEAKER_01: No, never.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: There was never no.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, if it was a if it was a really good day and a sunny day, and a lot of people there might be six, eight people in the water.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, it just was a drink.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Nobody knew about surfing in those days.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: It was pre-gidget.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Remember like movie Grit Gidget?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: That was blew the lid off it.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: But prior to Gidget, nobody, nobody knew at all.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: You talk to your friends in high school, my friends in high school, you know, say, Oh, what are you gonna do?
9:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm going surfing.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: They go, they just no concert.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that they do that in Hawaii, don't they?
9:16
SPEAKER_01: They do it around here.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: I go, Yeah, they do.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: There's a quote in barbarian days, I'm pretty sure, where he's he's saying, he's like talking to people and they're like, Oh, no one surfs in San Francisco.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: There's no surf in San Francisco, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_03: What kind of other technology was, I mean, not technology, but like what were the wetsuits like back then as well?
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, that was Jack O'Neill.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: So so that's right.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: The reason Ben and Jack were friends is Ben uh basically was making work clothes.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: His Ben Davis's grandfather worked with Levi Strauss.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Huh.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: And so this is way cool.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: So he was the guy, so Levi worked up in the uh goldfield camps selling work clothes, okay.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: The big problems was the tools would tear out the pockets of the pants, okay.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: And so Ben's dad, Ben Ben Davis was the guy's name, uh, or Jacob Davis actually.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jacob worked in the city.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: He was a he was a tailor and knew how to make stuff.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: And he had the idea, he was, you know, told about the problem with the pants, pockets tearing out, and he had the idea of using little rivets with with tent.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: He made the pants out of tent cloth, which was heavy, and the rivets, right?
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And no way.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: I've the family, and I've seen I'm good was good friends with the family, we're very close.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, I've seen the patent for the rivets, and it has his name.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: No way.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: I I would love to see an original pair of those.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: That sounds pretty heavy.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that isn't that amazing though?
10:56
SPEAKER_01: So uh anyway, when Jack uh I'm trying to think, Jack was getting into making wetsuits, and so they they talked because it's a tailoring job, right?
11:07
SPEAKER_01: Making an article of clothing which just happens to be made of neoprene.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And so especially when they weren't as stretchy back then, you know.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, they were the the the fabrication of them was very, very difficult.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, uh that's how I mean the wetsuits were beaver tails, right?
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Those the just uh a jacket, they call them beaver tail.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: That's that was all I wore for, I don't know, say eight years or more, you know, surfing.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: But what about if you don't know any different, you know, that's what you absolutely yeah.
11:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean, now people even in Santa Cruz look at the guy, the the odd guy who's in board shorts like he's crazy, you know.
11:54
SPEAKER_03: But I'm sure you guys went out body surfing, you're like, oh, this is this is what it is.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: It's what it is.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:00
SPEAKER_03: So that I that's I didn't really realize that uh I mean I kind of assumed you might have met Jack, but do you did you were like, were you friends with him?
12:12
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would know him, he would know me to say hi Gary, hi Jack, but not friends.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh just you know, acquaintances, just acquaintances.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Range of acquaintances was so huge.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: And he was a very he was a nice guy, he was a super nice guy.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: And uh I remember when he moved down to uh Santa Cruz, you know, surf shop.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: I went up and knocked on his door and we sat down and talked about Ben.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, he was happy to have that connection.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: He hasn't seen or talked to Ben for a long time.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: So that was that was kind of a nice thing.
12:51
SPEAKER_03: That's pretty wild.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: I mean, how close-knit.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: I think that that is probably a localism is probably a residual of that kind of close-knit community feel, right?
13:04
SPEAKER_03: People kind of long for that ability to go up and just be friends with I don't know.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: It's funny, Kelly's was never back in the old days, there was no localism.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: There really wasn't.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, I believe you.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: And the and the reason, I mean, truthfully, uh a lot of times you hoped somebody would be there to go surfing with.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: You just didn't want to go by yourself, you know.
13:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe, but but that's true.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: No, it's it makes sense.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean I mean the the the time I got washed out to sea, I was just looking for a you know, this guy to go out with.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: It was a big mistake.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: There was nobody, there was nobody in the water.
13:47
SPEAKER_03: Right.
13:47
SPEAKER_03: I was wondering if you could tell that story again.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: I you want to hear it?
13:52
SPEAKER_03: I want to hear it again.
13:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I love the story.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: I think it's crazy.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: I think every surfer's got one.
13:57
SPEAKER_03: I think you probably have more than this one, to be honest.
13:59
SPEAKER_03: What's that?
14:00
SPEAKER_01: I think you probably have more than just this one, as far as that's that's probably I mean, you know, we all do, you do.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: You we've all got stories.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh but but that's certainly the the worst.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you were you were paddling out.
14:17
SPEAKER_03: So this is just a random dude you met on like were you friends with the guy that you paddled out with?
14:21
SPEAKER_01: Or yeah, yeah.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: We were we were good friends.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were surf, we were Kelly's Cove friends, you know, we didn't socialize or anything, but the Kelly's Cove group was really tight.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, you always look forward to seeing one of your crew to go out with, yeah, because you just didn't want to go by yourself.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, I mean, I'll I'll do a quick version of the story.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: I've got I've got the video I've got a video interview uh really that lasts about an hour.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: One of there was a videographer here that wanted to wanted to have the story.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: And oh hey.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: So what was that for?
14:57
SPEAKER_01: What's that?
14:58
SPEAKER_01: What was that for?
15:00
SPEAKER_01: He puts he he did a um community television state uh show on surfing, and he wanted to have the story, you know, he thought it'd be a good uh thing for his show.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And sure.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: I was walking down the beach, Man Risa, a number of years ago, and the guy stops and goes, You're the guy on TV.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: No way.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: You're a celebrity.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: You got out you went out in the ocean and got got lost at sea.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: And I said, funny.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, you wouldn't recognize somebody as you see on TV on the beach, I don't think.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, that that truly happened.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, no, it's an girly story.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh so you you want a short version of the story?
15:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: So my pal Steve Krolik, Zen Buddha was his name, and uh he was a body surfer, and uh we paddled out.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a pipeline at the foot of Balboa Street in San Francisco, and uh this is just beneath the light, just beneath the cliffhouse.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: And we paddled out together.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: He's on the north side of the pipe, and uh I was on, I'm sorry, yeah, he was I was on the south side of the pipe, got outside, realized that it's pretty big, and there's a current going from south and north, okay, and he gets caught in it and calls for help because he's getting pushed north and he's got fins, he doesn't have a board, right?
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And so uh I paddle north to try and get to him, and I little leashes in those days, and uh Dave came and took the board from me, and now I'm more screwed than he is, I don't have fins on, you know, and so we got together uh and we're getting swept uh and we're getting close to seal rock, which is just huge if you're out there next to it.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: It's a that's a horrifying thing.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh absolutely.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: So we thought about trying to climb up on the rock, and then just the the surge on the rock would have shredded us.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have full wetsuits on, and so we paddled west uh to clear the rocks.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And at that point I asked, I said, you know, I think we need to get rescued.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: I think I don't think this is going well for us, and we agreed on that.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And I had this self-inflating life pack.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: My dad made me really yeah, my dad made me carry it.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh he said, I mean, my dad saved my life, okay.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean in a lot of ways, but in a material, in a material sense.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And so what what it is, it's something they make for fishermen or boaters.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: It's got a CO2 cartridge in it.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And if you uh squeeze it, it detonates the cartridge and blows up into a floaty thing, okay?
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And it turned out to be bright yellow.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: It was a gray, uh overcast typical ocean beach day.
17:50
SPEAKER_03: Typical, yeah.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: And wasn't that I don't think if it was head high, that would have been about it, but it was you know, it was heavy.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: And so we cleared the rocks, we decided we needed to be rescued, and um popped this thing yellow, started waving it.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's nobody around, and we're going now north and west, real quick.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so farons, man.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, basically.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: So we're lined up with Point Bonita, if you can picture where, you know, kind of out there.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And so now time starts to pass.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, we're out there half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, hour and a half.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, all the time going north and west.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: And so pretty soon we can look back inside the Golden Gate and see Alcatraz and stuff like that.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so, you know, and at that time, a bunch of fishing boats were coming back from fishing, and we thought that's it, you know, we've got to get this fishing boat's attention, started waving this thing.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: We screamed too, because they were close.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: They were like a uh across the street or something, not that far.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: You could see the guys on the deck and everything, they never heard us, and pretty soon the ocean's just empty, way empty.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: We've been out now pushing two hours.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: And uh my buddy, he goes, We're gonna, we're dying, we're gonna die out here.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I said, I said, Steve, that's not helpful.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, so what was going on, what I didn't I did not understand at the time, is that he was in fact dying of hypothermia.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: He had a rip in his chest in his uh wetsuit.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: I didn't, my seat was okay.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: And so he was he was losing, he couldn't move good, you know, anymore.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so uh, but but that was the the reality for him was real different than the reality for me.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: So so there we are, we're just drifting now, push into the third hour out there, when I see the Coast Guard cutter coming out from under the gate.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh and it's a 95-foot cutter that I knew I lived just down from China Beach.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: I knew the cutter.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm going, you know, if this isn't it, we're we're doomed.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: I never ever thought I would die out there.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: My plan was after he died, I was gonna get his fins and swim to Marin.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: That was sure.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: That was the plan.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: That's where the current's going.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: You're that's where you're going, right?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: It sounds like that's where the current was pulling you, right?
20:33
SPEAKER_03: So that's the fastest.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, yeah.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: The current, the current, I figured, I figured I could spend the night, I plan to spend the night out there because it's about two and now 1.30 in the afternoon.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: It gets dark early in December.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, well, this is crazy.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm 17 years old, you know, I'm indestructible.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: I figured I'll spend the night out here, swim to Marin.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: How hard can that be, right?
20:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, after my friend's dead.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: So uh oh my god.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, we're holding on to each other because we don't want to get separated.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: And so I waved this yellow float thing, and boy, that hutter just went and just locked up.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Right at you.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: And it must have been a half mile away, and it came on us, and uh that's there we were.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh they had to put a guy overboard for him.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: He was he was right immobile at that time to land him never and then called him up and and uh uh that's exactly there because I looked the captain up 40 years later, 50 years later, uh and we got to be friends.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Really?
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we got to be friends.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: I went to the National Archives and uh I have the original the the log of the ship.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: It's 9530 line, it's got our rescue in it.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: No way.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: I got it.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can show it to you.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: That's outrageous.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: I would love to see that sometime.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll send you the story because it's got some of that stuff in it.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: So get this.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: The captain, uh now keep in mind, captain of a ship, 95-foot cutter, crew of 15, and he's 26 years old.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: But he's, you know, I never met him on the rescue.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: So he went on to become a uh marine uh uh attorney.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: What do you call that?
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh when I say a marine attorney, uh maritime law.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, maritime law.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: He worked for the Coast Guard, he was in the Coast Guard the whole time.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: They had him on the United Nations.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was very high-level guy.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So what so when I met him online, never personally, uh exchanged emails, I wrote him a thank you note.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, and he said, uh he said, no one's ever done that before.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: So did he remember it though?
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the thing.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: I I said you probably don't know.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: No, he didn't remember at all.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: No, it's just just a day's work, not even a day's work.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: So what was really funny about it, on the on the ship's log for that each day has the all the things the ship, there's where they write what happens, and then there's various kind of little things for entry like engine time, uh, time at anchor, time underway, uh stuff like that.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh rescues, lives saved.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's just a place to put put something.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: And on that day's log, it said two.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: All right.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: So I when I thanked him for saving our lives, he wrote back, he said, whether we saved your lives or not is speculation.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: He's an attorney, right?
24:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, you know what I mean?
24:03
SPEAKER_01: This guy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Whether we he's he's he's English language is, you know.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: It's a so that's funny.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: I said, Captain Brown, uh, I I have your own log.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: It says you saved two lives that day.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: What do you say to that, sir?
24:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, he goes, we did that for funding purposes.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Pretty good sense of humor.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's awesome.
24:33
SPEAKER_03: That must have been pretty wild to reconnect with, even if he didn't really remember.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's kind of wild, even that it's like probably a very vivid, I mean, it is a vivid memory in your head, right?
24:46
SPEAKER_03: It's like maybe even a pivotal moment surfing.
24:50
SPEAKER_03: And this guy is just like, I don't know.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: No, you know, I asked him uh what was his you know what was his hairiest adventure with the with his boat, you know?
25:02
SPEAKER_01: And he wrote me a story.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll send it to you.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: I I I uh Yeah, definitely.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: No, I wonder who that's these these guys are heroes.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they they do stuff.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: It's it's kind of a testament, then, I mean, that he doesn't remember that, right?
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Because it means that he's done so much stuff where he's this really is just what he does, right?
25:24
SPEAKER_01: So what was what was interesting when they picked us up and put us on board, um they were truly really nice guys uh and very so happy to see us.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: And one of the one of the Coast Guardsman goes, you know, we only get dead ones.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: You're the first live ones we've had in a long time.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, because they they get the bridge jumpers.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh that's heavy.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense, though.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: So so they were so happy to see live people.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: So I'll tell you just another quick off if you want to talk about something else.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I don't want to hear this.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: So you so the ship.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're heavy stories, but I do I do enjoy it.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're fun.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, because I'm here to tell them.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I mean, truly, I should not I should not be here if it weren't for my dad giving me that float.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, so actually I had a comment on that.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: Captain said, Captain said, if you hadn't had that float, we would not have seen you.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Sure, I believe it saved us twice.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh there were people in the cliffhouse that saw us, we didn't know that.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: They called it in.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
26:40
SPEAKER_03: So they were it saved us twice.
26:43
SPEAKER_03: That's crazy.
26:44
SPEAKER_03: What I wanted to a brief comment on that was it sounds like that was actually like the original float suit then.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: Like the big wave surfers are using them now.
26:53
SPEAKER_03: It is a different series.
26:55
SPEAKER_03: That's that's pretty cool to hear that, you know, 50 years back.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it it was my dad just because ocean beach, you know, has a notorious rep, you know, reputation.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: It's a danger, it is a dangerous place.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's heavy.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh so anyway, that's that's the story.
27:15
SPEAKER_03: You were you were saying you were getting into a second story when I kind of interrupted you.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: Uh you remember?
27:21
SPEAKER_03: No.
27:22
SPEAKER_03: No?
27:22
SPEAKER_03: Saga.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: Was it about surfing?
27:26
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure it was about surfing.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: Um well, so what's kind of interesting about how hooked people get into surfing is that it kind of starts to your life starts to kind of get pushed in different in directions by that.
27:50
SPEAKER_03: I was wondering if you have any any stories or or tales of how surfing changed the the course of your career, the course of your life.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
28:01
SPEAKER_03: Are there any specific ones that stand out?
28:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, yeah, there certainly are.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, but it's there's at every at every single turn.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: At every single turn uh of my life and my career, surfing has been the uh compass, so to speak, uh true north.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty wild.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: Um I mean it's inspiring for me, yeah.
28:27
SPEAKER_03: What's that?
28:28
SPEAKER_03: It's kind of inspiring for me because it's it's something that it maybe you'll empathize with this, is it's something that I've let push my life in a certain direction.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: And sometimes I'm not sure if I should let it, you know?
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, let me tell you, I do I can very much empathize with that.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you the your last question under surfing is parts of your life where surfing led you to the next chapter.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I was in college, um and I really did not have a particular direction.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: I want to go to medical school, like you, you know.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: I I sort of thought that would be a good thing.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: That was kind of part of the culture I grew up in.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: And so uh this was now mid sixties, the hippie thing was happening in San Francisco.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: There were the the guys that the people at the beach we were all in a way uh I want to not say outcast because we weren't outcasts, but it we just didn't fit in anywhere except the beach, if that makes any sense.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh so the the drug thing really hit hard.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Marijuana, not so much heroin, but but the psychedelics, holy cow.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of these these guys were very susceptible to uh that culture.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And uh so I I watched that, and then surfing was really uh at this point now.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm into about four years, I'm through caught through high school and getting you know into college, through college.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And I my grades aren't all that hot, and I'm just thinking, I I I gotta get away from this.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it won't be good for my life?
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Surfing is not a good thing for my life at this point.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I thought to myself, I gotta somehow get as far away from this as I can.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I don't know why I do that.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: The other thing was, uh, to be fair, it wasn't just surfing.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in San Francisco in a tight-knit community, and I really felt I couldn't um find out who I really was in that in that context.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: I had to go far away and be alone and just be someplace where nobody knew me, right?
30:50
SPEAKER_01: And then you do stuff and see what happens.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: So I I thought, well, uh, about this time I'm graduating from college and I'm going, what am I gonna do?
31:03
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get, I went, I applied to medical school, that's not working.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: So I thought, well, uh, all I knew, I thought, well, I heard about graduate school and I like science, and so I'll see if I could do that.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: And so where thought, well, if I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna get uh as far away from the ocean as I can, so I picked Minnesota.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: No, I did.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: And so I I consciously went to Minnesota uh to be in graduate school and go as far away from surfing as I possibly could.
31:37
SPEAKER_03: So you probably spent what, five or six years out there, right?
31:40
SPEAKER_03: Biology PhD?
31:41
SPEAKER_03: What?
31:41
SPEAKER_03: You probably you probably spent five or six years out there yet.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I took a lot of time.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: So I was probably out there seven years.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I just I didn't have discipline.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: I did not have discipline.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: I surfed whenever I could.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: I could when I was at Berkeley, I had I made it so I had either no class on Monday or Friday.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: I could take it, I could have three-day weekends, you know.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: And yeah.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I understand.
32:08
SPEAKER_03: So you know how you know I'm talking about.
32:10
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_03: I I I'll if if there's swell, I'll surf until I can't use my arms.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: And then I'll keep I'm gonna go out the next time.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: So you'll appreciate like when I was at Berkeley and uh in the fall the wind turns offshore at Ocean Beach, and then the Berkeley you see the flags pointing out to sea.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I could not get shit done.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
32:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like yeah, I'm out of here, I'm gone.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, 100%.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: I totally understand.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: I know you're and I think it's I think it's interesting.
32:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, and that's kind of like a classic and slightly correct stereotype of you know, people who surf.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: Are there positive aspects though?
32:57
SPEAKER_03: To surfing?
32:58
SPEAKER_03: So people like what are the positive aspects of a stereotypical surfer?
33:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, you in your mind.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: I know what I think.
33:07
SPEAKER_03: I want to hear what you think.
33:08
SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm saying.
33:10
SPEAKER_03: I think there are.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: It's where do you begin?
33:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's it's a totality, it's just everything, it's my whole life.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how else to say it.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's uh so you ask how how is shaped shape?
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, it shaped me.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I had I had to go to Minnesota to to kick it, you know, and to and to learn discipline.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: But it it was I I never uh you know intended to give it up.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: I just knew I couldn't keep doing, I had to kick the habit, you know.
33:43
SPEAKER_03: So you had to go away in order to discipline yourself so when you came back, you would be able to do that.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely right, you're absolutely right.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Because uh so I I I went to graduate school back there, got a degree, and so on and so forth.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: And so then as soon as I got my degree, I'm looking for postdocs uh at Santa Barbara, you know, a place where I can go surfing.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, I uh but the thing that I learned was first things first.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Take care of business and you can fuck that up.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: You just you know, you know what I'm saying?
34:21
SPEAKER_01: And so I learned I learned that uh if you if I'm gonna get anything done, I gotta stick stick to it, and then I can surf.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Before it was surf first, and oh I'll get that other stuff done some other time.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
34:39
SPEAKER_01: And then you get home and you're exhausted and you're like, oh, I'm just gonna do that.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: It's a fine, but you know, it's more of a mindset than almost anything.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: It's a Zen, uh not a Zen thing, but it's like what's what is most important?
34:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, having a having a an adult life for me, you know, I I really wanted that.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: I really wanted an adult life.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: What did that mean at 20 or 30 years old?
35:06
SPEAKER_01: It meant having something where where I could uh it was a skill, something I could do that was useful, you know, and interesting, uh and that people would look up to.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be respected, uh and just stuff like that, kind of basic.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: I grew up with, you know, uh my dad was a dentist, and you know, he was respected as a profession, you know, health professional and so on.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: That was kind of, you know, that was the kind of model was people like that or professors or whatever, right?
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And so I just knew if I stayed in San Francisco uh and kept on surfing, I would I would have nothing.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: No, I I I get you.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: I I guess what I'm interested in is your this idea that of high of having an adult life, to me, what it sounds like you're saying is that meant having a skill that you could or like having a skill like that you could provide for yourself.
36:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: Was there anything because you also kind of talk about a mindset, like an adult mindset?
36:17
SPEAKER_03: And I think having a skill is definitely, or like taking responsibility for the things you're doing, or your your skill, your job, I think that's an important aspect to it.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: But what was it, what was the mindset, like the adult mindset that you needed to have in order to take care of these responsibilities?
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Um it's it was just taking work really seriously and putting it first and foremost.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Minnesota, that's what that I learned there.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: I really it was real serious because it it was the you know, you you start out a program like that, and the possible the possibility of failure is really real, and there's no covering it up, you know, you don't get your degree, you know, you you your research doesn't work, whatever.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: So it was a d adult for me meant the real possibility of failure, you know, that it wasn't nobody was gonna bail me out.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I really wanted to, I don't know.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: I see, growing up in a city in a very insulated place, I knew I couldn't fail.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know if that makes any sense at all.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: But there's always there was always family and friends that would have bailed me out with jobs and so on and so forth, you know, and I did not want to, I did not want to.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: Does that make any sense?
37:37
SPEAKER_03: I told it makes 100% sense.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Huh?
37:41
unknown: Yeah.
37:42
SPEAKER_03: I I uh absolutely and I think it's both uh I mean in my head, I take on, I'm trying to take on the perspective of I'm gonna move to Minnesota for the next seven years of my life is terrifying.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: Um and it's so fantastic at the same time, right?
38:01
SPEAKER_03: That commitment to want to be independent.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that was it.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I mean, I knew I never severed ties with my family.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: We were all still very, you know, sure, it wasn't that kind of thing at all.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: Basically, really people.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: And uh my granddad was a real estate guy in the city, and uh I I worked for him for a summer, worked for the company.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: He had passed away, and I knew I I could have had a job at a really good real estate company right then and there, you know.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: But it just like I don't know, it just wasn't wasn't wouldn't have been good for me, you know what I mean?
38:45
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have earned it, so to speak.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh now I know in retrospect, if I went to work for them and worked hard, I would have earned it.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
38:54
SPEAKER_01: It it and looking back on it, if you put in good good work, if someone helps you out, that don't that doesn't mean anything.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: It means it means someone helped you out, but you gotta still produce, right?
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And do good things.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: All that matters is that you take advantage of the opportunity.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't at that time I did not see it that way, you know what I'm saying?
39:13
SPEAKER_01: I thought I gotta cut that completely and and go far away.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: So I did.
39:20
SPEAKER_03: It's not that's not, you know, no, I didn't you're I mean, believe me, you're speaking to me as where I am uh in life, right?
39:31
SPEAKER_03: That's exactly what my mindset is.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So I I So you're looking so what are you looking for here?
39:38
SPEAKER_01: When you say that's where your mind is, what what does that mean?
39:40
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I mean, I'm I mean my next moves need to be out of this area, even though I love this area with all my heart.
39:50
SPEAKER_03: The Bay Area is my home and it's beautiful, and there's everything you ever want here.
39:55
SPEAKER_03: And and I know I have to leave it.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it's an adventure, and I mean, what can you say?
40:07
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
40:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean, who does, man?
40:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, but yeah.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Get in that car and driving to Minnesota.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: What was that feel?
40:24
SPEAKER_03: How'd that feel like?
40:26
SPEAKER_03: Like, what did you feel when you were getting in the car to go?
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I I took one last drive by Kelly's and pointed it east.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's like what we're talking about.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: I just knew I had to do it.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: I knew I had to do it.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: That was all.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, there was no, I had no at that point, uh, I I realized, you know, it was I had to do that.
40:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: Uh when you went, when you went to graduate school, and now you're in Minnesota.
40:57
SPEAKER_03: Were you able to shift your mindset so that you were just focused on where you were?
41:03
SPEAKER_03: Or were you looking back?
41:05
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, absolutely, completely.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm a Minnesotan.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: What'd you say?
41:11
SPEAKER_01: Say that again.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: I am a Minnesotan.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really, I love the place.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: I I embraced it.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: It was a wonderful.
41:19
SPEAKER_03: That's wonderful.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: What did you what kind of I don't know, what what did you learn from being in a Minnesotan?
41:26
SPEAKER_03: Like how did it change you?
41:27
SPEAKER_03: How did that experience?
41:28
SPEAKER_03: Total discipline.
41:30
unknown: Yeah.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: Winter teaches you discipline.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: I it's just, I mean, I like the people.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I like the whole place.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: It just suited me really well.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: Unlike, I don't think I would have liked New New York or Boston or uh, you know, uh Chicago.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: It just, I don't know, it was it was harmonious for me.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: I like the people.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: It's a very very uh unpretentious place.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: Was it hard to leave there when you were coming back?
42:00
SPEAKER_03: Yes, very hard.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: So you were at a point where you were actually seeing maybe a light your life going in a different direction.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you mean that I would stay there?
42:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: No.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: No.
42:15
SPEAKER_03: No, I it was just hard to leave.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: I was real clear about what my goal was to get back to the coast and surf, have surfing part of my life again.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: But uh well, Minnesota is beautiful.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful place.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's an incredibly beautiful place.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you have you if you've been there or I haven't.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: No.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: Well, um, I have some friends there from there, but I do.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: We have there's some good friends in Big Stick, uh, good dear friend who moved to Duluth.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever want a connection up on the up on the north shore of Lake Superior?
42:54
SPEAKER_01: He surfs up there.
42:55
SPEAKER_03: Uh I've heard.
42:56
SPEAKER_03: I they're the guys with the uh the ice beards because it's fresh water, right?
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean he doesn't he's he's not that hard hardcore.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that you know, he's he's more my age, so uh this wouldn't be but he's I got you.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: I understand.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, yeah, I I would I mean the North Shore Lake Sperry is incredible.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: The Boundary Waters canoe area is in is an awesome wilderness, uh and totally unique.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: We went up there, we go up there every year and uh go on canoe trips and stuff like that.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: It's just wonderful.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So that's wild.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's super cool.
43:39
SPEAKER_03: And so when you came back from that experience, it sounds like you were kind of a grown up or more mature mindset, a little more hardworking.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, six years will do, you know.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, between ages 25 and 31, which is what it was for me.
43:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh sure.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: That's I mean.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: It's interesting to hear that because I mean when I look at kind of what you've done, what the next step was a postdoc at UCSB.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: And then you commit, I mean, you worked for 30 years at UC Santa Cruz, which is like unbelievably cool.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: You committed to an institution for that, and that's not a common thing in my generation.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: And so that kind of just exudes hard work, right?
44:26
SPEAKER_03: It's like a commitment, right?
44:28
SPEAKER_01: What should yeah?
44:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the commitment starts started in graduate school.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: You just, I'm committed to being a scientist now.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, I there's nothing else I can do.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have to do that or fail.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: And uh so yes, it's at that point, it's absolutely, you know, you're taking off on a triple overhead wave and it's full commitment.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: You just there's no other choice.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Science, I mean that's but that's true for any any work that you're gonna do that you feel you say, uh give you pride and a sense of accomplishment.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh just that's that's just kind of I think built into that.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: It's the full it's that full commitment, uh, where you really can fail.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: There's a real there's a real possibility of failure.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: And uh I've basically my postdoc failed.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I say failed, it didn't really work very well for me, but still, I mean I got something out of it.
45:37
SPEAKER_03: I I really love that statement.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: Pretty much what I heard you say was fulfillment is gained from committing 100% to something that has a possibility of failing.
45:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's that's a fact.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: That's a fact.
45:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, for for me anyway, I mean, does that make sense to you?
46:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh it does.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Did you, I mean, I mean, I know you you you're you're science-oriented.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you you know what I'm talking about.
46:09
SPEAKER_03: No, absolutely.
46:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm just interested in how you learned that.
46:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, do you did you feel that while you were doing it, or was that something that you learned in retrospect?
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, two things.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: One, I really like what I was doing.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: I just love the science.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: I didn't care what it was, and we've talked about this.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: I I didn't care what kind of science I did.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: I just would have done anything and just had a finding that was harmonious with my abilities.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I started out in graduate school as ecology, went into neurophysiology, went into biochemistry, and then cell biology.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: So I jumped around, I have four or five uh advisors.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: That's why it took so long, see.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: So um it wasn't something that I had to think about committing to.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: It's just like there's no other way you can't to do science or do anything like what you're talking about, it's gotta be full on.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: It's not a job.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: It's not a job.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: I I think that probably speaks true to any genre of work, right?
47:17
SPEAKER_03: Yes, right?
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: At the level that you're talking about, you know, you know, at the level you your trajectory and your skills and intellect will push you towards stuff like that.
47:31
SPEAKER_01: It's just who you are.
47:33
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
47:34
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
47:35
SPEAKER_03: No, and I think I appreciate that.
47:37
SPEAKER_03: I think it's I think it's true for most people.
47:41
SPEAKER_03: It seems like people get pushed in a direction.
47:44
SPEAKER_03: I guess sometimes what happens though is you feel a resistance to committing to that, right?
47:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think I have no there was so much, there was so much writing on it.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: There was so much riding on it.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, total self-respect, you know?
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Total self-respect.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: If I didn't commit totally, I I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: What's failure now?
48:12
SPEAKER_01: Failure is okay, it's not good, but uh if you really, really gave it your all.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: And I I didn't know, I just that was what I had to do.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was not like I had to think about committing.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: I just instinctively knew from maybe from surfing, you know, maybe once you once you take off, once you go over the edge, you're fully committed.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna happen, right?
48:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whatever is gonna happen.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:44
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a it's a hard lesson.
48:46
SPEAKER_03: One of the hardest lessons to learn in surfing is that the steeper and more dangerous the wave, the harder you have to paddle, and the harder and longer you have to paddle into it.
49:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like the it's like it it's kind of you understand this idea.
49:06
SPEAKER_03: Everyone understands if it's a big dangerous wave, you have to commit hard to it.
49:10
SPEAKER_03: But when it physically comes down to it and you're paddling into the wave, you have to paddle harder or stronger and stronger for longer than you think it's gonna take.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: I know.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: And I I that's what's giving me trouble now.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't yeah, I tend not to do that.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: You pull out.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: You start to pull out.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: I I don't, I'm I'm not doing that commitment.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: I it's it's either it's probably physical, just age, age related.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh but but anyway, but you're absolutely right, yeah.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I maybe this uh you know the the surfing kind of sets you up for that because you understand it in a visceral, a visceral way, I think.
49:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, no, I it's there's a feeling to it, and it's more it's physical in surfing, whereas maybe in in a job search it's a little it's this probably it's the same, it's just a little less apparent.
50:11
SPEAKER_03: Right.
50:11
SPEAKER_03: I agree with you, yes.
50:14
SPEAKER_03: So I guess that leads me into another kind of thing I'm curious about, which is you've retired from academia, right?
50:25
SPEAKER_03: So how do you choose now what to commit your time to?
50:29
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's interesting.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: Um well as so part of my graduate education, part of my education, uh and especially uh the advan the PhD, the the research degree, you in you're constantly inventing your own work.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: That's what you're doing, that's how it works, you know.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're thinking your own project.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: So I I generate projects instanting instinctively.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't really have any, I have more projects than I can do.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Jewelry is uh one example, you know, uh there are projects.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have writing projects.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: They just they just materialize because it's it's something, it's training.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: That's what uh that's research degree.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: It trains a person to generate their own uh uh creativity, so to speak.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: And I never had, I mean, I didn't grow up with that.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: I had no exp I had no experience whatsoever with that.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
51:30
SPEAKER_01: You trained yourself, huh?
51:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: You trained yourself to do that.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we well, you do.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's like anything else.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not mysterious at all.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: It's just yeah, that's it's like if you learn to be a dentist or if you learn to be a lawyer, uh you learn, I don't know, how to make that happen.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: And so for the kind of stuff that you know that people like me do in the lab, you know, science type stuff, uh you can't succeed unless you unless you're constantly generating stuff, right?
52:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:04
SPEAKER_03: It's just I guess one of the downfalls, and I've seen this, especially with this scientific mindset, where or this creative mindset, is how do you decide which project is more worth your time?
52:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's a okay.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: I I have an that's a that is a matter of opinion about how one decides what's what's a worthwhile project?
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Is that what's the question?
52:35
SPEAKER_01: What's worth spending your time on?
52:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's a it I agree, it's personal.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: But for you, well, it's it's like it's also should I marry this person?
52:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean it's like it's everything, yeah.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's everything.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: Um wow.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Most of the stuff, most of the research stuff was dead dead ends.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: A lot of it's dead ends.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Um not so maybe not so much anymore.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: I I I can't speak to graduate education now.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: It's very different than when I uh went through.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that molecular biology hadn't blossomed.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: It was a lot less um uh results driven.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: In other words, uh uh your advisor, your mine, uh now they live or die you know professionally by the work that's turned out by the grad students and postdocs.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: And that's so so there's this really intimate uh uh academic, financial, professional collaboration that really didn't exist in my day, but certainly a professional one, but it didn't cost my advisor beans to keep me in the lab, okay, and he didn't need my work to get funding.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: He was he had funding, he didn't care.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was a very nice man and he was very, very helpful and all that good stuff.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying his his career did not depend on you on activity, okay.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Uh or if if it did, it was only you know not that big a part.
54:18
SPEAKER_01: Now these teams are it's this is really serious financial business.
54:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
54:25
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
54:26
SPEAKER_03: And it's results driven.
54:27
SPEAKER_03: You better publish you better publish papers now if you want money.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
54:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I mean I I had the most luxurious graduate experience I could imagine because I was interested in a lot of different things.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I got to sample all of them.
54:49
SPEAKER_01: I got to sample all with time.
54:51
SPEAKER_01: I would spend a couple years in neurophysiology.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: You were just having fun.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if this this is kind of silly.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until I was a postdoc in Santa Barbara and I realized I'm gonna have to earn a living at this.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: I never treated it, I never treated it that you know what I mean.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like surfing.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: I go, this is cool, this is cool.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm having a good time with this.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm getting a little, you know, they pay me, but it's not, you know.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: But then I went, Jesus, this is you're like, oh man.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: I can picture the lab almost like where I was when that thought crossed my mind.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: Really?
55:40
SPEAKER_01: It's that vivid.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: I went, oh shit.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
55:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, I didn't have a job.
55:48
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have I didn't have a faculty position or anything.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: It was a postdoc, right?
55:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:53
SPEAKER_03: So what did you what did what did your mind like, what did you do?
55:56
SPEAKER_03: What did your mind tell you you have to do?
55:59
SPEAKER_03: I had not a clue.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: I just had to keep doing, I had to try to find an academic job.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: I had to try to find a job where doing something I knew how to do, you know.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: I knew how to do lab work, I knew how to do research, I liked it.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I applied for this um research position in Santa Cruz at UC Santa Cruz.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Um that's how I ended up here, you know, ended up in Santa Cruz.
56:21
SPEAKER_01: Um but it wasn't, you know, it's not uh you wouldn't say, gee, you want you really this is a good way to go about you know focusing uh career trajectory.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: I had zero, I had none, I had no concept.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: None.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a good person to talk to.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: I really am.
56:47
SPEAKER_03: I don't I disagree.
56:49
SPEAKER_03: I think that there's something to, I mean, sure, maybe having like a little more, but I think there's something to be said about just going after it and then seeing what you have, what are the options now with with who I am.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's the the total my total goal was to get to Santa Cruz and surf.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Really nailed it.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: And so my total goal from Minnesota once I got the degree was to get to the coast and surf.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: So a postdoc came up at Santa Barbara, okay, UC Santa Barbara, and I thought, I'm on it.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what they do.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: I didn't give a hoot what the research was.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: If they'll take me, I'm going.
57:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:32
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
57:33
SPEAKER_01: No, no direction, no focus, no nothing.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: If you want me, I'm there.
57:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: So wild.
57:42
SPEAKER_03: So I understand, I mean, seven years and out of the water, I could understand.
57:47
SPEAKER_01: Same with the same thing with Santa Cruz.
57:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I saw this job opening uh for a research associate.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: I had no idea what the research project was, and I didn't care.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: And so I went up and talked to the guy, and it was something with protein um protein degradation.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: So I mean it's total biochemistry, which was my degree is in biochemistry, so I was okay suited for it, cell biology.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't know anything about that.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: I did not have an ideal one, but he's he needed somebody that could do stuff I could do, and it was in Santa Cruz.
58:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm there.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: There, I don't care, and and then that wasn't who I ended up working with either.
58:31
unknown: Right.
58:31
SPEAKER_01: So he was I went up there up Santa Cruz, was in his lab for a year, and then he tells me I've maybe I've told you the story or not, I don't know.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: No, he come uh we went there for a year, sold the house in Santa Barbara, moved up here, so on so forth.
58:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, he says, Gary, you know, I'm I've taken a faculty position at Harvard, and you know, of course, you know, how could you not want to do that?
58:58
SPEAKER_01: It's it's an incredible career career for all of us, you know.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: I went, no.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say this, but I he did not, I said to myself, he doesn't understand why I'm here.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm here to surf.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know he did, he didn't, he didn't understand.
59:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, I never I never you didn't talk about it, especially in the biology department at UCSC in those days.
59:27
SPEAKER_01: You didn't you didn't talk about surfing.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: You really didn't, it was uh something you did in your free time.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: It was not it was not looked upon as uh worthy.
59:36
SPEAKER_01: Now everybody in the department surfs.
59:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's pretty common.
59:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh it's been uh definitely been a big shift.
59:44
SPEAKER_03: Um I kind of I would like to touch back though on kind of this discussion started on how how are you now deciding how you're gonna value your time?
59:59
SPEAKER_03: Like what projects are you choosing are more worthy to you?
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess I have writing projects and things I've thought about for 20 or 30 years.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: And um I I work on I work on those um just because I started writing on writing about thinking on them in the 70s when I was in graduate school.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so these are these things are are not they're not new things for me, but I've just aging I've thought more deeply about them, and so I think I have some more uh insight in them.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: And uh uh so I have like I say I would do some writing and then the jewelry, uh that's a whole side part of my life that came from a year in dental school, which was part of trying to figure out how to earn a living, right?
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: So and so you find quite a bit of.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_03: I mean, is it are these projects just to keep busy or are there?
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: No, I have to do them.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: This is the thing about about the whole science for me anyway.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_01: I I had no had no choice.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: I have to do it.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: I have to understand something.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: So so no, no, this isn't what am I gonna do with my how am I gonna spend my time?
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: No, I have to do it.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: Is that making any sense?
1:01:26
SPEAKER_01: It makes absolutely it's like surfing.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: It's like surfing, you know.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't you say you have to surf?
1:01:33
SPEAKER_03: This is actually the friends who've asked me why do you surf, my only answer I have is because I was supposed to.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's a it's you have to.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: That's that's well, these other things are that way too.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, the thing about being edu having this science education, I don't know.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: At some point you realize, at least I did, I do have certain skills, and I have to, I don't know.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's cool, I can use them.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: I I just have to, you know, it's like knowing how to surf.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: You gotta surf.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_03: And after that, after that, like, you know, you you have this serious side of you that's like full throttle commitment to the projects that you undertake.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_03: What how to word this from that experience how has it shifted your perspective on what success looks like?
1:02:39
SPEAKER_03: Like what does success mean to you in those kind of projects?
1:02:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's just doing a good job.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just doing a good job.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh if I can find an answer to a science question and and do a good job, that's real success for me.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: If I can make a pretty piece of jewelry, that's real success.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh I have no I it's this is the other weird, I I don't know whether it's weird about me.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: I have no ambition whatsoever.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: Never did.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_01: I just never ever cared to advance or do anything.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh I didn't care if I got to be a faculty member.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, it seemed like a lot of trouble to me.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_01: It's just quirky, you know.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just the way it is.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: No, it's cool.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean, well, but that it doesn't necessarily, I mean, it's if your purpose is to commit to things and then do a good job at them, then what's the point?
1:03:45
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_03: It's a it's a good it brings up a good kind of point, which is there is an aspect of of like these really goal-oriented, driven, how far can I make it?
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: But I think, and I think this is a quality of a surfer, is is there's a bigger focus on what's happening right now.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_03: And and they're kind of the different poles, right?
1:04:16
SPEAKER_03: One side is how fast can I make it to the to the goal, and one side is just head down, I'm gonna focus on and enjoy this.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_03: And I think there's a really beautiful aspect to that.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_03: I personally, I mean, I think I find more purpose by really enjoying the moment, you know.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_03: I think you're absolutely right.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_03: Um yeah.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, are you are you ambitious?
1:04:45
SPEAKER_03: I think so.
1:04:47
SPEAKER_03: And what does that what is what does that mean?
1:04:49
SPEAKER_03: What does that mean?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_03: Is it ambition?
1:04:51
SPEAKER_03: It it it means so kind of on this line of thought, ambition.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_03: I grew up in Silicon Valley.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_03: I was born in '95, right?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_03: So my life has been the story of not, I mean, a little bit after, you know, two decades after kind of was put on the map for technology, but my life has been surrounded by like this very results-driven, kind of cutthroat tech bubble.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_03: I grew up in it.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_03: It's that's and so, and my my dad wasn't like he was computer science and then went into startups, and uh my brother was an engineer.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_03: I knew I was gonna be an engineer.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know why, but I was gonna be an engineer, and I'm freaking so grateful that I that I did get that degree.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_03: I it's very me.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_03: Um I really enjoy my skill set that I got from it.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_03: But I grew up in an environment which was the only thing.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_03: The only mindset you could have is goal-oriented.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think that learning to surf was because I was a soccer player growing up, and that's goal-oriented.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_03: It's we got games, we have tournaments coming up, how many can we win?
1:06:22
SPEAKER_03: How far can we go?
1:06:23
SPEAKER_03: Everything in my life was very goal-oriented.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_03: Surfing was one of the first embraces I had with a with a sport or experience of any sort that was purely about what you're doing right now.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_03: And I think everything can be that way, but right, it's the mindsets you take.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_03: And my mindset as I grew up was how do I get this done to get the grade?
1:06:48
SPEAKER_03: Um and I'll I'll tell you, the switch for me, the moment it was like the end of my sophomore year.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_03: I, or maybe it was, yeah, beginning of my junior year, I told myself I wouldn't look at any of my grades.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_03: I was like, I'm not gonna look at any of my grades, and all I'm gonna do is focus on fundamentally understanding the content of what was going on.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
1:07:13
SPEAKER_03: And I I was I did really well after that.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_03: I didn't do too great in the beginning, and I did really well after that because all I cared about was what was going on in the class.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_03: That's that's beautiful.
1:07:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_03: So no, I I and so I love that perspective from you.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I do.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_01: Is that the mindset you're in right now?
1:07:38
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a mix of the two.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_03: And I think I'm trying to find the balance of them.
1:07:45
SPEAKER_03: It it comes down to this point I was talking about earlier, which is how do you and this is why I ask other people, I think it's it's help helps me reflect.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_03: I'm not asking for you to solve my problems, I'm asking for you because I value your response about how do I choose what's worthy and what's not to spend my time on.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people have that issue because there's unlimited things you can work on at this point.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_01: And my answer comes from my experience in uh graduate school, where it's all interesting, and whatever you choose with full commitment will work fine for you.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry, you don't have to worry about it.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_01: Truly.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: It it will find you.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_01: This is what happened to me.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_01: It found me.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_01: I I I I went through ricocheting off not ricochet, just just different things presented themselves and were more or less harmonious or not.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: But it finds you.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_01: It once the commitment's made, it finds you.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry about it.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: It's quite wonderful, really.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my career, my career found me.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: I did not find it.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_03: It's poetic in a way.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
1:09:08
SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, it's it's poetic in a way.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_03: It's it is.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: It's true, it's a true thing.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_01: I believe it.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's I mean, there are so many wonderful scientists that I know who started out with an early sense of what they wanted, what interested them in science and what they wanted to do, and they've made wonderful careers.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: So it just happens to be my surfing, I don't know, my quirking, whatever it was, not having any idea of what I wanted to do.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: It was all interesting, and realizing, I don't know, somehow it didn't matter as long as I did, as long as I chose something.
1:09:50
SPEAKER_03: Is that making it it was kind of it's it's believe me, it's a really poignant thought, is I think it's an Emerson quote, which is you'll never get anywhere if you don't set off.
1:10:06
unknown: Yeah.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_03: I want to thank Gary for that excellent discussion.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_03: There were so many gems.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_03: His close call getting rescued at Ocean Beach is thrilling, as is his willingness to leave everything he knew and loved on the coast with the intention of bettering his discipline.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_03: The courage to make a call like that is necessary, yet sometimes hard to find.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_03: And his unadulterated passion for surfing is something that I think we can all relate to or aspire to with some facet of our own lives.
1:10:44
SPEAKER_03: I love hearing the adventures of men and women who worked hard and lived in the moment and let purpose and opportunity find them.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_03: It helps me look at the fear of jumping into the unknown with a bit more optimism.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_03: And that's powerful for me.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_03: I hope it is for you too.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for listening.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_03: If you liked this episode of Seeking Authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_03: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
1:11:17
SPEAKER_03: I mean really breathe.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_03: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
1:11:24
SPEAKER_03: No more of these shallow, bullshit breaths.
1:11:26
SPEAKER_03: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_03: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_03: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_03: So be authentic with them.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_03: Peace.