Episode 42: Interview with Shaun Tomson

Scott: Sweet Home Santa Barbara, where the skies are so blue. Sweet Home Santa Barbara, what’s worked for me can work for you.

Jonathan: Welcome, friends, to another episode of Sweet Home Santa Barbara. I’m your co-host, Jonathan Robinson. I’m with my co-host friend and realtor…

Scott: Scott Williams.

Jonathan: We have an interview today, Scott, of somebody who you know very well, I barely know at all, but he has an interesting bio. It’s Shaun Tomson. He’s a leadership and change management expert and lectures widely on the Code Method, which is a high-impact program that activates the power of purpose to improve motivation, engagement, and performance. As an entrepreneur, Shaun founded Solo 2 Market-leading international clothing brand, and is the author of three number-one Amazon bestselling books on self-empowerment. He’s a world surfing champion. He’s been described as one of the greatest surfers of all time and is recognized as one of the founders of professional surfing. His powerful method of self-transformation has been used by over a million people to create profound life changes. Welcome to Sweet Home Santa Barbara, Shaun.

Shaun: It’s great to be on the show. It’s wonderful to be on a Santa Barbara-centric show.

Jonathan: Yeah. You live in Montecito, right?

Shaun: Yes, I’ve lived in Montecito for about 27 years. I’m originally from a place called Durban, South Africa and I live here with my beautiful wife, Carla. We’ve been married for 37 years. We have a 14-year-old son at La Colina School, which we love. We recently sold, well, a couple of years ago in Montecito. They bought another just around the corner in Montecito and I’m hoping to share this wonderful story with you a little bit later.

Jonathan: Yeah, well, you don’t get many surfing champions that become real estate successful. I’m wondering how that transition happened. What was that like?

Shaun: Well, I’m not in the real estate market. I’m just a homeowner. A wonderful experience that came out of a negative experience, which I’ve discovered is often the case. We live our lives through those layers of duality and often the worst things can be a pathway to something great. Grief can be a pathway to joy. Despair can be a pathway to hope. We lived in Montecito for many years. I came here and I was hired by Patagonia in the mid-90s to run their apparel division, their sportswear division. I’d been in the apparel business all my life. While I’d had my surfing career, I was competing around the world. I also started a brand called Instinct, which became very popular, which I ultimately sold. And then when I moved here, I worked for Patagonia for a couple of years and then my wife and I started a new company. I left there after two years and had a wonderful experience working there, which I’m hoping to touch on, which has a lot of relevance to people who are in the real estate sector.

But anyway, we bought our home in 1996, shortly after we arrived, and we lived in it for many years and then they decided to sell. During COVID-19, especially in 2021, the market was so frothy and so effervescent that we decided to sell it. We sold through a wonderful agent, Crystal Clark, here from Berkshire. It was a really good experience. It was quite a complicated deal. I don’t really want to go into the complexities of it, but certainly, I think it was one of the more complex deals she might have had to go. Anyway, we sold our house. We were very happy. Then for a number of months, we just checked out and we moved into a little condo on the beach. It’s called Ellie’s Scorial. It’s a wonderful place. They have all sorts of tennis courts and swimming pools and we just would walk the dog every night along Cabrillo Boulevard and just kind of kick back enjoying the Santa Barbara lifestyle. Then a friend of mine, it was a big time, he had just gone to New York, said, “Shaun, you’ve got to get back in the market.” I said, “No, the market has become so… if the business has become a red hot… I think we priced ourselves out of Montecito.” He said, “You can get back in the market.” We looked around Montecito. It was just outrageous.

I mean, prices, we thought we had sold at the absolute top of the market, but prices were still on sort of a Vandenberg rocket trajectory. We looked around the entire area of Santa Barbara, San Roque, Riviera, [inaudible], source of very nice homes, but every single home at that time was in great demand. It was cash deals, four or five hundred grand over the asking. It was just sort of an untenable situation.

Jonathan: Crazy.

Shaun: I said to my wife, “Man, it’s just impossible.” We weren’t even looking at Montecito because Montecito had gone ballistic. I’m driving with my son, who was 12 at the time, my son Luke. And he said, “Dad, let’s check this road out.” We were right by our old house. We were 400 yards from our old house. And he said, “Let’s check out this little lane.” It’s a lane off Hot Springs Road that I have driven by for 28 years and I’d never driven down it. It’s called Palmtree Lane. It’s just as beautiful in the private lane. We drive down Palmtree Lane with my son with no reason other than we just want to check the lane out. Also, if people are not in the Montecito real estate market, they need to be aware that you’re not allowed to have a for sale sign up outside a home in Montecito. The only time you can have a for-sale sign-up is if you’re showing an open house. The only people who know what’s for sale are the agents unless someone’s doing a private sale. We drive down this little private road that’s got about eight or nine homes on it with a beautiful big palm tree right in the middle of it and we drive down to the bottom of the hill. I think this is a wonderful, not so much a lesson, but it’s an interesting way that every single real estate agent might think about operating.

We drive down to the bottom of the hill and I see a U-Haul truck parked outside a home. I go, “Wow, that’s kind of interesting.” We look at the home from the car and it’s a beautiful little cottage like a magical fairy cottage. I drive out of the road and I’m driving home and my wife’s in Galita and I phone her and I go, “Hi, we just drove down this beautiful little lane called Palm Tree Lane.” She said, “I love that lane.” When we moved here, I wanted us to buy a home in Palm Tree Lane. She said, “Were there any homes for sale?” I said, “I don’t know whether there were any homes for sale.” I said, “There’s no for sale signs in Montecito.” My wife said, “Did you knock on any doors?” This is how my wife looks at life. I said, “Of course, I didn’t knock on any doors. That’s not me. That’s not the kind of person I am.” She said, “I want to go straight back there right now.” We drove all the way out. I need to pick her up. We forge our way through this amazing traffic that we have now at like five o’clock and we’re going south on the one we went and we drive down the road and I say, “This is a little home.” She jumps out of the car, walks straight up, and knocks on the door. No answer. She walks around the house, looks around, and goes, “What?” Then she drove up the hill, and she saw a woman standing outside her yard. She rolls over and says, “Hi, I’m Carla Tomson.” My wife’s a very beautiful, very warm woman. The woman goes, “I know who you are.” It turns out they have common friends. Carla says, “Are there any homes for sale here?” The woman goes, her name is Kathy. “Well, there might be a home next door.” She said, “The woman is here. It was her mom’s home. Her mom passed away some time ago. Didn’t pass away in the home. She’s the executive of the state. Let me connect you up right now.” She picks up her phone. She phones up the woman and the woman says, “How did these people know my home was for sale? Because I’m listing it tomorrow.” She said, “They were just driving by.” She said, “They didn’t actually tell them about the hunt. Is that why they did?” She said, “No, they just happened to be driving by.” She said, “Okay, well, I’ll meet the Tomsons at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

She had some meetings at 11, but she will meet Tomson’s at 8 o’clock in the morning. Eight o’clock in the morning, I go there, take our son, Luke, and I take a little doggy and meet this wonderful woman. She shows us around this magical little house, a small house, but just beautiful. She takes my wife inside and she says to her, “Do you know this is your house?” My wife says, “What do you mean this is our house?” She said, “I looked up on Google because the woman next door told me your husband was a famous surfer.” She said, “I saw who you were and I read your story, and I read about you both losing your 15-year-old son, Matthew, on the 24th of April.” She said, “I have a son, Matthew, and he’s born on the 24th of April.” She said, “As you drove up, I planted these roses outside the kitchen with my mom, the first rose of spring bloom.” She said, “This is your house.” She showed me the appraisal, we did a handshake deal, and a month later, it was our house. What’s the moral of that story? One is that, knock on the door, baby. Knock on the door and keep your eyes open. If you see that you will try, do some investigation. Because it would have been so easy for me to get out of where you want to go back, but my wife was, she just had a feeling. Also, there’s a world beyond our understanding. There’s a spirit world out there, and this is a very, very powerful world and I believe that people who open themselves up to this world live a better, happier, and more meaningful life. I have had so many instances of this spirit world coming through into this world that we live in on a day-to-day basis.

In fact, if you want to get, have an amazing moment of connecting to the spirit world, all you need to do is walk down the beach at Hammond’s Reef, look out at that beautiful horizon, feel the beautiful Pacific Ocean, and then walk up Shalawa Meadow, which is dedicated to the Chumash people and in the middle of Shalawa Meadow is a beautiful memorial dedicated to the Chumash with two dolphin and figurines on it. It says, “The sacredness of the land lies in the mind of its people. This land is dedicated to the spirit and the memory of the ancestors and their children.” Spirit from 13,500 years ago and today connects us. It’s just together.

Jonathan: A nice story. I’m curious you were obviously a world-class surfer.

Shaun: World champion. Number one. [inaudible]

Scott: [inaudible].

Jonathan: World champion.

Shaun: You can see the competitive fire is sort of slow. I keep it very subdued, but every now and then, like, it has to come out somewhere now.

Jonathan: Yeah. What did you do after that career, so to speak, was starting to wind down?

Shaun: During my professional career, when I was about 24 years old, I started my first company called Instinct Sportswear. I’ll tell you an interesting story about Instinct as well. Anyway, I started the company when I was 24. We grew into an international company. We sold in 13 countries. We had hundreds of employees and I ended up sponsoring other surfers who were my competitors who became world champions. In fact, I sponsored two world champions and three world championships. Two guys I was competing against for one year. One of the kids I mentioned would have been a sponsor. One, I was second. I’d been leading the whole year and he just pipped me at the post. Also, I had my brand, Instinct, and that occupied a lot of my time while I was competing as well. Also, I was studying at the time, which was pretty hard to do. My undergrad was business administration and economics, and then ultimately I did a master’s, so I was very fascinated with leadership. That was after my career was over. Then I worked at Patagonia for a couple of years after I retired. Then my wife and I started our brand called Solitude. She’s a very talented designer. We sold that brand in all sorts of shops. [inaudible], Nordstroms, Bloomingdales, plus surf shops, outdoor suits. We made absolutely beautiful clothing. We sold that to a big publicly traded company in 2005. Then my life changed when my wife and I lost our beautiful son, Matthew, when he was 15 and a half in 2006. That was the sort of turning point and I went down a different path then.

I really went down a path of igniting purpose, showing people how purpose can be a profound mover and can really help transform their lives. This notion of committing to aims that are meaningful to yourself and to the broader world. You’re doing something, doing something beyond profit, sales, and growth with your life, uplifting others, uplifting yourself, trying to do to help people. Now, I’ve spoken to over a million people, and spoken to hundreds of thousands of school kids, schools, universities, and prisons. I’ve spoken a number of times up here at Santa Barbara Carding Jail, rehab clinics, and some of the best universities in the world. I regularly lecture at the Kellogg Northwestern Business School. Then two weeks ago, shortly after I spoke to one of you at Berkshire, I got a call from the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and from the Santa Barbara Carding Sheriff. They were doing a joint conference. He said, “I want you to come and talk.” I said, “Well, here’s the audience.” He said, “It’s parents that have lost children to fentanyl and relatives of children who have been lost to fentanyl.” I said, “Why do you want me to speak?” He said, “Sure, because you give people hope.” That’s what I do, I believe. I give people hope and purpose through just telling stories and stories are the best way, I think, to touch people’s hearts. I think it’s the best way to connect deeply with people and to help people perhaps maybe look at their perspective through your perspective. As you did, my stories are very simple and then everyone writes their code, which is 12 lines. Every line begins with our will. It’s like writing down your mantra. I believe it’s a way that you identify your purpose in the context of 12 simple lines. I will pray, I will have faith, and I’ll be a better father. It was beautiful to see what everyone at Berkshire shared. They shared beautiful, amazing, amazing statements. When people share these statements, it creates connectivity. It creates this engagement with one’s purpose and with one another and even though real estate agents are independent entrepreneurs, essentially, yes, they might work under a big umbrella. But if they don’t go out and do a deal, they ain’t going to be paid. They are really very, very goal-driven. Goal and purpose are different and it was wonderful to see how imbued with purpose all those people were in that audience by seeing the beautiful statements, by seeing the beautiful words that they wrote.

Scott: It was wonderful to be in the audience when a couple of hundred people answered those 12 questions and you can feel there’s about 10 minutes of silence, but it’s not silence. The room is really bubbling energetically while people are looking at the grace and the challenge and the resilience and the lessons of their lives and they’re putting them into some words. This is something I know that Jonathan has an awareness of helping people to to figure out things in their lives. Actually, having done that exercise, I’d like to ask a question about that exercise. I actually have my code right here in my hands. I wrote mine down. I still have mine in front of me and I think about putting my hands on the levers of my life. Yet, when I have these these statements here, I have to go out the next day and like make something happen with them. It doesn’t seem to me like it’s just entirely automatic because I know where I want to go that I’m going to get where I want to go, so what do you have to say about that?

Shaun: I mean, I absolutely agree with you, Scott. It takes effort and above all, it takes commitment. That’s why I have mine. I explained in the talk, I wrote mine 20 years ago to inspire a group of children that were coming down to Rincon Beach because it was faced with an environmental problem. I mean, I carry my little code around with me in my wallet that I read so long ago and I read my words and I believe that the words that transform us are not the words of inspiring figures. Yes, those words inspire us, whether it’s Mahatma Gandhi, JFK, Obama, or MLK, the words that transform us are our own words. I hear some of the words that the virtual team wrote. I will sacrifice. I will praise and encourage people. I will pay it forward. I’ll be patient and forgiven and these were all these were lines that I shared. I will tell five people daily something nice, something kind. I will forgive you. Now, that is a big statement. That is an unbelievably cathartic and big statement. I will be the best possible role model for my kids. No one writes I will hit my third-quarter goals. No one writes I will do 500 million in sales. People look inside themselves. I will dream crazy wild dreams for my family’s future. I will always have empathy. You know what I feel when I see those lines coming across the screen? It’s like if I close my eyes, I just feel like everyone is holding hands and they’re raising the temperature of the room. You can feel that that power. I said to you, “I truly believe that when people write their codes, write their papers, they write in spirit language.” I mentioned that the Dean of an ancient Hawaiian school in Hawaii, it’s the wealthiest school in the world said to me that you speak in spirit language. How cool is that?

Jonathan: Shaun, I’m also a motivational speaker and we’ve spoken to a lot of the same companies. I find that the weak link for most people, besides they don’t necessarily have their target or code, is that they don’t have a way to be consistently motivated. Whether you want to be successful in real estate or life or as a father or as a human being, it requires some consistent motivation. How do you help people in that regard?

Shaun: I encourage people to spend 15 minutes collectively in a group. There’s been effort there. Now, you verbally stated your commitments to your peer group. There’s accountability there as well, so I encourage people. Once you’ve written your code, print it out. People go to my website. It’s free. You can like to download the worksheet. Just go to shauntomson.com. You can download the worksheet and put it up. Put it up on your computer. Put it in your wallet. But this is a reminder of what you have promised yourself, so you’ve made yourself essentially 12 promises. If you put that up somewhere where you can see it on a daily basis, I think it’s going to create that ongoing, like you say, consistent, committed motivation. Like, “I will be a better father.” It is almost as if you’ve got it right there and want to encourage a lot of people to print the worksheet and do it with your family. That way, when you do it in a family setting, say, mom and dad and children, everyone writes their code together and then stands up and they read the 12 lines to one another. It creates this amazing wall, this commitment, but also creates this accountability. I think accountability is an important part of this process. It was interesting at the end of my talk at Berkshire, I asked people to text one word that you’re going to take home with them and most often the word is hope and purpose. It was interesting with Berkshire that the two most popular words, because those are the larger words that form a word cloud, were “Grace” and “Open” and who would have expected a group of the best real estate agents on the West Coast that sell in this high-end luxury market? One would not expect “Grace” and “Open”. The sheet is this, there’s this font and well of spirituality and warmth in all sectors.

Scott: It’s really obvious to me that this is a work of love for you. You love your audience.

Shaun: I love it, Scott.

Scott: You’re loving them into making some commitments.

Shaun: I do. I actually love what I do. I think I have one of the best jobs in the world. I love what I’m doing. A few days ago, I was speaking to 200, 300 doctors at a doctor’s convention. Two days ago, I was speaking to Edwards Life Sciences, to the top 80 leadership group from around the world, from all these different countries, multi-billion dollar. I mean, I speak to all sorts of defense companies. I love it. I truly love what I do because when I had my terrible loss, my wife and I, when we lost our beautiful, beautiful son and we lost our son, he had a dangerous game that he heard about at school and all these kids were playing it. But it was a choice. So that’s what I went down the path there. One [inaudible], what can I do to influence and inspire people to make a better choice? How are they going to make a better choice? They’re going to be committed and they’re going to be committed through their code. They’re going to be motivated through their code. They’re going to be empowered through their code. They’re going to make promises to themselves and they’re going to get group support because it creates engagement, so they’re not going to be on this planet by themselves, and it really, this is really evidence to me when I ask people at the end. If you remember, I said, “Send one line from your code, from your 12.” That’s about being better because this is one half, as I’ve observed over the million people I’ve done this with, this is one half of the meaning and purpose of life. I will inspire, I will always show grace, and I will lift up others. I will live through hope, not fear. This is what your group, as I’m just looking from the database, I will never stop learning. One half of our life is we want to be better. We want to be better today than we were yesterday. We want to be better tomorrow. I will be vulnerable. I will never forget that I’m the creator of my life. I will be loyal. These are… I’ll be present. You have very beautiful… I’ll be brave and challenge myself. That’s about being better. Then send one line from your code beginning with I will. That’s about helping others be better. I’ll make a difference. I will be patient with others’ difficulties. I will lead by lifting others. I will lead by example. People are writing into this question. Remember, you’ve already got the answer, Scott. You’re just picking your most resonant line that describes helping others be better. I’ll continue to make an impact on children. I will accept your love. I will look for inspiration in others. I mean, I really do, Scott. I really love what I do.

Scott: Well, one of the things this is, you told the story of how you found your home in Montecito. I guess somewhere built into that, being a real estate agent and looking out at that world is like going out and knocking on somebody’s door and being open to the possibilities. That’s…

Shaun: [inaudible].

Scott: I think there are managers over more than 30 years of my career who have said repeatedly that that’s what a real estate agent should go out and do.

Shaun: Here’s another surfing metaphor that I think can apply to life and to business and I told you the story about having this dreadful wipeout in very big surf in a while. I thought this wave was going to kill me and I got washed in and I was lying on my board deciding what to do in the middle of the biggest surfing competition in the world during the fall. I was 19 years old and I’d never ridden the break before. It was just a harrowing experience. I was terrified and I had to make the decision. What do you do? Do you paddle in or do you paddle back out? It’s like I’m sure in the real estate business these many times you don’t get the listing, you don’t get the deal that falls out of escrow. What are you going to do? Are you going to sit at home and cry about it or are you going to paddle out for the next wave? There is that level of aggression one has to have in commitment. But what’s combined with that is hope because only by paddling back out can you get the next wave and there is another metaphor that I wish I think really applied very well to whether it’s real estate or whether it’s finance or whether it’s defense industry or well-being, health, whatever. I will take the drop with commitment. I spoke about riding at the Banzai pipeline, the World’s Worst Dangerous Wave and I was just terrified. I couldn’t paddle and bring myself to paddle over the edge because I was too scared. Then I made the commitment. I’m going to take that drop with commitment and just paddle. All I did was take three more strokes. From a metaphorical perspective, sometimes you try, you try, you try. Still got to give it. Got to give it three more. When I talk about so simple, but I think it’s very kind of middle and I found that people like stories of the sea and the ocean and the turbulence and the uncertainty. But people also, I think, enjoy simplicity because life’s so damn complicated today. I try to sort of live in that world, so you just see a lot of people say, “Hey, sure.” But it’s so simple. I go, “This is simple.” What I am talking about is really simple. I talk about courage and commitment. I talk about hope and optimism. I talk about connectivity. Ultimately, I’ll talk about hope and purpose, so it’s really simple. My subject matter is simple. Like you asked me, Jonathan, like, what do I talk about? I said, “I only have one subject really, and that’s purpose.” [inaudible].

Jonathan: Shaun, how do you get people in touch with their purpose? What helps in that regard?

Shaun: There are many interventions, and I’m sure there are many psychologists and psychiatrists and professors at different universities that have different theories. I have one intervention, and it’s simple. It’s proven to have interesting effects and that’s make them a sheet of paper in 15 minutes. Write 12 lines, every line beginning with a will. Now, put that up somewhere where you can see it, so you can follow it. It gives you commitment and motivation. You can sustain that promise, those 12 promises that you made to yourself. You’re saying, I’ll be a better father. You bloody better be a better father. Well, I’ll be a better spouse. You bloody better be a better spouse because you’re going to be breaking a promise with yourself.

Jonathan: Do you have people do that in different areas of life with any guidance, or is it really they just come up with 12?

Shaun: They just came up with 12. I don’t know why I chose 12. But when I went, after I lost my son and I went back to grad school to study influence and inspiration, the art of influence and inspiration, which is leadership, I would look through the behavioral science and behavioral change literature, and the different theories and the different theories of motivation and determination. As you know, the Wayne program, that most professional psychiatrists, psychologists [inaudible], which is the greatest behavioral change program to mankind, which is the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn’t really know about it, but mine’s 12. When people fill in their 12, it’s about faith and a lot of the lines are about God and faith and [inaudible]. It’s not too dissimilar from, I suppose, 12 steps, because I will is about the future. I will is about change. I will is about commitment. I will is about power. I will is about hope. Those words, they’re like action words. It’s not maybe, or I want to, or I am. It’s like, I will, it’s like power. When I talk to kids in like auditory about thousands of kids, and I go, I will equals power. I will equals what? Power. And they go, “Power, power, power, power.” It’s great to see that word thundering across an auditorium because kids are faced with so many choices every day. Many kids are dying of fentanyl. Many kids are getting involved with bad stuff on social media and this is a way to create this power, the self-esteem. The very first line of code I got back, because I’d had my service code, and then I bought a book out called Service Code and then when the book was out, the headmaster at a local school in Santa Barbara, Anacapa School, asked me to speak in front of his students. He said, “Shaun, I’ve got a very small school, 80 students.” He said, “Well, let me come and speak.” When I was speaking to them, I said, “Your service code is my code. What about one of you writing your own codes? 12 lines, every time it begins with a well, write in 15 minutes.” The very first code I got back, so you must remember this is six months after I lost my son. The words from a young girl, I will be myself. Then the other words from the kids, I will not compromise on my morals to sit with others. I’ll be kind. Those are just beautiful words. I went, this is amazing. I immediately wrote another book around that. It was called The Code, The Power of Our Will, and it was aimed at kids, aimed at being a framework for positive decision-making. As much as surfing has inspired me, and then I think I’ve inspired people, they’ve inspired me too, so it’s there to, well, there’s different stuff. It’s like an inspiration is collaborative. It’s not like one-way traffic. It’s not like you’re a speaker standing up there and it’s going to the audience, but it’s coming back to me, I think, tenfold.

Scott: Yeah. I experienced that a lot too.

Shaun: Yeah. You hit the bar. I wanted to tell you one other thing, Scott, that I think you’re keeping real estate in my depreciation. I had my brand Instinct and I sold it when I retired from the tour. I call it Instinct because the best moments in surfing are when you’re riding inside the tube. That’s what I was known for in surfing. It’s just an amazing experience of time and space and the best tubes happen when you operate on Instinct, when your mind’s clear, when you stay afloat. After I sold the company and went through, changed hands a few times, ultimately, it was acquired by the largest apparel company in the southern industry, a massive multi-billion dollar company and they ran it for many years. Then last year, I emailed the CEO. I said, “Hi, John Tomson here.” I was quite a well-known athlete in South Africa during my period, the 70s and 80s. And I said, “Yeah, might you be interested in selling Instinct?” The very next day, I got an email back from him. He said, “Shaun, I would love to return the brand back to its original roots. I want to thank you for the work that you’ve done with young people around the world. All I ask is that you give a percentage of sales to a worthy nonprofit and I’m suggesting the Nine Mile Project in Cape Town.” I wrote him back. I said, “I’m already a contributor to the Nine Mile Project. I already have done a number of events for them and we did a deal and he gave me back my old brand.” Now, you must remember this was the number one brand in the 80s in South Africa, the number one brand in the country. The biggest apparel company in the country gives it back to me. I want to thank you for the work you’ve done for young people. I mean when I was at Patagonia, Yvonne Chouinard used to have these little philosophy sessions with the crew. They would say, “Yeah, Shaun, you’ve got to understand doing good is good for business. Doing good is good for business.” That is a wonderful thing that I mean, I’ll add to Patagonia. Perhaps I’ve been doing it anyway. But I really knew that was evidence of how Patagonia followed its path through business. Then last year, I read Yvonne gave his company away, gave away his $6 billion company, and gave it away to a nonprofit organization that is going to be fighting climate change. Mind blow. Biggest single environmental donation in the history of the world. The company is right here and it’s here 24 miles from where we live [inaudible]

Jonathan: Well, it’s been great information. Is there any last thing you want to ask, Scott, before we…?

Scott: Well, I actually have something from you, Jonathan, and something from Shaun here and it’s about surfing. Jonathan, sometimes you refer to, like when a person’s like in their life, that they’re like surfing three-foot waves. Life brings you… and you get good at surfing 3, 4 foot waves. You want to get better at something. You want to move on. You suggest surfing 4-foot waves, not going for 20-foot waves.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Scott: I think that’s a way of saying you fall off the board you end up underwater, you get crushed by the wave. There are problems with doing that. That may not be the best thing for a person to do. Shaun, that may be different for you because you can surf 20-foot waves, but you were used to surfing at least 16-foot waves before you served 20-foot waves.

Shaun: Yeah, absolutely. When I think about my surfing career and I think about how many times I wrapped out, how many times I fell in order to get to that level, to where I wanted to be. But, Jonathan, you said consistent motivation. Yes, surfing, we call it stoke, that feeling, you stoke, that feeling of being motivated just a love for what you’re doing. I think for all of us, you find something that you’re stoked about. I think the ride through life is just so much more meaningful and so much more fulfilling. I never thought I would sort of transition into this role. I mean, I was an athlete and then I was a businessman. Now, I write books and I speak to chiefs and try to share inspiration and purpose and hope. I just didn’t think I would go down that path, but I gave it a go. Australians have got a great institution, have a go, have a go. It’s like, just go for it, try it out. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s been a good ride. Surfing has been just a wonderful source of inspiration to me and I like to think that I have helped people through surfing. Even though they might not be surfers, I’ve helped people find that nature ride, find that nature ride and ride it with a big, stoked smile on their faces.

Jonathan: If people want to find out about your books or you, Shaun, what’s the best way for them to contact you?

Shaun: The best way is just to go to my website at shauntomson.com. There’s a lot of video, there’s a lot of material there. My books are all on Amazon. Now, the popular books are, Surfers Code was my first one. Then there was The Code, The Power of My Will. Then my latest book called The Surfer and the Sage, I’ve written with a wonderful Santa Barbara author, Noah BenShea, who’s actually having a premiere of his movie, Jacob the Baker, which is the world premiere, I think, of Los Angeles on Thursday. So wonderful to be connected with. Now, so the latest book was written during COVID. When I was seeing this, what I call the sad mindset, stress, anxiety, depression, and disconnection, we wrote a book about how to transition from the negative state to the positive state, from despair to hope, from powerless to empowered. Every book is about duality, with 18 chapters, because 18 is a sacred number in Judaism. It’s high, it means life. Yeah, so I mean, if there’s one last message, it’s that I pray for peace in Israel. I’m hoping that people understand that there’s a difference between morality and immorality, there’s a difference between treason and lies, and there’s a difference between values and valuelessness. My father loved America, came, and visited here a number of times, and he used to say, “This country is God’s country.” It is, but I cannot understand why so many young people especially are just losing sight of the unbelievable values upon which this great country was founded.

Jonathan: Well, thank you, Shaun. How can people get a hold of you, Scott?

Scott: Best is through email, Scott at scottwilliams.com.

Jonathan: May our listeners always be true to their code. Until next time, listen to us at Sweet Home Santa Barbara.

Shaun: Thanks for having me.

Scott: Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite app. If you know someone preparing to sell their home, please tell them about the podcast. Visit scottwilliams.com to contact me and download the two free e-booklets, “Is My House Sellable Now?” and “How Not to Buy a Money Pit.” Thank you for listening.